612 Lord Moitnlcashcl and the Church. JUNE, 



institution alike in church and state ; and as nothing but an utter sub- 

 version of the country can give him a chance of lucre, he clamours for 

 that subversion as the only chance of safety or subsistence to the nation. 



With men of this class, it is but waste of words to argue. Their vul- 

 garity, virulence, and folly, are beyond all reasoning ; they must be left 

 to the natural career of rebellion and atheism, fortunate only if their 

 cowardice prevents them from putting their theories into act, and con- 

 tents them with poisoning the minds of fools without bringing themselves 

 to the scaffold by the attempt to realize their profligate principles. But 

 to those who desire to judge of things upon their merits, we say that 

 the grounds for advocating an establishment of religion are as strong as 

 those for advocating a civil government. 



Christianity is a system of the highest truths essential to the highest 

 purposes of man individually and generally. It retains the most dis- 

 turbing feelings of our nature in the path of duty. It rewards and ani- 

 mates the noblest labours and trials of personal and public virtue. It 

 diffuses cheerfulness through the deepest scenes of an anxious life. It 

 elevates the human mind in the lowest ranks of the social system. It en- 

 nobles human nature by giving it the noblest of all motives, the love and 

 honour of a being who comprehends within himself all grandeur, power, 

 virtue and wisdom. It raises the humblest to the level of the loftiest, 

 by that holy equality which makes no distinction beyond the grave, but 

 the distinction of virtue. It girds us up for the most sublime sacrifices 

 in the cause of man, by displaying to us the secure happiness of a life 

 exhausted in the service of God and man; the nothingness of those 

 human honours which may be earned by successful crime; and the solid 

 and imperishable glory of that praise which comes from the Eternal 

 Source of glory. 



But all knowledge requires a teacher, and all knowledge that is to be 

 permanent must be sustained by a succession of teachers. If religion is 

 to be impressed upon the people, it must be by men appointed and edu- 

 cated for the purpose of impressing it. There must be a clergy. But 

 if the religion of a nation is to be a fixed system of principles, not a 

 vague compilation of fugitive theories, there must be some standard, 

 there must be some acknowledged and authentic form of doctrine, there 

 must be something beyond the rambling fancy of every half-madman, 

 who undertakes to lead the popular mind. We must not see in the 

 pulpit to-day a man who contradicts every syllable said by the man of 

 yesterday, and is as sure to have his doctrine cast out before the man of 

 to-morrow. There must thus be a summary of belief: a liturgy, places of 

 worship, men entitled to preserve the decorum of that worship, to sus- 

 tain its offices, to propagate its truths, and those men must be kept up 

 in a continued succession, or the whole falls to the ground. But to keep 

 up this succession, there must be some settled inducement for families to 

 devote their sons to the church, some remuneration for the expense of 

 education, some security that the remuneration will not fail if the service 

 be done. Thus we must have a clergy, colleges for their instruction, 

 livings for their support, and a permanent right to be paid by their share 

 of the general possessions of society. 



If we will have our children initiated into Christianity by the rite com- 

 manded by its Divine Teacher ; or if we will make the union of the sexes 

 the sacred bond that it must be made, to avoid the most fatal evils to the 

 human race ; we must have baptisms and marriages, and men to perform 



