WHAT THE GOSPEL WILL DO. 137 
stitutions of the church, — the liberties, 
social, civil and religious, which we enjoy, 
— and our hope of heaven. 
And what would be the result, were we 
deprived of all these restraints from vice 
and inducements to virtue? Why, idolatry 
would regain its lost ascendancy, supersti- 
tion would stalk forth in our midst; and 
barbarity in its most cruel forms, such as 
burning persons for witchcraft, and sacri- 
ficing human beings by thousands to some 
imaginary deity ( as is now done by some 
of the tribes of Africa), with an innumerable 
multitude of enormities such as only those 
can conceive who are enshrouded in the 
darkness of heathenism, and " led captive 
by the Devil at his will," would roll upon 
us like a devouring flood ! 
Dear friends, we must support our home 
institutions, those which are good we mean 5 
and modify and make good those that are 
not in accordance with the Bible. Some of 
them should be destroyed, — such as the insti- 
tution of slavery. If we do not sustain the 
institutions of Christianity in our midst, it 
will not be two centuries until we shall b§ 
