When the nation will accept every creed which the priest makes, because it is made for them, then they are tools for the priest, intellectually dead; and they are fit to have Catholic tyrants rule over them in the church. When the nation is willing to accept a statute which violates the nation's conscience, the nation is rotten. If a statute is right, I will ask how I can best obey it. When it is wrong, I will ask how I can best disobey it, most safely, most effectually, with the least violence. When we make the priest the keeper of our creed, the State the master of our conscience, then it is all over with us. Sometimes a great deal of sophistry is used to deceive the consciences of men and make them think a wicked law is just and right. There are two modes of procedure for reaching this end. One is to weaken the man's confidence in his own moral perceptions by debasing human nature, declaring that "conscience is a most uncertain guide for the individual," and showing that all manner of follies and even wickedness have been perpetrated in its name. So all manner of follies have been taught in the name of Reason, and foolish undertakings have been set a going by prudent and practical men. But is that sufficient argument for refusing to trust the science of the philosopher and the common sense of practical men? The other way is to pretend that the obnoxious statute is "consistent with morality and religion.” Thus the most wicked acts have been announced in the name of God. The Catholics claimed divine authority for the Inquisition; the Carthaginians alleged the command of God as authority for sacrificing children to Melkarte. In the Law Library at Cambridge, a copy of the English Bible in Folio was once the first book in the collection: a Professor then used often to point to the Bible and say, "That is the foundation of the law. It all rests on the word of God!" So every wicked statute, each "ungodly custom become a law," had divine authority! The same experiment is often tried with the Fugitive Slave Bill — it is declared "divine,” having "the sanction of the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel." With these two poisons do men corrupt the public fountains of morality! Religion is the only basis for every thing. It must go everywhere, into the man's shop, into the seamstress' work-room, must steer the sailor's ship. Reverence for the Infinite Mind, and Conscience, and Heart, and Soul, who is Cause and Providence of this world, -that must go up to the highest heights of our speculation, down to the lowest deeps of our practice. Take that away, and there is nothing on which you can depend, even for your money; or for your liberty and life. Without a reverence for the Higher Law of God every thing will be ruled by interest or violence. The Church will collapse into nothing, the State will go down to ruin! All around us are monuments of men who, in the name of Truth broke the priest's creed, defied the king's statute in the spirit of Justice. Look at them! There is a little one at Acton where two men gave their lives for their country; another at Concord; one at Lexington, a little pile of dear old mossy stone, "Sacred to Liberty and the Rights of Mankind; " another at West Cambridge; another at Danvers, all commemorative of the same deed; and on yonder hill there is a great stone finger pointing to God's Higher Law, and casting its shadow on the shame of the two sister cities. All New England is a monument to the memory of those men who trusted God's Higher Law, and for its sake put an ocean three thousand miles wide between them and their mothers' bones. It is this which makes Plymouth Rock so dear. Our calendar is dotted all over with days sacred to the memory of such men. What are the First of August, the Twenty-second of December, the Nineteenth of April, the Seventeenth of June, the Fourth of July, but bright, redletter days in our calendar, marked by the memory of men who were faithful to God, say the statutes of tyrants what they may say? Nay, what else are these venerable days, called Christmas, Easter, Pen tecost, and the Catholic Saints' days throughout the Christian year? There is one thing which this Bible teaches in almost every page, and that is reverence for the Higher Law of God. The greatest men who wrote here were only men; to err is human, we all learn by experiment, and they were mistaken in many things; but all teach this, from the littlest to the greatest, from Genesis to Revelation, RELIGION BEFORE ALL OTHER THINGS, REVERENCE FOR GOD ABOVE ALL! It was that for which Jesus bowed his head on the Cross, and "sat down at the right hand of God." There is an Infinite God! You and I owe allegiance to Him, and our service of Him is the keeping of every Law which He made;-keeping it faithfully, earnestly, honestly. That is Religion, and to those who do it, on every thundering cloud which passes over their heads, He will cast his rainbow, girdling it with sevenfold magnificence of beauty, and on that cloud take them to His own Kingdom of Heaven, to be with Him forever and forever. |