The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 | Page 4

right of one Christian community is different
from that of another; and this because right, considered distinct from
religion, is relative, and subject to all the modifications of different
conditions of society. The 'Evil, be thou my good' of Milton's Satan is a
delicate recognition of this fact. But absolute right is a thing unknown
to human nature; it can never be innate, but comes from without. It can
only be apprehended by the intellect as a thing of God, a part of His
nature, given to us as a law, a rule of action, which we can accept or not,
taking upon ourselves the consequences of its rejection. There can be

no standard of absolute right other than the law of God; there can be no
other invariable and eternal rule of human action.
And if this position be true of individuals, most assuredly is it true of
nations, which are but individuals in the concrete, subject to the same
vicissitudes, governed by the same laws, physical and moral, and
following the same path of development. Only that form of government
which recognizes the Supreme Being as the chief of rulers, and His law
as the source and model of all human law, can be sure of truth and
justice on its side, both in its dealings with other nations and in its
regulation of its own internal affairs. Only such a form can work
steadily for the advancement of its people, both by leading them
forward and by smoothing the rugged path to perfection, and removing
every obstacle which impedes the national progress. However near the
principles of our Government may approach to those of the Divine law,
there is still room and urgent necessity for reform. Yet, in the universal
disfavor into which theocracies have fallen, and in the intense desire
which pervades our people to avoid the complicated evils of a union
between church and state, every attempt to unite religious principles
with those of government is looked upon with positive alarm; and
justly so, since the experience of past centuries proves that both thrive
best in separate spheres, however near they may approach each other in
the abstract, and that when united, the one is apt to prove a hamper on
the other, through the introduction of error and corruption; while,
separated, they act as a mutual restraint, each tending to control the
abnormal development of the other. For these reasons reform in this
particular must move from the people to the government, not from the
government to the people.
And here we come to the root of the whole matter, to the field where
reform is most needed, that is, in the moral condition of our society.
While there are few nations in which there is such a diversity of
religious views and multiplicity of religious sects, there are few peoples
which are so proverbially irreligious as our own. Yet our condition in
this respect is rather a neutral one than otherwise, for while we are
without any positive immorality which should make us preëminent
above other nations for vice, there is, nevertheless, in our midst, little of

that simple, trusting, unquestioning faith, which is the 'substance of
things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen'--little of that
all-pervading and all-powerful reverence for sacred things, that deep
religious feeling which forms a portion of the very life of most of the
nations of the Old World. This is nothing more than the reaction of the
stern Puritan tenets of the colonial times. It is the logical result of those
dark and gloomy theories which aimed to make religion not only
unpalatable but absolutely repelling to the young and the ardent,
causing them to fly to the opposite extreme of throwing aside religion
to 'a more convenient season,' when the pleasures of life should have
lost their charm, and they themselves should be drawing near the close
of their pilgrimage. That theory which made a deadly sin of that which
was at worst but a pardonable misdemeanor and perhaps wholly
innocent in its nature, could not fail in time to react violently, first
through the process of disgust, then through that of inquiry, and finally
to the carrying of speculation to extremes, and practically pronouncing
harmless and innocent that which was really vice. The popular mind,
rebounding from the Puritan ideas, did not pause to discriminate
between the truth and error which were so intimately mingled in their
system, but, sweepingly denouncing all the theories whose most
prominent characteristics were revolting, involved in the denunciation
and rejection much of pure and simple truth, and ran rapidly along the
path of revolution, heedless of every warning, unchecked by the
obstacles which Truth threw in its way, down to the present time of
almost universal looseness.
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