zens as are represented by the petitioners. These citizens regard the Sabbath as holy; but the government virtually declares that this belief is superstitious, the error of narrow minds, and common, as Mr. Johnson says, to pagans and Christians; and by discrediting their faith in this particular, the government strikes a blow at religious influence generally. All the wicked say, amen. These scrupulous people who make such a parade about the Sabbath are weak superstitionists; why should we regard them? We have viewed this subject in the light of a civil claim. To such an argument we were obliged to descend with such legislators as the committee of the Senate. But we feel that in doing so, we have done injustice to the motives of the petitioners. It was a more sacred feeling than any of a personal nature which called forth this wide expression of wounded religious sensibility. It was a regard for interests infinitely more dear to the petitioners, than any personal interests they might be supposed to have in post-office patronage,-nay it is with an emotion of disgust that we speak of such a consideration, so diminutive and contemptible in comparison with all they felt to be involved in the moral welfare of this young, susceptible and immense republic. It was the calamitous consequences of national sin which they deprecated; consequences reciprocally calamitous to both the people and the government; -that government upon the preservation of which the happiness of so many millions is dependent, and that people in whose great destiny, good or evil, the world itself has so much at stake. They felt it their solemn duty to speak out, justly accusing themselves, as constituents of the government, of participating in the sin while they forbore to raise their voice against it. These were their motives-so calumniated by those who can neither appreciate nor apprehend them. Shall then the law pay so sacred a regard to the religious feelings of a single hamlet of Shakers, or a few hundreds of Sabbatarians, and shall this so deep, so hallowed and philanthropic sentiment of a ten thousand times greater number of citizens be not regarded? And are these the people and these the sensibilities which a republican committee can treat with suspicion and opprobrium? We dismiss this report of the committee of the Senate. We by no means regard it as an expression of the sentiments of that body-though we perceive it has its advocates in that house and in the other. The severest comment it can receive is the complacency with which it will be regarded by the irreligious part of the community. The most lax in morals will be loudest in its praise. The report concludes, we ought to notice, with a short homily to Christian professors. An exhortation to personal holiness and pious example comes with an excellent grace in such a connexion. The report to the House of Representatives is of a very different character from that to the Senate. It pays a just respect to the character and motives of the petitioners, and what is much more important, to the Sabbath itself. The committee believe, however, that the petitioners have not judged correctly as to the practicability of a compliance with their request, to its full extent. The reduction of the mail revenue, though it would be considerable, they regard as the smallest evil that would result from the measure proposed. They believe that evils of a moral nature would ensue, equal, if not greater than are the consequence of the present regulations. Whether they are right in this opinion the public will judge. Men of business, and others well situated to judge, have expressed a different opinion. For ourselves, we should like to see the experiment tried; and then, if this presumed consequence should actually ensue, it would be time perhaps to renew the Sunday mails. However, the facts and reasonings by which the committee sustain their opinion are certainly weighty and deserve very serious consideration. On the other branch of the subject, the delivery of letters on the Sabbath, the committee "earnestly recommend" that the practice be prohibited. They regard this as a greater evil than the passing of stages. Of large cities this is probably true. In New-York, for example, it is common, we understand, for several hundred persons at once to be collected at the post-office on a Sabbath morning. In smaller towns the contrary evil is probably the greater. Comparatively few mails are distributed in our villages on the Sabbath, while every stage coach that passes with its baggage and inmates, is to inany young eyes an example of Sabbath breaking. On the whole, the report of Mr. McKean is a kind and liberal document; it is sincere and moral in its conclusions; and though it does not go the full length of the wishes of the memorialists, it will be associated in their minds with nothing but respect for its author. Neither of the reports has been acted upon at the date of these remarks. Whatever the result may be, we rejoice that the subject has been brought before the public. It was an occasion which was wanted. It has called forth more extensively and harmoniously the moral sentiment of the people than any other subject could have done; for the Sabbath is alike dear to all Chris tians, of whatever name; and all are cheered and gladdened by this wide expression of their common feeling. The humble individual feels that the voice of thousands has spoke out the cherished sentiments of his own breast. The Christian patriot, that has mourned over our growing immoralites and seen portentous clouds gathering as he mused on our future prospects, is awakened from his despondency: he sees that there is yet a redeeming spirit in the land, and in the gladness of fresh hope, looks up with stronger faith for everlasting blessings on our country. We leave now this subject of the Sunday mails; and turn to other reflections which have occupied our minds in connexion with it. While we have contemplated the amazing responsibility of the government of this land, we have turned our eye over the land itself, and surveying its moral and political aspects, have asked ourselves what balance of probability there is, that we shall safely run the great career that is before us. There is no theme so common as our destined greatness. Not the multitude of ordinary declaimers merely, such as harangue the popular ear on a fourth-of-July, but our graver philosophers and statesmen, our men of eloquence and of fame, are wont to raise themselves and those who listen to them to the loftiest enthusiasm, by their splendid visions of what we are to become as a nation. There is one particular of these brilliant prophecies which we cannot fail to realize, for it is founded in the truth of numbers. We shall fill this broad land with people. Our census will go on, to twenties, fifties, and hundreds of millions, till every where, from one ocean to the other, we shall behold an immense and busy population.. But over the other features of the picture are cast the shadows of uncertainty. For what is to be the moral and civil condition of this immense people, the census does not tell us. It is a problem too, which those who speculate with most complacency upon our "great political experiment," too often imagine to be solved from very insufficient data. The inevitable dependence of our political on our moral prosperity is a contingency which their philosophy does not stoop to see or which at least their practice does not condescend to regard; for so far as their own moral example has its influence, it goes to a result opposite to that which they anticipate. We say the inevitable dependence of our political on our moral prosperity. For unless there can be preserved in these States a more pervading and efficient moral sentiment than has ever existed in any great community, they are destined to a brief prosperity as a nation. It is true of all governments, that the weaker they are in themselves, the more they need the support of the voluntary consent of their subjects, that the less inherent power they have to control the passions and interests of those over whom they are exercised, the more they are endangered by the prevalence of evil customs. But a government like ours has no inherent power-it is wholly dependent on the will of the people, and all its measures will derive their character and efficiency from the sentiments which the people are known to entertain. If sobriety and integrity prevail, wholesome laws will be faithfully executed. If morality declines, the reins of government will be relaxed. Laws, especially against vice, will be silent in the statute book. A licentious populace will no more voluntarily consent to the exercise of laws which restrain their vicious propensities, than a depraved individual will voluntarily conform himself to the precepts of virtue. Indeed, in a corrupt community, the readiest means by which a demagogue can win the popular favor, is to take sides with the vices of the people against the faithful magistrate. We could point to instances of the inefficacy of law unsupported by the public sentiment. We have laws against Sabbath breaking and against drunkenness and profaneness; but it were worse than in vain for any magistrate to attempt to enforce them. They are no longer laws but histories—a record of our fathers' virtues, rather than a part of our existing code. Such instances will multiply as licentiousness increases. You might make laws against theatrical performances or public races on the Sabbath, against gambling tables in the market-place, licentious exhibitions in the streets, or any other open immorality, and of what avail would they be, if there were not virtue enough in the people to authorize their execution. The strength of the law is the will of the people, and that is on the side of iniquity. With the decline of public virtue, not only wholesome laws, but every good institution declines likewise, and every pernicious institution and custom flourish. The house of God is neglected and the theatre is thronged-gambling houses and brothels put up their signs as conspicuously as exchange offices and inns, and a depraved press ministers at once to the passions of the vulgar and the vices of the refined. The restraints of virtue gone, the public peace is insecure. Crime comes abroad in the face of the police, and justice is awed by the mob. The character of magistrates is determined by the character of the people. Where wicked men throng the polls, wicked men will be the candidates for office; where honors are venal, corrupt men will buy them; and where the populace can be inflamed or flattered, obsequious or violent men will make them the instrument of their ambition. It is in such a community that the noble sentiment of patriotism has ceased to be a part of the moral being of the people, and gives way to a state of things in which aspiring demagogues, and dark conspirators, and loud disunionists, have every thing to hope for, and the true friends of liberty every thing to fear. Our civil institutions cannot survive our public morals. It is equally demonstrable that the public morals cannot be preserved without religion. To nothing less than the gospel, respected in its institutions and acknowledged in its influence, can we look for salvation in this respect. This proposition has abundant confirmation in the experience of mankind. It is written in all history, that in merely human institutions, or human wisdom, or in any motives you can present to men from a regard to the public good and their own interest, there is no efficacy to restrain effectually the universal and constant tendency of human nature to depravity of moral sentiment and practice. The grandest experiment ever made, of the kind which we are making, was made without Christianity and failed; and similar must be the result of all such experiments, ours as well as others, in proportion as they discard Christianity, and are conducted upon the principles of an unsanctified philosophy, whether infidel or pagan.* The gospel alone is the great reformer; and in proportion as mankind are unenlightened by its truths, uninfluenced by its motives, or unconstrained by the standard of character which it creates in a community, they will be immoral. Abundant and practical illustrations of this we have among our * We do not overlook the difference of circumstances between us and the ancient republics. But to the mind of an infidel, or to one who refuses to recognise the gospel as the true cause of our superior condition, as some of our statesmen at least practically do, the difference is not such as ought to render nugatory the lessons we would derive from those States. To such statesmen those lessons are full of practical truth.-It has been said that the single circumstance of our possessing the press essentially destroys the analogy supposed. But the press cannot change the essential principles of human nature. It can neither reach nor purify the sources of human conduct. It is a mere passive instrument, which in wicked hands is as terrible an engine of corruption, as in different circumstances it is the powerful friend of virtue. How much evil did it do in infidel France; how much does it do even in this country, restrained as it is by a religious public sentiment. What its moral effects would have been in pagan Greece or Rome, it is impossible to tell. That it would have increased the violence of faction, or gathered larger assemblies to obscene festivals and gladiatorial shows, seems more probable than that it would have calmed and purified society, or given permanency to their social institutions. |