Welcome to a reading of Prince Messiah's claims to dominion over all civil governments and the disregard of his authority by the United States Federal Constitution by James R. Wilson, Doctor of Divinity, Pastor of the Reformed Presbyterian Congregation of Albany, printed by Packer, Hoffman & White in 1832. We're reading Essay 2. This is produced by Stillwater Survival Books. The website address is www.swrv.com, and it is read by W. J. Mencaro. An Examination of the Constitution and Government of the United States Relative to Messiah's Claims The interests of personal morality, social order, and Christianity all that respects the improvement and comfort of our race in this life, all that prepares for immortal glory, are intimately connected with the form, the principles, and the administration of civil government. One of the great advantages derived from the reading of history is the instruction received. relative to the moral influence which different forms and diversified administrations of magistracy have on the citizens. Until within about half a century, it was usual for writers and the mass of the people to applaud the government under which they lived as the best in the world. And remember, this was written in 1832. Since the American Revolution, the spirit of the age in the old world has tended to deprecate the existing forms and administration of civil policy. This popular sentiment acquires strength every year. It convulses the continent of Europe and has brought the British Empire to the commencement of a concussion that bids fair soon to shake the whole moral world. On this side of the Atlantic, the people, having established by their representatives a federal constitution, have relapsed into the ancient temper of the nations, adulation of the form of government which they organize. This is self-adulation. The political machinery has wrought tolerably well for nearly fifty years, again written in 1832, as far as relates to the liberty of personals, the security of property, the increase of wealth, and the encouragement of enterprise. We may hope that the question is settled, that a civilized and Christian people can institute and administer, by representatives of their own free choice, a government that secures personal rights. But it is very possible that a more enlightened age will not think all the eulogies well merited which are now so liberally bestowed on our political institutions, that, by the blessing of God, the condition of our country is much better than that of any other nation in Christendom, must be admitted by all who are tolerably acquainted with the condition of the old world. There may be very great prosperity in the accumulation of property, in the cultivation of intellect, and in all the means of sensual gratification, and yet the morals of the people grow worse. This is demonstrated by the state of the Hebrew commonwealth in the latter part of the reign of Solomon, by the condition of Chaldea, when overrun, and its capital sacked by Cyrus, by the aspect of morals at Rome in the age of Cicero, and by the prosperity of the Roman Empire during the reign of Theodosius. Their opulence and refinement were carried to the highest pitch. All their morals were debased. Their prosperity was their ruin, because, being vicious, they abused their blessing. That civil governments may produce their happiest effects, they must be both well constituted and well administered. The lack of either the one or the other produces a desecration of public morals, which must result in national calamity. The kingdom of Israel had the very best possible constitution, for the wisdom of Jehovah framed it. being for some time badly administered under the influence of Solomon's strange wives, the young nobility, and of course the Commons became corrupted. This led to the rupture of the Commonwealth soon after the death of Solomon. The Commonwealth of Rome was never so well administered as during the reign of Theodosius, deservedly named the Great and Good, but the Constitution was bad, the very worst, perhaps, that ever cursed the world. It was essentially despotic. Theodosius was hardly cold in the grave when it was crushed nearly into ruins by the attacks of rude, savage hordes from the north. England is just now, perhaps, well-administered by Earl Grey and Lord Brom. Her wealth and learning fill the whole world with wonder. But the Constitution is essentially vicious. By its theory, the people derive all their rights from the king, and not the king from his authority from the people. The vice is radical. The disease is deadly. The people cannot secure their own place, but by an appalling revolution, which is, on the march with deliberate step, an awful majesty. Messiah the Prince must be honored, the church protected, and the rights of the people secured by the Constitution, and the government must be administered by men good and true, or national morals will degenerate and the people will suffer. In examining the government of the United States, two topics of inquiry merit attention. the moral aspect of the Constitution and the moral character of its administration. First, the moral aspect of the Constitution. The complexion of the United States Constitution in this respect strongly resembles that of all the 24 state constitutions. Were that remarkable instrument to be viewed in the mere light of a business transaction and not as a political sovereignty, perhaps all, and more than all, that has been uttered in its praise might be admitted. But it claims to be a true and proper civil magistracy. Some, indeed, have affected to regard it merely in the light of a business association, a partnership in trade, a mere treaty. The object of some who, honestly, perhaps, say they view it in that light, is nullification, the elevation of the state's sovereignties over the general government. The object of others is to flatter the occupants of power by apologizing in this way for the dishonor done Israel's God by refusing to recognize His claims on this land. The former are misguided politicians, the latter culpable ecclesiastics. Revelation 12.4 says, And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and it cast them to the earth. Let him that readeth understand. That this Constitution claims to found a true and proper political sovereignty appears from the following reasons. Number one, the Convention was called and convened for the express purpose of forming a national government instead of the old Confederacy. Under the old Articles of Confederation, Congress could legislate for states only and not for individual persons. In that respect, it resembled the Confederation of the Seven United Provinces and that of the Swiss Cantons. This had been found inadequate. The Act of Congress, recommending the call of the Convention, has these words, quote, Whereas experience hath evinced that there are defects in the present Confederation, as a mean to remedy which, several of the States, and particularly the State of New York, by express instruction to their delegates in Congress, have suggested a convention for the purposes expressed in the following resolution, and such convention appearing to be the most probable means of establishing in these States a firm national government. Resolved, that in the opinion of Congress it is expedient that a convention of delegates be held for the express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. and reporting such alterations and provisions therein as shall, when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the several States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union." From all this, Mr. Madison argues, Federalist No. 15, page 211, that the convention assembled in order, quote, to form a national government, unquote. The three great departments of a true and proper government enter into the organization of the federal powers, the legislative, the judiciary, and the executive. By the Constitution, the people and the states, by their ratification as states, transfer to the federal magistracy all true and distinct attributes of nationality. For example, no state shall enter into any treaty, coin money, etc. No state shall, without consent of Congress, lay any imports, etc. in the U.S. Constitution. Congress is vested with power to lay taxes, borrow and coin money, regulate commerce with foreign nations, establish a uniform rule of naturalization, secure copyrights, punish piracies and felonies, make war, raise armies, maintain a navy, and exercise exclusive legislation over such domains as are properly national. They have the power of life and death, which cannot be claimed without governmental authority. Hence, the people and all writers speak of the United States as the nation. No one ever says the nation of Pennsylvania, the nation of New York. All of the best standard writers treat of it as a real government. Madison, Hamilton, and Jay wrote the Federalist to convince the people that the Convention was justifiable in framing and that the condition of the Commonwealth required what the Convention had framed, a firm national government. Chancellor Kent, in his elaborate commentaries, affirms that the United States government, quote, is endowed with all the principal attributes of a true and proper political sovereignty. Now, if it is true that civil governments are bound to acknowledge the Lord and His Christ, and the United States has not done so, it will not avail to set up the defense that the Federal Constitution is a mere treaty. This apology was indeed made some years ago by a writer in Pennsylvania in reply to a very learned essay entitled, The Sons of Oil, by the Reverend Dr. Wiley, Professor of Languages in the Pennsylvania University. He might as well have pled that because the twelve tribes were confederated together under one government, they were on that account not bound as a confederated nation to acknowledge him that dwelt between the Cherubim. The government of this nation may be and shall be tested in relation to its moral attributes by the claims of Prince Messiah upon the political sovereignty, whatever unfaithful panders of the rulers of the darkness of this world may say to the contrary. The claims of the Lord of all cannot be set aside by subtle distinction of state rights and national jurisdiction. The United States are in the dominion of the King of Kings, and they ought to have politically honored him whom they have nationally dishonored, both in theory and in practice. These topics are worthy of the most sober investigation, that if great national sins have been committed, we may know them, acknowledge them in deep humiliation before God, pray for their pardon through the covenant mercies of the God of Israel, and reform them, that wrath come not upon us to the uttermost. Profane men and those that are at ease in Zion will no doubt call what is about to be uttered fault-finding by way of reproach, as they speak of the reproofs by one of the most distinguished of the Lord's ministers. Oh, it is a Jeremiad. The only reply which sneers like this deserve is, Mock not, lest thy bands be made strong, and he that being often reproved hardens his neck, shall be suddenly destroyed, and that without the remedy. The nation has sinned. first in the theory of the government. Atheists, deists, Jews, pagans, and profane men of the most abandoned manners are as eligible to office by the United States Constitution as men fearing God and hating covetousness. Its words are, quote, No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States. U.S. Constitution, Article 6, Section 3. God's law is, elect able men such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness. He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. This command of Jehovah prescribes at least three religious tests in these words. One, fearers of God, those who worship Him. How shall we know that any man fears God unless he makes a profession of his faith in Christ? 2. Men of truth, such as are sound in the faith, not mere professors of religion. For the pagan professes to fear God, but one who receives the true gospel of God. 3. Hating covetousness. Just men in their dealings. Men who perform the duties enjoined in the second table of the law, not profane swearers, Sabbath breakers, card players, and libertines. This is common sense, too. What can be more absurd than to set over a nation as rulers men who hate God, men of lies and lovers of covetousness? But the Constitution says expressly that what God commands shall not be done. This is surely a very great and direct moral evil in the Constitution. The Constitution, in effect, says to Prince Messiah, your command is that your friends shall be entrusted with power, but it shall not be done. Your enemies are as competent to bear rule as your friends. There is no recognition of the law of God in the instrument which gives the nation its national organization. The law of God is not named, and there is not any allusion to such a law, so far as the writer has perceived, except in two instances. The one is, in these words, in Article 2, Section 1, Specification 8, I do solemnly swear or affirm that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States. Here, there is an allusion to the third commandment, or at least to the declaration, an oath for confirmation is an end of all strife. It is pleasant to a lover of the Lord's law to find even this remote allusion. But was it intended to honor the law of the Lord as recorded in the Holy Scriptures? However agreeable to the benevolent heart to think so, we are constrained to think not. The affirmation will pass for the oath. Many infidels swear oaths in courts without intending to admit the truth of the Scriptures or to honor Messiah. Infidels were known at the time when the Constitution was framed to swear oaths of office and to swear as witnesses. Heathens are known to have sworn very solemnly by Job, Hercules, etc. The mere swearing is not at all distinctive of paganism, Mohammedanism, or of Christianity. The other instance in the Constitution occurs in Article 1, Section 7, Specification 2. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days, Sunday is accepted, after it shall be presented, etc. This implies that governmental business may be omitted on the Sabbath. The Constitution would not compel the President to spend the Sabbath in examining bills. He may, if he chooses, have that day for devotion. As a matter of fact, such was the influence of Christianity in the nation that congressional, judiciary, and executive proceedings were suspended on the Lord's Day. The Constitution did not enjoin its violation by the executive, but its binding force is not affirmed even by fair implication. The suspension of the legislative business, the closing of the federal courts, and the Presidents not issuing proclamations on the first day of the week with the hiring of a chaplain by Congress do not altogether amount to a recognition of the law of God, much less of the Christian religion. Thousands of professed deists, men who regard the whole Bible as a fabrication of priestcraft, do close their shops and offices on the Sabbath, hire preachers, and go to the church on that holy day, without at all intending to pledge themselves to Christianity. The mention of Sunday in this connection is a mere accommodation to popular sentiment. It is indeed astonishing that in a Christian commonwealth, where the great majority of the citizens were attached to some Protestant church, a constitution of government could have been framed with only two very remote and indirect allusions merely to the law and Bible of God. The fact demonstrates how very careful the framers were to avoid every word that might be construed into a declaration of respect to the statutes of Jehovah. That the national functionaries have so understood it all along appears from the reports made by Colonel Johnston, both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, and from the fact that Congress made the doctrine of the reports national principles, for they, on the reasons assigned, refused to stop the mail. The essence of both these reports is that the law of God does not bind the government of the United States and that to admit the obligation of the statutes of Jehovah would be a monstrous evil. Truly, Messiah is a merciful prince. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords is not acknowledged by the remotest allusion to the claims of his holy government. Hence, the nation says, we will not have this man to reign over us. A fundamental theory, or maxim, on which the Convention proceeded rendered such an acknowledgment impossible. The maxim is this. All men, whatever may be their religious or irreligious tenets, have an equal right to participate in the civil privileges of the Commonwealth. There were infidels in the Convention. At present, it is sufficient to mention Dr. Franklin and Mr. Madison. Had there been any act of homage to Messiah, Lord of all, it would have excluded every infidel Jew and pagan from all those offices to which an oath to the Constitution was annexed. To have honored Christ would have introduced a religious test. The utter exclusion of any moral qualifications or test rendered it impossible to acknowledge either Messiah the King or the Christian religion without self-contradiction. As the right to reign and the duty of obedience are correlates, it is certainly true, since Messiah is the Prince of the kings of the earth, that the national constitution is sinful in refusing this allegiance. However infidels may rage and imagine a vain thing, they that love the Savior of sinners and wish to honor the Son of God who died to save them will mourn over the dishonor which has been done to their Lord and King by this nation. The Constitution positively declares that nothing shall be done by the government for the advancement of the Christian religion. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. Article 1. The words are not Congress shall not establish any religion, but, quote, no law respecting the establishment of religion. Whatever has any respect to religion or tends to give it stability is prohibited in this article. Any act of homage to Almighty God is religion. Any law that would encourage or countenance an act of homage to Jehovah would tend to the establishment of religion. Here, then, is an institution which some men say is an ordinance of God, but which does solemnly disclaim the doctrine of being ordained by Him. and which formally proclaims that it will not do anything to promote the glory of his holy name. What should we say of the ambassador of a nation who would publicly announce his intention to do no act for promoting the honor of those whom he represents? We have the promise of our God that in New Testament times it shall be otherwise. Kings shall be thy nursing fathers and their queens thy nursing mothers. They shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth and lick up the dust of thy feet. On the theory of the U.S. Constitution, this cannot take place. Why treat thus all religion? Why disenfranchise by a solemn act the Church of the living God? Is the benevolent, pure, holy, heaven-born religion of Immanuel hostile to the happiness of the Republic? Shall commerce, agriculture, the arts, literature, all the other lawful pursuits, be countenanced, fostered, protected, and established on as permanent a basis as possible, and the true religion be put under the ban of the empire? But, they say, let religion alone. Do they, however, adopt the laissez-moi faire in relation to manufacturers and trade? We cherish all, but respecting the advancement of religion, Congress shall never do anything. When the child is born, were the father and mother to say, leave the babe to itself, would that be to act as a nursing father and mother? Surely no. There must be a far different kind of constitution among the nations when the promise is fulfilled that kings shall be nursing fathers. God Almighty says in the text quoted above that civil rulers shall nurse the church. The Constitution says they shall not, which is right. Ah, sinful nation, laden with iniquity! God spares the world for the sake of His redeemed, that His moral subjects on earth may be, by the gospel of His Son, reclaimed from sin and rebellion, that on the earth, through His own holy religion, He may expiate the glories of redemption. The Constitution says religion shall be discountenanced by the Congress of the United States. There is no acknowledgment of Almighty God, nor any, even the most remote, token of national subjection to Jehovah, the Creator, in the Constitution. It is believed that there never existed, previous to this Constitution, any national deed like this since the creation of the world, a nation having no God. In vain shall we search the annals of pagan Greece and Rome, of modern Asia, Africa, pagan America, and the isles of the seas, They have all worshipped some God. The United States had none. But here let us pause over this astounding fact. Was it a mere omission? Did the convention that framed the Constitution forget to name the living God? Was this an omission in some moment of national frenzy when the nation forgot God? That indeed were a great sin. God says the nations that forget God shall be turned into hell. It was not, however, a thoughtless act, an undesigned omission. It was a deliberate deed, whereby God was rejected, and in the true atheistical spirit of the whole instrument, and, of course, done with intent to declare national independence of the Lord of hosts. We have seen that the Convention was convened to correct what was thought to be improper in the old Articles of the Confederation. These Articles were ratified 1778, July 9. The enacting clause has these words. And whereas it hath pleased the great Governor of the world to incline the hearts of the legislatures we respectively represent in Congress to approve of the said Articles of Confederation, know ye that we entirely ratify, etc. Here, the formal reason of the ratification is that the great Governor of the world inclined the hearts of the state legislatures to adopt the Articles of Confederation. This did acknowledge Jehovah. Deis could unite, and Deis did unite in this deed, for there was no recognition of Messiah. Among the Deis who subscribe these articles we find Thomas McKean and Dr. Franklin. It was a radical defect in that deed that the Lord Jesus was not recognized as sovereign of the United States. It was a perilous period of our history, and perhaps even Deis had some faint knowledge of the nation's need of the divine aid. When, on the 17th of December, 1787, nine years, three months, and eight days after the ratification of the old Articles, the present U.S. Constitution was adopted, there is no allusion to the great Governor of the Universe. Can any man believe that the name of the Lord God was thus expunged without agreement by learned men who examined everything? No. But we have evidence that God was formerly and solemnly rejected. Franklin, it is said by men who had an opportunity of knowing, proposed in the convention the introduction into the Constitution of an article professing submission to the Lord, and he was overruled. It comes from Sermons on the Late War by the Reverend Dr. McLeod of New York, page 55 and 57. See the manuscript minutes of the convention. Dr. Franklin was notoriously a deist. And those who overruled his motion must have been worse than deists, even atheists. Can any man doubt that they were without God or atheists? Who of them all gave any decisive evidence of their being Christians except William Few? I do not speak certainly, but a biography of the members of that convention as to their fearing God would not, it is believed, add much to the moral honor of our country. When the country was plainly in peril and the arm of Jehovah perceived to be necessary for our defense, then the God of creation was acknowledged. But when He had conducted our armies to victory and set our country free from the oppression of foreign despotism, then, with a blackness of ingratitude and an atheistical impiety, His name was erased from the fundamental law of the empire. There was still other aggravation of this national sin. After, as is affirmed, I think on good authority, the convention had had some days in session, and was rent by the most violent passions, with little, perhaps no prospect of success in forming a constitution, it was proposed by Franklin and resolved to open the sessions by prayer to God. The business, from the adoption of that measure, proceeded with some degree of harmony. After such a demonstration of the presence and mercy of the Lord, was it not enough, as Dr. Mason of New York said in another case, to make the devil blush that they proceeded deliberately to blot out his name from the Constitution? Of the convention in this and not in a few other transactions, it may be said in scripture style they did not that which was right in the sight of the Lord. Millions of men are held in bondage under the most solemn sanction of the United States Constitution. Slaves had been introduced into the colony of Virginia by a Dutch slave trader many years before the commencement of the Revolution. The planters of the southern colonies had formed the habit of executing their labor by slaves. Many, indeed a great majority of the people of the northern and middle states, were always adverse to Negro slavery. The members of the Convention from the North were opposed, generally, to the slave trade. Yet some of the Boston and Rhode Island merchants had embarked a large capital in this traffic. The members from the South refused to accede to the formation of a permanent bond of union unless their right both to hold slaves and to import them was guaranteed by the Constitution. Perhaps no topic excited in the Convention a deeper interest than this one. notwithstanding all that had been taught in the Declaration of Independence, all the treasure that had been expended, and all the blood that had been shed in the cause of freedom. Yet the Convention did guarantee the right of importing slaves from the time of the adoption of the Constitution until the first of January, 1808, a period of twenty years, three months, and thirteen days. I am thus particular, for every one of these days, and even the hours, must be accounted for to Messiah the Prince, who came to proclaim liberty to the captives in the opening of the prison to them that are bound. The Constitution says, quote, The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by Congress prior to the year 1808. Article 1, Section 4, Specification 1. The Convention blushed to name the Negro slaves in the slave trade and used a circumlocution as if a figure of speech would conceal that iniquity for which conscience was chiding them when the article was penned and ratified. It will not avail to say that the deed was merely passing it by. It was much more. The slave ships with cargoes of African slaves were as much under the protection of the American stars and stripes as the flannel of Britain or the bar iron of Sweden. It was a national slave trade. As the species of property was acquired under the sanction of the Constitution, so it is retained under a solemn national guarantee. The United States are the slaveholders, as well as the several states and the individual masters. Direct taxes, says the Constitution, shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons three-fifths of all other persons. U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, Specification 2. These other persons are slaves, an abominable term which they were, as before, ashamed to employ while they sanctioned the evil. These slaves are then taxable property by the letter and spirit of the Constitution. So the article is expounded by the Federalists, written by Mr. Hamilton, Jay, and Madison, and by all writers on the national jurisprudence who are quoted as the best authority. The Federal Constitution therefore decides with great propriety on the case of our slaves when it views them in the mixed character of persons and property. Imported under the protection of the American flag, and secured to their owners by the plighted faith of the nation as property, they are now held by the nation as part of its wealth. When, to use the words of Mr. J. and the Federalist, a tariff of contribution is to be adjusted. This doctrine is more distinctly laid down in other parts of the Constitution. The United States shall protect each of them, the states, against domestic violence. Domestic violence is a phrase which in this connection can neither be misunderstood nor explained away. Since the slaves are taxed as property of the nation, the Constitution pledges the power of the United States to sustain the master against any violent measures that the slave may employ to recover his freedom. Again, quote, No person held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due. Unquote. U.S. Constitution, Article 1, Section 4. If the slave escapes from the state where he is enslaved to another, where there are no slaves, that other is bound by the Constitution to deliver him up to the master who claims him. Slavery, indeed, is made one of the pillars of the government. Representative shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons three-fifths of all other persons. Hence the holding of Africans in bondage is made one of the pillars on which the fabric of American freedom is made to rest, thus committing the twofold evil of making slavery essential to the Constitution and of violating the holy and benign doctrine of representation, which is the palladium of religious and civil liberty. That slave property is guaranteed by the Constitution has been solemnly decided by the representatives of the nation in many legislative acts. After protracted argument in Congress on the question of admitting Missouri with her slave-holding constitution into the Union, it was decided in favor of her admission on the ground that slaves are held under constitutional guarantee. Congress has passed many laws on the subject of slaves. By one act, the United States courts are vested with jurisdiction in questions arising under the slave trade. By another, the mode is prescribed in which runaway slaves shall be reclaimed and restored to their masters in the non-slave-holding states. By the several acts of Congress fixing the ratio of representation, the doctrine and practice of slavery are recognized. Many laws passed for the government of Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi before they became states, and of the Floridas and District of Columbia, now under territorial regime, respect slaves. In all the territories, the United States government is the slaveholder, for the political sovereignty of the territory is vested in no intermediate authority. All the slave laws of the District of Columbia are enacted by the federal legislature. No jurist in the nation is ever presumed to maintain, however adverse many of them are to slavery, that these legislative acts of Congress are unconstitutional. In addition to all this massive evidence, it may be added that numerous causes have been and are every year decided in the courts in applying these acts, and every judge holds himself bound by his oath of office to apply the laws against the African slave whenever any question arises on the right of tenure between him and his master. The late insurrection of the slaves in North Carolina and Virginia has been quelled by the United States troops ordered out by the President as executor of the laws of the United States. So then, we have first, the convention that framed the Constitution, embodying slavery in several parts of the fundamental law of the Commonwealth. Second, the federal legislature enacting laws under the provisions of the Constitution. Third, the judiciary applying the law and adjudications of slave questions. And fourth, the Chief Executive Magistrate enforcing slavery by the Army of the United States. Slavery is interwoven with the whole web and texture of the federal government. All this is in direct opposition to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which provides that, quote, no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. By what due process of law has the African been deprived of his liberty? Was it a due process of law to make war on the unoffending tribes of Africa, waste and destroy whole populous nations, and seize, bind in chains, and sell to the southern planters, a ship loaded of men? In 1830, if there were in the United States, two million 10,575 Africans deprived of their liberty by no other process of law than that of wasting and destroying countries and of binding and selling the unoffending children of poverty. The United States legislature has passed sentence on their own doings. By a law passed since 1808, the slave trade is declared to be piracy. In the whole annals of legislation, where should we find anything analogous to this? After prosecuting this trade nationally for twenty years, three months, and thirteen days, Congress declares the doings of slave traders piracy, though they had traded under the protection of the national flag. What are we to infer respecting him who holds property which he acknowledges to have been acquired by piracy? But there has been no national acknowledgment of the sin against God and man, no asking of pardon from God, no restitution. It is not wonderful that the United States Senator from Rhode Island, who had amassed a large estate by trading in slaves, always voted in the negative on the passage of a piracy bill through the Senate. We may well believe that he saw before his mind's eye the pirate's gibbet. On the subject of the evil thus sanctioned by the highest human authority in this nation, Mr. Jefferson, in his notes on Virginia, page 240, 1, 240-241, makes the following, among other very impressive observations. Quote, The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part and degrading submission on the other. Quote, The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undeprayed by such circumstances. He goes on, Jefferson says, Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God, that they are to be violated but with His wrath? The following sentiment, though a thousand times quoted, will bear to be many times yet repeated. Again, from Jefferson. Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever, that considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune and exchange of situation is among probable events, that it may become probable by supernatural interference. The Almighty has no attribute which can take part with us in such a contest. With what execration should the statesmen be loaded, who, permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the other, transforms those into despots, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the twelve states do all this now, solemnly, deliberately, and under the form of law. The convention that framed the national constitution have done this. The United States Congress, Senate, and Executive have been doing this for more than forty-four years. They have thus dishonored Messiah the Prince, who is the friend of liberty, for he came to proclaim liberty to the captive and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. These moral evils embodied in the doctrines of the fundamental law of the empire have produced practical results over which every true disciple of Christ and Christian patriot will mourn. First, ungodly men have occupied and do now occupy many of the official stations in the government. The clause of the Constitution, barring all moral qualifications, has not been a dead letter. There have been seven Presidents of the United States, and of each of them it may be said, as Jehovah says of the kings of Israel after the revolt of the ten tribes, he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord. Washington was raised up in the providence of God like Cyrus of Persia and qualified for great achievements. He was an able captain and an instrument of much temporal good as a statesman. Few, if any, prominent men in any nation have been endowed by the common gifts of the Spirit with more ennobling qualities than the first president of this nation. His fame fills the civilized world. It is to the honor of the Protestant religion that this country produced such a man. What was Bolivar compared with Washington? All this praise may be awarded to one who, like the amiable young man in the Gospel, went away from Jesus sorrowful because he had great possessions. There is no satisfactory evidence that Washington was a professor of the Christian religion or even a speculative believer in its divinity before he retired from public life. In no state paper, in no private letter, in no conversation is he known to have declared himself a believer in the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God. General eulogy by a Weems or a Ramsey will not satisfy an enlightened inquirer. The faith of the real believer in the Word of God is a principle so powerfully operative that you cannot conceal its light under a bushel. It works by love, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Is it probable that he was a true believer in Jesus Christ and his Bible when in times so trying and in a Christian nation he wrote thousands of letters and yet never uttered a word from which it can be fairly inferred that he was a believer? Whoever questioned whether Theodosius or Charlemagne believed the Bible, he that is not against us is for us, and it is as true that he who is not for us is against us. Washington did pray, it is said, in secret on his knees during the Battle of Brandywine. That may be true, and yet like Thomas Paine, who is known to have prayed, he may have been an unbeliever. Is it probable that he would have attended balls, theaters, and the card table had he been a disciple of Christ? Rousseau, an avowed infidel, has said more in honor of Christ than is known to have been uttered by Washington. He was a slaveholder, which was doing evil in the sight of the Lord. His Sabbaths were not spent as the fears of the Lord employed that holy day. His death, as recorded by Dr. Ramsey, is much more like a heathen philosopher's than like that of a saint of God. Washington was president of the convention that voted the name of the living God out of the Constitution. His influence was great among the members of that body. Had he taken part with Dr. Franklin in the attempt to have an acknowledgment of God inserted in the Constitution, they could have hardly failed of success. The conviction forces itself upon us that that act of national impiety was done with the approbation of Washington. It is to his everlasting dishonor that he is not known to have opposed that insult offered to the Lord God who had made him so great and successful a captain. While president in Philadelphia, his habit was to arise and leave the church when the sacrament of the supper was dispensed. After the Reverend Dr. Abercrombie had preached a faithful sermon against the evil example thus set by the President of the United States, General Washington remarked that he would not set such an example for the future, and from that time he did not attend church on the Sabbath in which the Lord's Supper was dispensed. When the several classes of citizens were addressing Washington on his retirement from office, the clergy, who doubted his Christianity, resolved to frame an address so that he could not evade in his reply an expression of his faith, if he were really a believer. He did, however, evade it, and the impression left on the mind of one of the clergy, at least, was that he was a deist. Mr. Jefferson affirms that Washington was a deist. To be ashamed of Christ, which no one can reasonably doubt he was, is infidel. He did not set an example of godliness before the nation over which in the providence of God he was made president. The cabinet which General Washington chose indicates that he was not a fearer of the Lord. Mr. Hamilton, his Secretary of the Treasury, was an unchaste man and died by a duel. Mr. Jefferson, his Secretary of State, was an avowed infidel who mocked at everything sacred. You know men by their society. Among the members of the First Cabinet of the Federal Executive, vital godliness would have been mocked as fanaticism. Which of the heads of departments prayed in his family daily? Which of them sanctified the Lord's Day by abstaining from worldly conversation, company, and business? The practical piety of the Bible as exhibited in Boston's fourfold state, Edwards on the affections and McLeod's on true godliness, had she been introduced to the inmates of Washington's palace, would have been derided as a fanatic. Washington was succeeded by Mr. John Adams, a lawyer of some distinction, who wrote and published an elaborate work on the Federal Constitution. He is the only president of the United States who has, in a public document, so far as the writer recollects, acknowledged Jesus Christ. In his proclamation of a fast, he invites the nation to seek the favor of heaven, quote, through the Redeemer. He sealed his Unitarianism at the communion table of Dr. Joseph Priestley, the Sassinian in Philadelphia, while he was Secretary of State. He had been a constant hearer and admirer of Priestly for some time before he ratified, at his sacrament, the rejection of Messiah's Godhead. Mr. Jefferson, the successor of Mr. Adams, was an avowed infidel and notoriously addicted to immorality. To the common decency of Washington or Adams' moral deportment, he had no pretensions. His notes on Virginia contain very satisfactory evidence that the author, when he composed that work, was an enemy to reveal religion and a virulent foe to the Church of God. Had the people of the United States known the immorality of his private life and the scorn with which he treated the religion of Jesus, it is surely impossible that he could have been elected to the first office in their gift. Mr. Jefferson's successor, Mr. Madison, was educated by godly parents with a view to the ministry of reconciliation. He commenced the study of theology under the care of Dr. Witherspoon, president of Princeton College, where he attended a prayer meeting of the pious youth of that seminary who were preparing for the Holy Ministry. When he returned from Princeton to his father's house in Virginia, Mr. Jefferson was a young village lawyer who had attracted the notice of the neighborhood by his regular business habits in collecting debts, drawing indentures, etc. Madison, to the grief of his parents, abandoned his study of theology and entered the office of the infidel and libertine Jefferson as a student of law. Though Mr. Madison has pledged himself neither in public nor private to the belief of Christianity, yet he is not known to have employed his influence like Jefferson in attempts to abolish the Christian faith. The value of a religious education is strikingly illustrated in the private character of James Madison. Jefferson probably made him a deist, and yet his moral deportment, as it regards the second table of the law, has been respectable. All the influence of the infidel creed and the profligacy of morals about court have not been of sufficient force to demolish utterly the fabric of a religious education. For the honor of the country, we may hope that he will not contrive to die on the fourth of July. Mr. Monroe lived and died like a second-rate Athenian philosopher. Mr. John Quincy Adams and General Jackson are yet in public life. Compare their characters with those of Hezekiah and Josiah, fearers of the Lord, who reigned over Israel, and there will be little difficulty in estimating the amount of holiness which they practice in the fear of the Lord. No Federal Cabinet, since the first formed, has given any more evidence of the fear of the Lord than did that of Washington. Some state governors have been professors of the Christian religion, but in too many instances the state cabinet has resembled in irreligion that of the federal government. There have been seven governors of Pennsylvania and the same number of New York. Their characters have been generally analogous to those of the presidents. One in Pennsylvania and two in New York are believed to have been possessors of religion. The heads of departments in the federal government have been, with very few exceptions, destitute of all pretensions to the character of fearers of the Lord. In the session of Congress 1829-30, no more than seven out of 309 members of Congress could be prevailed on to meet and pray together. The patron of this city, whose character is as an exemplary Christian as well known, informs the writer of these pages that when he was in Congress, the number of praying members was greater, so that there is increasing degeneracy. So unusual is practical religion among public men that to many it would seem ridiculous for a governor to pray with his family evening and morning. Can anything have a more malign influence on the cause of vital godliness than that statesmen and officers of the Army and Navy, who are avowedly irreligious and even profane swears, card players, Sabbath breakers, and libertines, are the constant themes of eulogy, The collisions of the factions indeed begins to render public men objects of distrust. If we believe one half of what the public journals assert, respecting the baseness of the leading politicians, if but a little of all that is uttered by such men as Barian, Branch, Ingham, etc., respecting their compares is true, There is a most scandalous degradation of moral principle among those who should be emphatically the fearers of the Lord, the exemplars of religion, and the conservators of social virtue. Every patriot who knows how low the state of morals is at the seat of the general government blushes for his country, while the genuine disciple of Christ sighs and cries for all the abominations that be done in the city of Washington and at the capitals of the several states. How rare are such statesmen as the exemplary Governor of Broome of New Jersey, the late Governor Crafts, and the present Governor Palmer of Vermont. Such statesmen shine as bright lights amidst the surrounding darkness. They are not ashamed in the private walks of life nor in public documents to acknowledge themselves the disciples of Christ Jesus and the subjects of Messiah the Prince. The Unitarian heresy through the influence of Mr. Adams has prevailed extensively in New England. and deism in the southern states through that of Mr. Jefferson. When Mr. Adams was elected to the presidency, there was not one of the congregational ministers of the New England states known to be a Unitarian. The Unitarian heresy denies the divinity of the Savior, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and the atonement for sin by Jesus Christ. By the connection of Mr. Adams with Dr. Priestley, the books of Arians and Sassinians were placed in the University of Boston. that the President patronized these heresies was enough to recommend them to multitudes of thoughtless young men. Harvard University in Boston, with very ample revenues, supports more than twenty professors who are all Unitarian. It has the command of a printing press which diffuses Unitarian literature over the whole nation. The counters of the bookstores in Boston groan with heretical publications. The majority of the general court or legislature of the state of Massachusetts is believed to have been for several years Unitarian. The officiating chaplains have been Unitarian. We have no statistics of the Unitarian clergy, for they are connected with the Congregational Convention of the state of Massachusetts and found in the associations and consociations of the New England states, but we cannot estimate too high their number by setting it down at 200. They are rapidly increasing. It is no fancy, no idle imagination to trace this great declension of the Puritan churches of Boston and its vicinity to the malign influence of a Sassanian president. Jeroboam set up calves at Dan and Bethel, and his idolatry continued until the dispersion of the Ten Tribes. The New England heretics have not departed from the sins of Jeroboam, the sons of Nebat, who made Israel to sin. Deism prevailed long and still prevails in the southern states. as the luxuriant opulence of Boston, derived from her trade with the Indies, prepared her for the reception of Unitarianism, so the demoralizing influence of slavery in the South paved the way for the spread of deism from the palace by Mr. Jefferson. His notes on Virginia and the conversations which a president of his talents and popularity held with his special friends could not fail to corrupt the Southern people. His gross blasphemies, which he had prepared for posthumous publication, and which his grandson, Mr. Randolph, has published in his life, were retailed from year to year during his whole life after his return from France. The power and reputation of the President operated as a premium for embracing infidelity. It is true that of late years the name of Unitarianism has been worn as a mask by the infidels of the South. But deism lives and flourishes under the shade of Jefferson's name. Other heresies and errors increase in all parts of the nation, producing violent strifes and fierce passions even in the bosoms of the several denominations of Christians. Those who hold the ancient and pure truths of the gospel and desire to apply them faithfully as their fathers have done are reproached as bigots by those who have adopted more convenient creeds for the purpose of flattering the depravity of human nature and of paying court to the ungodly great. The morals of the citizens are becoming more and more corrupt. Boston is nearly as immoral as ancient Tyre was. How are the mighty fallen? The writer of these pages, in the summer of 1815, in traveling from Albany to Boston, and from Boston to New Haven, does not recollect to have seen one person in a state of intoxication, nor to have heard more than two or three profane expressions. In 1921, only six years afterward, making a tour through New England from Hartford to Northampton, thence to Boston and through Rhode Island and Connecticut, he believes that he heard profane swearing and saw indications of intemperance at every public house where he called. The Sabbath is very grossly and scandalously violated in all parts of the United States. It is true the federal and state legislatures and the courts of justice do yet adjourn on the Lord's holy day. But how do the officers of government spend their Sabbaths? Which of them reads the Holy Scriptures, spending the whole time in the public and private exercises of religion? The transportation of the mails, the opening of the post offices, and the diffusion of political and other secular intelligence profane the Sabbath and corrupt the public mind. The bustle of steamboat and canal navigation and traveling by stages and railroad cars have nearly divested the Lord's Day of the appearance of holiness. Few, very few, hesitate to travel by steamboat and canal packets on Sabbath. Not a few professors of religion and, oh shame, some ministers of the Gospel, with shameless front, travel on the Lord's Day for mere secular objects. But we must not wonder, however much we regret, that those professors who flatter vile men in high places will copy their example in trampling underfoot the holy day, which has been consecrated by the authority of God to religion. During less than fifty years that this government has been in operation, the sin of drunkenness has prevailed and increased to an extent that is filled with alarm all good men. To arrest these and other evils, great efforts are made by the friends of Christian morality. Much has been done to instruct the public in relation to the claims of the Sabbath and other institutions of heaven upon all classes of the citizens. They have not, however, done much more than to stay a little the progress of your religion. To support all the immoralities embodied in the United States and other constitutions, those who enter on nearly all civil offices, and the professors in many literary institutions, in Pennsylvania particularly, take solemn oaths. Where is the man who, believing, as perhaps nearly all the citizens of the northern states do, Negro slavery to be a moral evil, would lift up his hand and swear to recognize and support an aidman in the commission of this sin? If the nation is chargeable with guilt in this matter, the sin surely rests on all those who bind themselves by oaths to support those constitutions in which the evil is embodied. The oath comprehends the evil as well as the good in the instrument. The moral evils entering into the principles of the fundamental law of the commonwealth ramify through nearly all political transactions of this nation's. Thousands commit this sin without a moment's reflection. Some indeed do reflect and say, there are immoralities in the Constitution, but it makes provision for its own amendment. Therefore I swear to the evils intending to procure their reform. But what is this? The thing sworn to is a sin. May anyone swear to support sin for one moment? This is doing evil that good may come, whose damnation God says is just. Romans 3.8. Let all the fears of the Lord, all who love to honor the Lord Jehovah and His holy law, all who honor and adore Prince Messiah, reflect on the fearful fact that nearly all the men who enter on the discharge of their official functions are qualified for those public offices by swearing an oath that involves what is contrary to the law of God, the rights of man, and the honor and glory of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords. The extent of this evil is not a little enlarged by the consideration that the people who elect them to office choose them as their representatives to swear in the name of their constituents these immoral oaths. It is a maximum of law, quote, facet per allium, facet per se. He that does any act by his delegate is accountable for the act as his own. The spectacle then is presented of a whole nation at their annual election choosing men to swear as their representatives to an instrument that involves moral evils. The trial by jury is converted into an instrument of oppression. The jury was instituted as the sanctuary of liberty, as a barrier against the encroachments of despotism on the rights and liberties of the subjects. How it changed in all the slave-holding states from its original institution. The Africans are men. Slaveholders may bluster, the friends of oppression may, and men who seek the suffrages and political adhesion of slaveholders may banter, but the Africans are men. Before God and the universe, their right to protection by every legal barrier is as good as that of any British subject or American citizen ever was. But the trial by jury, instead of being the guardian of human liberty, has become an engine of oppression. It has become the shambles of the South where human flesh is transferred, and the commercial transactions in the souls and bodies of men are recorded and ratified under the forms of law. Never was there a more shameful or wanton perversion of a noble institution. Every juror in the slave-holding states, when impaneled, swears to legalize the property in human flesh and blood. He binds himself to make the payment of a bond in slave property a legal payment. Idolatries and blasphemous heresies are chartered and corrupt the citizens under the sanction of public law. Under the head of persecution, it has commonly been said that this nation is not chargeable, as the despotisms of Europe are with the sin of persecuting the saints of the Most High. Of direct persecution, it never was guilty, until within the last year. Two missionaries are now imprisoned at hard labor among the bases of criminals in the penitentiary at Milledgeville, Georgia. The pretense, indeed, is, as it always has been, that they oppose the government of the country. They were employed to preach the gospel to the Indians in Georgia. The legislature of that state, desirous to possess themselves of the lands of the Indians, had been making encroachments on their territories and employing means calculated to force them to sell out their lands and migrate to the West. The labors of the missionaries, it was thought, tended to increase their attachment to their native soil. The state legislature passed an act declaring that every white man within the territories of the Indian tribes should be removed who would not swear an oath of allegiance to the state government of Georgia. In order to terrify the missionaries, an armed force was sent to the missionary station. The missionaries were dragged by violence from their field of labor. Mr. Worcester, one of them, was a postmaster in the United States. On this ground, the judge before whom he was brought dismissed him. But application was made to the Postmaster General, Mr. Worcester was dismissed from office, and he with Mr. Butler was ordered to swear an oath to the Constitution of Georgia, which embodies slavery in several of its provisions. The missionaries refused to swear the oath on various grounds. Among one was that the government of Georgia had no right to demand of them the oath as they were citizens of the United States. This is certainly safe ground. For their refusal to swear an oath which they pled was against their conscience On a sense of duty, they have been condemned to the penitentiary for the space of four years, where they are now suffering among infamous felons. With this act of persecution, both the government of Georgia and the national government are chargeable. It is evident that the government of the United States removed the missionary from office in order thereby to deliver him over to the Georgia persecutors. It is somewhat to be feared that the government will make still further encroachments on the liberties of the Church, assailing one denomination after another, until the notion that all will not unite in defense of one member. In this they will err. Men cry out, Church and State, through pretense that they fear persecution. But in the suffering of the Georgia missionaries we have the whole evil, persecution, which men profess to dread in the senseless clamor about Church and State. Of the land which has thus dishonored God, Messiah the Prince says, as he did to Israel by Isaiah the prophet, Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth. I have nourished and brought up children, but they have rebelled against me. Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity! Someone perhaps may say, These are evils, but why exhibit them? Is it none more pleasant to dwell in all that is good in the institutions of the land? Undoubtedly it is. But how shall we be reminded of the necessity of being humbled before God for these sins, of seeking pardon for national transgressions through the blood of that Redeemer who has been dishonored, and of reforming the evils which debase so many and promote the wrath of Almighty God, unless the voice be lifted up like a trumpet to cry aloud and not despair? After all, there is no reason to be dispirited in view of these evils. The Lord is in Zion, great and high above all people. Prince Messiah, whose covenant, entered into by our fathers, this land has violated, whose crown it has trampled in the dust, and whose church it has despised, and whose enemies it has honored, has an arm that is full of power, and he will plead his own cause. He will subdue the people to allegiance, for the rod of his strength goeth forth out of Zion. The King's heart is in his hand, and he turneth it as the rivers of water, whethersoever he will. Of all the nations of the world, none has partaken more amply of the divine bounty than these United States. The sins of the nation are indeed aggravated, but the divine goodness has not been withdrawn from us. Though when God cometh out of his place to punish terribly the inhabitants of the earth, we shall not escape the rod of chastisement, yet we may hope that the visitation will be in mercy. The remnant shall be affrighted and give glory to God. In this commonwealth the exercise of government by the representatives of the people have given security to liberty and property, and it has been productive of great and national prosperity. This principle of governing by the will of the majority is not indeed sufficient to make a magistracy the ordinance of God or to secure for it the divine approbation. The government of the ten tribes of Israel after their revolt from the house of David, when Jeroboam was elected president by a majority of the people, was not the ordinance of God. For God himself says of this deed of that people, They have set up kings, but not by me. They have made princes, and I knew it not. Hosea 8. They had neither the divine warrant nor approbation for what they did in the constitution of their government. Yet it was the doing of all the people. That throne decreed iniquity by a law in setting up the calves at Dan and Bethel. Therefore God had no fellowship with it. The government by the majority was good in principle, but the multitude did evil. On the success of this principle of self-government by the representatives of the people depend the liberties of the nations. To wrest this right from the hands of the despots of the earth, the people of the old world are putting forth in various forms their energies. It is this conflict between liberty and despotism that convulses the civilized nations of Europe with revolutionary movements. The example of these states is exhibited in God's providence to the whole world, that the friends of liberty and man may be animated to perseverance. This encourages the hope that Messiah, the depository of the mercies of the Godhead, will not abandon our land for its many sins, and He will dispense to us pardon, though He will take vengeance on our sinful deeds. Besides, there is some reason to believe that the people were not so bad as a few practical atheists into whose hands the management of the national affairs fell immediately after the Revolution. These men voted God out of the Constitution and discarded all moral qualifications for office. But the people, pending the election of Mr. Jefferson to the office of President, adopted a test. The opponents of that gentleman insisted he was an infidel, and therefore not to be honored with the highest office and the gift of the people. His friends admitted the doctrine that a deist ought not to be president, but denied the charge against Mr. Jefferson. His notes on Virginia are essentially deistical, but comparatively few had read them. The people, many thousands of Christians, did not believe the charge, and thinking it a slander of his political enemies, they voted for him. Had the people known his malevolent opposition to the Bible, truth, church, and worship of God as it is now known, the writer believes that he never would have been President of the United States. That very contest rendered deism forever unpopular in this nation. Many people of the Middle, Western, Southern, and perhaps in the Northern states objected to Mr. John Quincy Adams being President on the ground that he was reputed to be a Unitarian. with what vehement but honest zeal was it pled by many distinguished men that General Jackson ought to be considered disqualified for the office of President because he was chargeable with dueling and profane swearing. His friends did not plead that he had never been guilty of these immoralities, nor that a duelist or profane swearer is a fit person to be the first magistrate of the United States, but they affirmed that he had repented and reformed. How often has it been reiterated that Mr. Clay's fondness for the card table, etc., etc., unfits him for the presidential chair? Within a few years, a political party has arisen within this state and has extended steadily for some years its numbers and power by an appeal to the moral senses of this nation on the necessity of moral qualifications for civil office. This is the distinctive feature of anti-masonry. It asserts that any man who swears and holds himself bound by the impious and cruel oaths of the Masonic Order is thereby disqualified for civil office. They appeal to the very same general principle that was invoked in the presidential canvas preceding Mr. Jefferson's election, and assented to by all parties, that immorality in principle or practice disqualifies for office. It is said by some to be a very narrow basis on which to erect a party. The people do not think so. 100,000 voters in the state of New York, a majority of the state of Vermont, and monthly increasing thousands in other states enroll themselves among anti-Masons. Anti-Masonry employs more than 150 printing presses, issues annually many thousands of volumes, and has enlisted the best talents of the nation. The common moral sense of the community will act on the principle that immoral oaths unfit those who swear them for being the public conservators of social order. With such a basis, with so many presses, with such advocates as a Maynard, a Spencer, a Rush, a Wirt, and a Granger, its course is evidently onward. What is perhaps somewhat unusual, its zeal increases with its numbers. Whatever some may intend, the great body of the people who constitute this party are determined that the rulers of this nation shall be moral men. and they will in this matter prevail, for heaven is on their side. The effects of the discussion of this interesting topic must be salutary. We are encouraged, too, to persevere in efforts to accomplish a reform of the national sins which provoke heaven's anger by another feature in the aspect of the times. The Holy Scriptures are diffused through all ranks in society, while the multiplication of schools and the increasing interest in education adds every month to the number of those who can read the Bible. Soon it may be hoped there will not be a family in the land without a Bible and a member of the household qualified to read its pages. Every leaf of that blessed book teaches the claims of Messiah, the Prince, and sheds light on the duty of the citizens. Bible classes are multiplied, and old and young are learning to know more and more of the Scriptures. The public mind will soon become so enlightened by the word and spirit of the Lord that the atheist and the deist shall be no longer able to sustain their power, which is as much supported by moral darkness as the thrones of tyrants are by the ignorance of their subjects. Let no reader of these pages then be discouraged. The wicked may be great in power and spread like a green bay tree. Some professed friends of Prince Messiah, but real panders of power may flatter the unholy, the impious great to the perdition of both. Some men, righteous by profession, may stretch forth their hand to iniquity. Some may prove recreant to the testimony of Jesus. But after all, the rod of the wicked shall not rest on the lot of the righteous. Lord Jesus, thy kingdom come. Amen. And now a brief excerpt from the writings of Alexander MacLeod, written in 1815. We call this the moral character of the Federal Constitution. God is not acknowledged by the Constitution. In a federative government erected over several distinct and independent states, retaining each the power of local legislation, it is not to be expected that specific provisions should be made for the interests of religion and particular congregations. The general government is erected for the general good of the United States, and especially for the management of their foreign concerns. But no association of men for moral purposes can be justified in an entire neglect of the sovereign of the world. Statesmen in this country had undoubtedly in their eye the abuse of religion for mere political purposes, which in the nations of the old world had corrupted the sanctuary and laid the foundation for the persecution of godly men. The principal writers upon a government friendly to the cause of civil liberty in the kingdoms of Europe had generally advocated principles which, in their application, have led, upon the part of civilians, to a disrespect for religion itself. and these principles had no small influence upon the founders of this Republic. This was the case in a remarkable degree with the Continental politicians. Nor are Sidney and Locke to be entirely exempted from the charge. In the overthrow of those particular establishments favorable to the Church of England, which existed here before the Revolution, it was natural, considering the state of religious information in the community, to go to an opposite extreme. But no consideration will justify the framers of the Federal Constitution and the administration of the government in withholding a recognition of the Lord and His Anointed from the grand charter of the nation. On our daily bread we ask a blessing. At our ordinary meals we acknowledge the Lord of the world. We begin our Last Testament for disposing of worldly estates in the name of God. And shall we be guiltless with the Bible in our hands to disclaim the Christian religion as a body politic? Please visit our website www.swrb.com for classic Covenanter and rare Reformation materials, many free and also homeschooling materials. Our mailing address is Stillwaters Revival Books. 4710-37A Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6L3T5. Again, our website is www.swrb.com. Contact us today for your free discount mail order catalog, and be sure to request to be put on our email super specials list. for great discounts off our already very, very low prices.