writer. And it is very certain, that in the extended, either intelligent or virtuous. If it heathen world, at the present time, there are had any such power, why are the Mexicans but few men who are not exceedingly wicked. still so ignorant and degraded? Why did not There are a great many countries, nominally | Republican France become a model of virChristian, where the people are likewise ex-tue and intelligence, for the whole world to ceedingly depraved, ignorant and vicious. In imitate? For one simple reason.

Because

the Protestant religion was not there. The
Bible was not in the hands of the people.
They were not acquainted with its pure and
holy doctrines. No living preacher stood
forth to proclaim the Gospel, or to enforce
its truths upon the heart, and the conscience.
France stood in need of a religion - - a religion
of energy and power, to send forth a healing,
a sanctifying influence over the perishing mil-
lions of her gay, but dissolute population;
and for want of it, her free institutions soon
crumbled into dust, and her boasted repub-
licanism ended in a military despotism.
"The
nation that will not serve thee shall perish ;” so
it is said in the Bible; and all history with as
solemn, sublime and impressive voice cor-
roborates the sentiment-testifies to its cor-
rectness.

The Protestant Religion is the only palla

all countries, where the Roman Catholic religion prevails, the people are almost as ignorant of the Gospel as if they had never heard of the name of Jesus of Nazareth. They never hear the Gospel preached, and they are not allowed to read the Bible; and it is not to be wondered at, that the great mass of the people in such countries are very wicked. The Pope is well aware that his Empire is founded on darkness. He is too wise not to know, that to suffer his people to be educated, and to read the Bible, would be the same thing as to subvert his own throne, and put an end to his own dominion. He is content, therefore, that they should remain ignorant and vicious, that his control over them may be absolutethat they may continue to be the willing and submissive slaves of tyranny and superstition. The state of morals in France, during the reign of Terror, when the Christian religion | dium of our Liberties. It is the only consewas abolished, and Atheism was in the as- crating fire that burns upon our altars. As cendancy, has read an instructive lesson to long as it continues to burn with a pure and mankind, with reference to the moral tenden- steady flame, the republic will be safe. When cies of infidelity. All men now acknowledge, it shall burn with but a flickering blaze, and that even the moral influence of Paganism give only a feeble, glimmering light, then itself is to be preferred to that of Atheism. will we have to write on all our high places, History proves, most incontestibly, that the Ichabod, the glory has departed; and the Christian religion is the only lever which can fragments of a rent empire will then speak elevate the human race in the scale of morals only of a liberty lost, and a glory departed, which can raise them up from the deep pit never to return. of moral pollution, into which they have un- When the question is asked, how shall we fortunately sunk down so low. Nothing but preserve our liberties? It is often said, the light of the Bible can dissipate the dark-"Educate the people — educate the people→ ness that has so long brooded over the human enlighten the public mind, and all will be mind, and illuminate the chambers of the soul well." Yet it is folly—it is madness, to talk with the bright beams of a celestial day. in that way. What does education make a THE MEANS OF PRESERVING OUR LIBER- man without the influence of religion? It Many persons ascribe our prosperity only makes him a demon, a giant in wickedas a nation, to the general diffusion of know-ness, an infuriated madman, scattering fireledge among the people, and to the influence of brands, arrows and death, and saying, am I our free institutions. But may we not ask, "what produced the general diffusion of knowledge in our land, and what gave rise to our free institutions ? " The prevalence of Bulwer and Eugene Sue. There is a morthe Protestant religion in our country. Such al influence about their writing, more deadly is the only answer, which, with any show of than the poison of the famed upas-tree, that reason, can be returned to this question. scorched, and withered everything that came Moreover, a republican government cannot within its reach. Let the people be educated make the people over whom its authority is in vice and wickedness; let us banish the Bi

TIES.

not in sport? Such was Byron, with all his genius. Such was Voltaire and Rosseau; and such are the novel writers of the present day

ble from our schools, and employ infidel | know they have nothing to rely upon, to seteachers for our children; or commit their cure for them the respect and affection of the education to immoral, or ungodly men of any people, but the purity of their morals, and kind, and by doing so, we would save the the sincerity of their efforts to do good. Pope the trouble of sending over to our coun- Their poverty, therefore, has become a blesstry his emissaries, the Jesuits, to sap the ing to men. It contains the very secret of foundations of morality and religion among their strength. as-we would save the Holy Alliance the trouble of sending over its armies to America to cut down the fair Tree of Liberty, under whose pleasant shade we have so long reposed in peace. Our children would then cut it down themselves, and bathe its roots in their own blood.

We place no confidence whatever in the education of the people, as a means of preserving the liberties of our country, unless they are educated religiously—unless in the progress of their education the principles of the Christian religion are carefully instilled into their minds. An irreligious education is worse than no education at all. Our early prejudices and prepossessions are exceedingly strong. The first impressions made upon our minds in childhood, frequently decide our character, and our destiny for life. "Just as the twig is bent, the tree is inclined.”

They are very highly esteemed in this republican land for their work's sake. Their self-denying labors among our rugged mountains, amid the swamps of our sea-board, and in the dark and lonesome wilderness of the West, have procured for them the respect and esteem of all good men, and their influence in our country is undeniably very great. They have, in fact, revolutionized the country, as far as morals are concerned. There was a time, when in the United States infidelity was very popular; when our political men openly scoffed at religion; when our merchants kept open their stores on the Sabbath, as they did on the other days of the week; when horseracing, and gambling, and card-playing, and dram-drinking were the favorite amusements of the high and the low-the rich and the poor. But that day has long since gone by; and now, woe to the man who would seek the All the means of producing a reformation suffrages of the people for any office within in morals and religion among us, must, how- their gift, or seek even the good opinion of ever, be considered as subsidiary to the his fellow men, unless he is willing to pay a preaching of the Gospel. Unless the Gospel decent respect to the Christian religion. It is preached in our land in its simplicity and is a pleasure to see in our presidential elecits purity, everything else will be in vain. tions, or rather in the struggle that usually Education, the liberty of the press, the print- precedes them, how anxious each party is ing and the circulation of good books, are all to make out that its candidate is a pretty excellent in their places; but the preaching good Christian. And to what must this revof the Gospel can never be dispensed with.olution in public sentiment be ascribed? How It must ever be the chief means of doing good in our world—the great moral lever, whose mighty energies must ever be relied on to elevate the human race in the scale of intelligence, piety and happiness. It has done wonders in our land already. In the days of the revolution, when our government went into existence without an established religion, philosophers in Europe predicted that in fifty years we would become a nation of infidels. But it has turned out otherwise. The influence of religion at present in our THE DESTINY OF OUR COUNTRY.- Every land is very great. As one proof of it, the patriot must occasionally look forward into clerical character is even more respected the vista of coming years, and ask himself among us than it is in Europe. There is but with deep anxiety, what will be the condition little inducement in our country held out to of my country a hundred years hence, or bad men, to enter the ministry for the sake when a few centuries have passed away. of getting a piece of bread. The clergy Will its prosperity continue to increase?

has it been brought about? Why, by the preaching of the Methodists, the Baptists, the Presbyterians and the other denominations of Christians in our land. The same change has taken place in almost every part of our country. Sabbath-schools and Temperance Societies have been important auxiliaries in the work of reformation; but the preaching of the Gospel has been the chief means of carrying it on. It has been the main-springthe moving power throughout the whole of it.

dauntless courage of our soldiers and our sailors, cannot save us when we refuse to serve Him, who does according to his pleasure amid the armies of Heaven, and among the children of men. "The nation that will not serve thee shall perish."

We live in an interesting period of the world's history, and in a highly favored land. Our country, indeed, stands as a land-mark on the cliffs of fame. It is a light-house, to which the eyes of all who navigate the sea of time are directed with intense interest, amid the storms, the darkness and the gloom by which they are surrounded. Amid the sunken rocks, and dangerous quicksands, on which so many other nations have made shipwreck, they look to us, that from our example they may learn to escape the destruction that threatens them, the perils to which they are continually exposed.

Will its free institutions be permanent in their character? or will our rapid rise, and our wonderful growth as a nation, be followed by a speedy and premature decay? These are questions which ought often to excite the mind to serious and solemn reflection. Plants of quick growth are not generally of long continuance and there are many considerations which, sometimes, have a tendency almost to make us despair of the republic. It is often said, that every thing earthly must have its growth, maturity and its decline; and that the plant which grows most rapidly, will certainly decline with the greatest rapidity. If this be true, the glory must soon depart from our country. But we do not believe in the truth of this maxim-facts are against it. The Government of Great Britain is more than one thousand years old, and it is now as strong, as vigorous, as powerful, and as likely to exist for a long time as ever, and Providence has given us a rich and gloriwhat is the conservative principle in the Brit-ous inheritance, a fertile soil, a salubrious cliish Government? What has preserved it so long in its youthful vigor? It is evident that it is nothing more or less, than the influence of the Protestant religion in the kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland and Ireland. And it is the influence of the Christian religion upon which we must rely to preserve the strength and vigor of our own Government in coming ages.

We have many evils to remedy; many dangers threaten us, against which we must provide; and what threatens the body politic, threatens us all, as individuals; and brings home the danger to our own doors, and to our own firesides. The prevalence of vice, of infidelity and wickedness, of drunkenness and violence in our land, is the chief and the only thing that militates seriously against our peace and happiness, as individuals, against our welfare and prosperity, as a nation; and the only remedy for this evil, the only thing which can remove it, is the preaching of the Gospel in its purity and in its power. The preaching of the Gospel is the only sovereign balm,

"whose virtue can

Restore the ruined creature, man."

It is the only instrumentality that can bring salvation home to our own hearts and our own families, that can defend us from the dangers that threaten our prosperity, and, as we apprehend, our very existence as a nation. Nothing is more certain. Our boasted republican institutions, the wisdom of our Senators, the

mate, a free government, and a heaven-descended religion. A wide-spread wilderness surrounded the feeble colonies first planted on the shores of the Atlantic, affording sufficient scope to the development of their energies as a people, and yielding an ample and abundant return to the industrious husbandman for his labor. The circumstances in which our population has been placed, have been favorable to virtue and morality, and to the cultivation of the religious principle. Extreme poverty has ever been prejudicial to virtue. The poorest classes in society have generally been the most vicious and the most degraded, all over the world. But in our country want has been unknown, except among the idle and the vicious. The sturdy yeomanry of our land, the undisputed lords of the soil, have been as independent as princes. Poverty has never tempted them to do what was mean or base, never tempted them to curse God and steal. A residence in the lonely forest has something in it favorable to serious reflection and to devout meditation; and the very solitude in which all adventurers in the Western country have ever lived, has, in a great measure, removed them from the contagious influence of vicious example. The world has seldom, if ever, seen such an intelligent, moral, industrious and religious population, as is now to be found in the United States. If we go on and prosper, a new era will have commenced in the history of the human family,

that trusteth in an arm of flesh), but in the living God; in the preaching of the divine Word, and in the diffusion of religious knowledge among the people; in the prevalence of virtue, and temperance, and piety throughout all our borders.

in the policy and government of all the nations of the earth. But if our prosperity should beget pride; our wealth, luxury; our past security, a contempt for the authority of heaven, and a forgetfulness of our dependence upon the power that is above us; if our piety should degenerate into fanaticism, or What, then, is the duty of the patriot, who enthusiasm; if our worship should become a wishes well to his country? of the Christian, dull and lifeless ceremony; if we should ex- who desires to see the Church of God built up change our sobriety for intemperance, our in our land? of the parent, who would leave frugality for extravagance, our industry and the blessings of piety, as a rich legacy to his energy for idleness and dissipation, then children? It is to do all he can for the would the shadow of the sun go back ten de- spread of the Gospel in every part of our grees on the dial of Ahaz; then would the country; to pray unceasingly that God would hopes of the patriot be doomed to a cruel dis- carry home the truth that is preached in our appointment; then would the dawning light pulpits, with a convincing power and energy, of the Millennium, of earth's great Jubilee, to the hearts of all who hear it; and that he seem to die away in the East, and the Chris- would be pleased to make use of the humble tian would weep bitterly, with a broken heart instrumentality of his ministering servants, in and afflicted spirit, over a world alienated bringing many from darkness to light, in from God, and returning again to the dark-pulling down the strongholds of vice and inness of idolatry; then would the tyrants of iquity, and in building up in this western the earth rejoice, and the fetters of despotism hemisphere the Church of our Saviour, in its would be more closely riveted than ever upon beauty and in its glory. the subjugated millions, whose necks have It is by promoting the spread of the Gospel, ever been bowed beneath the iron yoke, im- in every way in which it is in our power to posed upon them by their temporal and do it, that we will best consult the happiness spiritual lords; then freedom's battle, so of our own families, the prosperity of our long bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, country, and the welfare of the Church of would be lost, forever lost; then humanity the living God, which has been planted in our herself would weep over the grave of our land, over whose desolations so many tears once flourishing republic; then patriotism, have been shed, and by whose prosperity so and the love of liberty and public virtue, many hearts have been made glad. Politiwould become empty names, unmeaning cians can do but little for us. The advice of sounds; and exemption from spiritual and our best and most experienced statesmen often temporal despotism would be considered an seems to have but little weight in the counidle dream, a vain delusion, that once had cils of the nation. The wisdom of the sage power to beguile the consciences of men, but is but a vain dependence. The influence of had power to do so no longer. We are deep-religion on the habits, the morals, the feelly impressed with a conviction, that our shipings of the people, is the only safeguard of of state, our political vessel, as she rides so majestically upon the waves, is freighted with the destinies of the whole human race. If she goes down amid the storms that may arise, the fierce tempests that may assail her, the hopes of a lost world will be wrecked, and the light of religion itself will go out in utter darkness. So we have much reason to fear.

Again, we feel perfectly free to say, that our hopes, with reference to our country, with reference to its prosperity, its glory, and the stability and perpetuity of its institutions, is placed, not on what man can do for us (vain is the help of man, and cursed is he

our Union. It is the great conservative principle that keeps together the body politic, in a safe and healthy condition. We cannot, therefore, as men, as patriots, as Christians, labor too much for the spread of the Gospel - for the diffusion of divine truth in our land.

THIS may be said for love, that if you strike it out of the soul, life would be insipid, and our being but half animated.

WHEN you send your prayers, be sure to direct them to the care of the Redeemer, and then they will never miscarry.-M. Henry.