The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 6, December 1863 | Page 5

of details are in men's hands in the nation mistake is common, and people are tempted to think the Nation purely human. All thought below the surface will show the fallacy and stamp the Nation as the handiwork of God.
We believe true thought on this matter is, at this day and in this land, of first importance. The Lord of Hosts rules, and not the master of a thousand regiments with smoking cannon. God builds the Nation for a purpose. While it fulfils that purpose it shall stand. The banded folly and scoundrelhood within and the gathered force of all enemies without shall never overthrow one pillar in its strong foundations or topple down one stone from its battlements while it works honestly toward its true end. Not till it turn traitor to its place and purposes, not till it madly plant itself in the way of the great wheels that roll the world back to light and justice, will He who built it hurl it to the earth again in crashing ruin, to build another order in its place. The man who has let that great truth, written out in flame across the dusky forehead of the Past, slip from his foolish atheist's heart and his shallow atheist's brain, is blind, not only to our own land's short history, but to the lessons of the long ages and the broad world.
We have been driven back to the loftiest ground on this question. We have found that only on that could we stand. When the very foundations of what we held most awful and reverential have been assailed by mad traitorous hands, as though they were vulgar things, when frenzied self-will has laid its profane grasp upon the Ark of the Covenant, we have been forced back to those strong foundations on which nations stand, for hope and confidence, to those tremendous sanctions that girdle in, as with the fires of God, the sanctity of Law, the majesty of Order, and established Right. We have declared these things Divine. We have said men administer truly, but men did not create, and men have no right to destroy. We arise in the defence of institutions of which Jehovah has made us the guardians for men!
We have said the Nation exists to train men, that the best nation is the one that trains the best men. Let us see how it does this.
In the first place, it educates by Written Law. To be sure, laws are passed to define and protect human rights, in person, purse, family, or good name. People sometimes think that is all they do. But consider. These laws on the Statute Book are the Nation's deliberate convictions, so far, on right and wrong, a real code of morals, the decisions of the national conscience on moral subjects. An act is passed punishing theft. It is intended to protect property indeed, but it does more. It stands there, the Nation's conviction on a point of ethics. Theft is absolutely wrong. It passes another act punishing perjury. The mere lawyer looks at this solely as a facility for getting at the truth before a jury. It is vastly more. It is a moral decision. The Nation binds the Ten Commandments on the popular conscience, and declares, 'Thou shalt not bear false witness.' It declares, 'There are everlasting distinctions, things absolutely right, and things absolutely wrong. So far has the conscience of the Nation made things clear. The good citizen knows all this without the Statute Book, and much more. But there must be a limit somewhere. Here it is. Up to this point you may come, but no farther. Everlasting distinctions must be taught by bolts, chains, and scaffolds, if there are those in the Nation who will learn them from no other teachers.'
It has been very easy to tamper with Law among ourselves, very easy to try experiments. And people get the notion that Law is a mere human affair, the act of a legislature, the will of a majority. It is all a mistake. A Nation's living laws are the slow growth of ages. They are its solemn convictions on wrongs and rights, written in its heart. The business of a wise legislator is to help all those convictions to expression in formal enactment. Meddling fools try to choke them, pass acts against them even, think they can annihilate such convictions. One day the convictions insist on being heard, if not by formal law, then by terrible informal protest against some legalized wrong. Think how laboriously lawmakers have toiled to prevent the expression of the Nation's determined convictions on the subject of Slavery! Think of the end! Nay, all enactments which accord with these deep decisions of the National Conscience, which help them to better expression and clearer