LECTURE TtlIPwD, 



Decembek 15, 1867. 



RELIGION IN THE LIFE OF NATIONS. 



My Lord Archbishop axd Gentlemen: We have 

 recognized the divine right of power, whatever its par- 

 ticular form or its immediate origin ; and in separating 

 this doctrine from the exaggerated meaning ascribed to 

 it by its adversaries and by a party of its defenders, w^e 

 have affirmed, with the Apostle Paul, the supernal 

 origin of all power, the inviolable and sacred cliaracter 

 of all rights — rights of princes as well as citizens, riglits 

 of democracies as well as monarchies. '*' There is no 

 power but of God." 



But rights are not the only things which have within 

 themselves an inspiration from on high. There is in 

 political society something less delinite but not less 

 ]-eal : it is life ; and to-day I am to inquire what part 

 religion occupies in the life of nations. 



None at all ! is the ansAver of that sort of opinion, 

 now-a-days so common, Avliicli would banish God from 

 the social order, and wliicli, thougli making up its mind 

 to the speculative dogma of his existence, undertakes to 

 cj-owd away his action into the recesses of tli'/ imlivid- 

 ual conscience, and to close against him all the gates 

 of public life. Tliey demand not only that the law 

 should l)c atlieist — wliich would certainly be quite too 



