Mr. Butlers Discourse. 



201 



slavery — that she has elevated the female sex to their just 

 rank in the scale of being — that she has greatly mitigated the 



once so prevalent among the most enlightened nations, have 

 fallen into discredit and disuse— and that precisely in propor- 

 tion to the prevalence of this religion, in its purity and power, 

 has been the advancement of the nations to which we have re- 

 ferred, in all the attributes of greatness. 



When we look at our own country we see still more clearly 

 the b-neficial influence of the Christian faith. It led to the 

 foundation of most of our republics; it sustained the first col- 

 onists in their hazards, sufferings and labors ; it has formed, 

 with the most successful and thrifty of their descendants, the 

 basis of their character and institutions; and to a greater or 

 less extent, it has continued to exert through every period of 

 our history, and in every part of our confederacy, a life-giving 

 and salutary influence. 



It is no answer to this to say that civilization and knowl- 

 edge, philosophy and refinement, would have led to these re- 

 sults ; for here again the testimony of history and experience 

 is explicit and decisive. Whilst they inform us that ignorance 

 is the mother of superstition and immorality, they also assure 

 us, that mental cultivation affords no security against them. 

 Look at the most polished state of antiquity — at Athens — in 

 the period of her greatest refinement. W r hen her schools of 

 philosophy were in their highest reputation— when she possess- 

 ed poets and orators, whom it is the boast of the present age to 

 admire and to imitate — when architecture had reached a per- 

 fection which has never been surpassed — when her temples 

 contained models in statuary and productions of the pencil, the 

 very fragments of which have ravished the eyes and hearts of 

 succeeding generations, — when the institutions of Solon were 

 administered bv that illustrious tribunal, which has given to 

 the hill of Mars a portion of its own sanctity and grandeur— 

 when her populace listened with intelligent and discriminat- 

 ing delight to the debates of her profoundest statesmen — when 

 even the fish-women in her markets, could detect the slight- 

 est violation of Attic purity — and you will find that even in 

 26 



horrors of war— that the practices of inc< 

 poisoning and suicide, and those other nar 



