in the Courts of the Madras Presidency. 7 



being enforced. It is the very essence of a Divine Code that 

 no part of it is directory, as distinguished from being impe- 

 rative. It all proceeds from the same authority, and is all 

 enforced by the same sanctions. Nothing short of absolute 

 obedience is obedience at all. He who offends against the 

 least part is guilty of disobeying the whole. 



Nor probably can it be denied that there was once a time 

 at which the whole body of this law was, if not absolutely 

 enforced, at least considered as strictly enforceable. The 

 relation between the State and the Subject was in ancient 

 times much more paternal than it is now. The father who 

 does not look after the morals and religion of his son would 

 be abandoning his duty, and in many parts of the world, 

 even now, the same duty is supposed to devolve on the 

 sovereign. There have been few nations whose governors 

 did not at some time or other meddle with the religion of 

 their subjects, and make it compulsory upon them, not only 

 to go to Heaven, but to go there by a special path marked 

 out for them by their rulers. It is unnecessary to point to 

 'the Spanish Inquisition, when we remember that less than 

 two hundred years ago, in Scotland, men were racked and 

 crushed in boots for believing in the Bible without Bishops, 

 instead of believing in the Bible with Bishops. We should 

 wholly fail to understand the spirit or reality of many 

 ancient Codes, if we forgot that in olden days the relation- 

 ship between the Deity and his creatures was looked upon 

 in a light which the weaker faith and colder reverence 

 of modern times can hardly understand. Then it was no 

 metaphorical form of expression to say that God walked in 

 the garden with Adam. The Deity was not only supposed, 

 but expected, to interfere actively in all the more important 

 affairs of life, and in many of its unimportant affairs, if 

 specially solicited. And, naturally enough, man felt himself 

 bound, so far as in him lay, to carry out the views of one, who 



