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INFLUENCE OF MORALS.

CONTINUED.

By a native (but not now a resident) of Petersburg, Va.

No. V.

FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.

the rapidity with which revolutions have been effected. While the press exercises its tremendous agency for weal or woe, the social and political fabric can only be sustained when it reposes upon the broad basis of morality. Experience, with her ever burning lamp, shows us, that the paths of licentiousness lead to the grave "It is a little singular," says Chancellor Kent, that of social and political establishments. And wherefore distinguished jurist, whose whole life and writings, like should we not, like the Ismenian priests of old, who those of the Roman philosopher, are replete with intel- sought for prophecies in the ashes of the altar they had lectual and moral excellence, "it is a little singular, that raised to their divinity, seek amid the ruins of the past some of the best ethical writers under the christian for light to guide us through the darkness of the future? dispensation should complain of the moral lessons of We adhere to the stern rule, that IT IS THE FIRST DUTY Cicero, as being too austere in their texture, and too OF EVERY CHRISTIAN AND OF EVERY PATRIOT TO OPsublime in speculation for actual use. There is not, POSE EVERYTHING, WHICH TENDS TO CORRUPT PUBLIC indeed, a passage in all Greek and Roman antiquity MORALS OR TO PROMOTE LICENTIOUSNESS OF OPINION. equal in moral dignity and grandeur to that in which The great and fatal error of the present generation Cicero lays it down as a fixed principle, that we ought springs from the promptings of a presumptuous underto do nothing that is avaricious, nothing that is dishon-standing; and we are prone to persuade ourselves that est, nothing that is lascivious, even though we could escape the observation of gods and men." And in some other portion of the works of that sublime moralist, he lifts up his voice from amid the dusky twilight of paganism, and exclaims in a tone not unworthy of inspiration: "The soul, during her confinement in the prison of the body, is doomed to undergo a severe penance: for, her native seat is in heaven, and it is with reluctance that she is forced down from those celestial mansions into these lower regions, where all is foreign and repugnant to her divine nature. But the gods, I am persuaded, have thus widely disseminated immortal spirits, and clothed them with human bodies, that there might be a race of intelligent creatures, not only to have dominion over this our earth, but to contem-faculties. Thus, the light of the understanding not unplate the host of heaven, and imitate in their moral conduct the same beautiful order and uniformity, so con. spicuous in those splendid orbs." It is upon precepts like this that man should frame his rule of action; it is from the sacred fountain of pure philosophy, that he should derive that sense of the dignity of his nature and of his sublime destiny, which will enable him to correspond with the end of his creation.

we live in a boasted age of reason. The invention of poets has been exhausted in describing the sufferings of the human family in the ages of brass and iron: but it was reserved for history to write in the tears of nations the instructive and appalling drama of the age of reason. Before the mind of man was darkened by his depravity, before he tasted of the "forbidden tree, whose mortal taste brought death into the world, and all our woe,"-all his mental faculties, the will and the understanding, the reason and the imagination, were harmoniously blended and united: but since his fall, a dark spirit has interposed its shadow between him and the sun of righteousness, and disorder and confusion have entered into his mind and soul, and troubled their several

frequently illumes the path of duty, but the obstinate will refuses to pursue it; and the eager and chastened will sometimes eagerly gropes its way where the darkened understanding is unable to direct it. In their hostility to the social, political, and religious institutions of the human family, the French philosophists propagated a senseless theory of the progressive improvement of man emerging gradually from the savage state, which In a former number we have erected a standard of they styled a state of nature, and improving impermorals, which many will censure for its loftiness; and ceptibly in his language and polity. For the direct and we have, in a spirit of bold inquiry, questioned the consistent revelation of the Deity, they substituted their utility, in their immediate results and prospective ten-wild and incoherent speculations. But a wiser philosodency, of the two great revolutions in the religion and government of mankind in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

From the former of these great movements, sprang at once into the full vigor of life universal freedom of opinion; and for all the horrors of the latter we are indebted to the deadly legacy of anti-christian doctrines and anti-social principles, which the last age has bequeathed to the present. We have heretofore observed, that since the establishment of universal freedom of opinion, and the discovery of the art of printing, men have been astounded at the facility with which public morals have been corrupted, and, as a necessary consequence, at

phy, lighting her torch at the consecrated flame of revealed truth, has dissipated these shadowy theories, and taught us, that the savage state is a state of social degradation, and that what these dreamers have called the germs or roots of tongues are, in fact, the ruins of once perfect languages. But we will reserve the discussion of this interesting question for a future number. In the primitive revelation the first man received the highest degree of intellectual illumination, which, although obscured by his fall, still shone with a subdued splendor throughout the ages of the primeval world. By a just retribution, as man abused his great intellectual powers, he was gradually deprived of those VOL. IV.-35

It will be objected that an enlightened understanding may compel the will. Alas! such is not the history of man. Throw around him a blaze of light, and closing his eyes to the celestial radiance, how often do we find him descending the paths which lead to the dark and unfathomable abysses of crime? He drinks abundantly of all the wells and springs of knowledge, but, like

high gifts with which he had been originally endowed, | guished torch in an unwholesome atmosphere, has and as his will, that moral faculty of the mind, became already suffered in his generations for his deviation perverse, this bright illumination was obscured, be- from the path of rectitude, and for the abuses of his cause in his corrupt state it would have been hurtful | moral faculty; and untaught by experience, who sells rather than beneficial. It was this superior degree of her lessons at the price of tears, the enlightened nations intelligence which gave to the antediluvian races such of the present age, in their frightful abuse of the powvast superiority over the succeeding generations of ers entrusted to them for high and holy purposes, seem, mankind; and it was the same cause that led to that in the perversity of a corrupt will, and in the excesses gigantic moral and intellectual corruption, which we of a presumptuous understanding, rapidly to approach can only comprehend in its consequence-the destruc- the verge of that sheer precipice, around and beneath tion of all flesh upon earth. The will being the moral which, in the decrees of a superintending Providence, power in man, it follows from what we have said, that all is darkness and degradation. If the will or moral if the will be perverse and licentious, the crimes of faculty were properly chastened, to enlighten the unmen are measured in their enormity by the extent of derstanding would be to improve the heart; but when their understanding. Thus we trace the cause of all man, surrendering himself up to the desires of a rebelthe horrors of the revolutions of the last century, urged lious will, “sins against the canon laws of his foundaon by enlightened minds, regardless of the salutary res- tion," and is at war with his nature, to expand his traint of morals and religion. At the time of the revi-intellect is to heap the measure of his enormities. val of letters in Europe, and the discovery of printing, this key of knowledge, which had been mercifully taken from the corrupt generations, who had so grossly abused its treasures, seemed about to be restored to man, renovated as his soul and intellect had been by a long christian education. And after the intelligence of man had been extended by the revival of letters, and before the purple carnage and material philosophism which quick-the fabled waters of the Golden Fountain, they convert ly followed the reformation, it seemed reserved for these him into stone. If virtue be not founded in the moral latter ages to witness the full meridian splendor of instead of the intellectual faculty, how shall we account human intelligences. It appeared that the great scheme for the transcendent virtues of the son of Jesse, the unof creation was about to be fulfilled, and that the in- tutored peasant king, whose pastoral staff was displatellectual light which played around the cradle, would ced for the royal sceptre; whose harp, in the language brighten the last age of humanity. Men, catching the of a beautiful writer, whose harp was full-stringed, and glowing spirit of Milton, had persuaded themselves every angel of joy and of sorrow swept over the chords that they beheld puissant nations, rousing themselves as he passed, but the melody always breathed of heaven; like a strong man after sleep, shaking his invincible who hath dressed out religion in such a rich and beautilocks; that they saw them as an eagle muing her mighty ful garment of divine poesy as beseemeth her majesty, youth, and kindling her undazzled eye at the full mid- in which being arrayed, she can stand up before the day beam, purging and unscaling her long abused sight eyes even of her enemies in more royal state than any at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance: but the personification of love, or glory, or pleasure, to which calm impartial voice of history will declare the unset-highly gifted mortals have devoted their genius. Let tled condition of the human family, and already dis- us confess the amiable truth : his will was chastened and cerns the malignant typhon of revolution gathering obedient, the moral faculty was upright, and the divine strength amid the increasing licentiousness of the age, flame of intellect in this pure atmosphere burned with a collecting his scattered members, recruiting his ex-brilliant and holy lustre. And if the enlightened underhausted energies, and preparing anew to assault, to standing can compel the reluctant will, how was it, oppress, and to desolate the world! that the son of David, he, to whom God had given "a Considering man then as the work of the great Crea-wise and an understanding heart, so that before him tor, upon whom in his munificence he had impressed his sacred image and bestowed the divine emanation of intellect; looking upon this most wonderful of the works of the Supreme Architect, as endowed with free will, and subjected to restraints admirably adapted to his condition and essential to his happiness; we can only account for his obscured understanding and unparalleled debasement, by the abuse of the favors heaped upon him. For, the whole history of the human race teaches us, that the mental and social degradation of man, in all ages, has invariably followed the corrupt and licentious will, which has led him to abuse his transcendent privileges. God is justice, and governs the world by fixed laws, and the genius of punishment presides over their fulfilment, and invariably chastises every prevarication or departure. The barbarian, debased beneath the primitive condition of manhood, in whom the light of reason glimmers like-a half extin

there was none that was like unto him, neither after him was there any to arise like unto him,"-abandoning himself to the appetites of a depraved will, and forgetful of his covenant with Jehovah, "turned away from the commandments and the statutes, which the Lord had set before him, and served other gods and worshipped them ?" And if to enlighten the understanding be to improve the heart, how shall we account for the corruption of all flesh in the races of the antediluvian world, which so far surpassed the generations of our age in knowledge and understanding? Whence the necessity of that divine prayer taught us by the meek and merciful Redeemer, "deliver us from temptation ?” or of that other humiliating confession in the ritual, “we have done the things we ought not to have done, and we have left undone those things we should have done ?” Alas! it is too often the case, the waters of virtue, like the sacred fountain of Dodona, cease to flow in the

noontide blaze of intellect, but gush forth in sparkling | ests of religion than the persecution and intolerance of and plenteous effusion in the stillness of the benighted mind.

It was ordained of old, even from the creation, that beneath the branches of the tree of knowledge should lurk the enemy of man. Not all the vigilance of the celestial wardens of the gates of Paradise could repel the great corrupter of the will. But since "no falsehood can endure touch of celestial temper, but returns of force to its own likeness," armed with the spear of truth, let us endeavor to disrobe vice of her seemliness, and compel her to indue her pristine and repulsive deformity.

one established institution; whether it would not have been better to have purified and remodelled the ancient temple, venerable for its age and coeval with christianity, than to have erected a thousand different altars; whether universal freedom of opinion and its dark satellite infidelity, the leading consequence and necessary result of this reformation; whether all these have not rather retarded than promoted the social and moral improvement of man,-is a fair field for the exercise of philosophical inquiry.

The first great reformation, or divine fulfilment of the designs of Providence in the religious government of man, was introduced in a time of profound peace, at a period when the shadow of the Roman eagles had been thrown upon the uttermost boundaries of the known world, and when the language of Greece, with all its graceful purity, had attained its highest excellence. Its spirit was peace and good will towards man, and its corner stone was unbounded brotherly love. It was heralded in by a man of many sorrows, but whose life was a faithful exhibit of the sublime doctrines he taught. Clothed with the power of the Father, he was meek and humble of heart, and he never suspended the laws of nature, obedient to his will, but to bless and to sanctify those whom he ransomed from perdition. Did the dead arise from a bed of corruption, and cast off his tabid cerements,-the soul too was purified, and it was only the promise of a more glorious resurrection! Did the leper cast his scales, and was made whole in the flesh,—the spirit too was chastened, and he was clad in the raiment of innocence! Did the blind see,—the hand that restored his vision cast a divine ray into his soul, and he was blessed forevermore! Did the good man seek for virtue or the wise man for the lessons of wisdom?—the Sermon on the Mount contained every lesson of morality, all the fruits of wisdom. But the reformation of the sixteenth century originated in angry and exacerbated feeling, and one of its first consequences was a multiplication of conflicting and hostile sects, which during a space of thirty years deluged in blood the

Inaccessible to the prejudices of the age in which we live, we have boldly canvassed the utility of the religious reformation of the sixteenth century in its ultimate consequences. Originating with man, it could not claim a celestial origin, and participated in the fallibility and frailty of his nature. If we could trace the divine impress in its character, introduction, or consequences, we are not so unmindful of the fate of the Israelite who stretched forth his arm to uphold the ark of the covenant, as to attempt an exposition of its effects upon the destinies of the children of men. There is but one reformation of the religious institutions of the human family, which bears the broad seal of the Deity, and that seems to have been pre-ordained from the beginning for the redemption of a lost world. From the fall of man, every system of polity, every type and figure of religious observances among the chosen people, shadowed forth this mighty revolution. The christian era constitutes a fixed central point in the history of man, and while preceding generations, filled with hope, looked forward to the coming of the Sun of Righteousness to resuscitate a perishing world, subsequent ages have looked back to the advent of the Redeemer as the sacred fountain, from which all the springs of life were to flow forevermore. The wise men, who came forth from towards the rising of the sun, were not the only watchers for the star that stood over the stable of Bethlehem, while the shepherds adored the infant Saviour. The rising of that star had long been foretold in those sublime passages of prophe-fairest provinces of christendom. In England, Scotland, tic inspiration, which were consecrated to the Israelite; and the Gentiles had learned that it was to be to them too a light of salvation, and a gathering together of the nations of the earth into one fold under one divine pastor. When the veil of the temple was rent asunder and the mysteries of the sanctuary were revealed; when the oracles of paganism were struck dumb on their altars; when the types and figures of the old religion were overshadowed by the presence of the Deity; the only religious reformation, which has been promised to man, or which is consistent with the divine scheme of redemption, was consummated. Hence all subsequent changes in the religious polity of nations, are the work of human hands, and like any other result of merely human agency, are legitimate subjects of investigation. Whether mankind has gained anything permanently beneficial, by the reformation of the sixteenth century, which at far less cost to humanity and religion must not necessarily have followed the revival of letters and consequent intellectual development; whether the substitution of the revilings and mutual massacres of rival sects was less prejudicial to the true inter

France, Germany, and Ireland, the red car of reform rolled in the blood of slaughtered recusants. Each sect boasted its martyrs, but humanity and religion shuddered at the multitude of deluded victims. The primitive purity of the established current of religion, as it had flowed from the fountain of truth, may have been troubled by the admixture of licentious indulgences and lax morality, yet it would have been no difficult task to trace it in the midst of its slime and pollution, to its pure and sacred source. When the proud city of Babylon was beleagured by the forces of combined nations, the turbid waters of the great river were diverted into new channels, and though Babylon the great fell, the numerous currents deflected from the ancient bed, instead of uniting and rolling on in one pure stream, stagnated into a pestilential marsh, until nothing but the booming of the bittern and the howling of the hyena marked the spot where once stood in purple pride the city of the plain! Reformations therefore in the religious observances of a people, the work of perishable mortals, and divested of supernatural agency, whether they originate in Arabia or Germany, in

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