the State at her disposal, her arguments are often the agonies of the dungeon, or the flames of martyrdom. She stoutly denies the right to question her infallibility. Whenever her errors of doctrine, or corruptions in practice, have been exposed, she has silenced their arguments by brute force. When they brought to light the scandalous immoralities of her clergy, she punished them, as slanderers, with the sword. When they sought permission to live and act according to the Word of God, she handed them over to the tender mercies of the inquisition. We cannot forget that it was the church of Rome which slaughtered the Waldenses, the Albigenses, and other Christians, before the Reformation, and the Huguenots of France, and the Scottish and Irish Protestants since. Inspired prophecy describes her as the "woman drunken with the blood of saints," as "the mystery of iniquity;" and the history of her cruelties fully justifies the prophetic declaration. This union of Church and State is both corrupting and persecuting-it corrupts the state and it corrupts the church it corrupts the subjects and functionaries of both-it forms a union of tyrannies-a conspiracy of popes and kings to enslave a race; the former determining what is true by authority, the latter coercing assent and both robbing human nature of its dearest rights. If any struggle for liberty, they are met by the spear of kings and the thunders of the Vatican. This is the double iron yoke, under which mankind have groaned for centuries. Happily, in this country, it has no reality. In the very infancy of our existence the Protestant principle took deep root in this wild soil. The tree once planted, was watered with prayers, with the tears of hearts made desolate by violence and oppression, with the blood of martyrs freely shed in resisting tyranny. Our forefathers, the framers of this government, instructed by the terrible lessons of the past, fully conceived the idea of a church not dependent on the state, whose internal economy might be left to herself, whose progress is in proportion to the power of truth and the grace of God in converting sinners. No one sect is preferred above another, for none are known, as such, in the government, the influences of moral causes arbitrating their destiny. The immense blessing consequent, it is hardly possible to appreciate, or for it to be sufficiently thankful. Think of an exemption from the great evils incident to a union of church and state. Think of the style of character which an independent church must necessarily beget or sink into decay. Having no adventitious and false life, she must live in herself, by faith alone, or perish. She has no lordly revenues, no gorgeous ritual, no pomp of external service with which to encourage the hopes or foster the pride of worldly men. She has no civil powers to abuse, no bribes to receive or to extend. She can affect the state only as she affects individuals, by the light of her piety and the power of truth. An educated and devoted ministry-a good character, sound doctrine, and the promise of the Spirit, are her only patrimony. "The weapons of her warfare are not carnal, but mighty to the pulling down of strong holds." Such is the religion of this country. It has blessed it from the beginning. It constitutes the corner-stone of our American Republic. It permeates our civil polity and all our free institutions. It is thoroughly Protestant in its character. It is this principle which has stimulated enterprise and made our land what it isthe glory of all lands. It is not because of our origin, not because the Anglo-Saxon blood flows in our veins-it is not because of the extent of our territory, or the fertility of our soil, or even because of the excellence of our institutions, that the wings of our eagle are poised far above every other nation on the globe. It is because we are Protestants. We have indeed a better government than Austria, because we have a better people; but our Protestant religion has made them better. Take away our religion and you introduce a despotism, or the anarchy which makes it necessary. Our country is Protestant; the men who laid the foundation of its greatness were Protestants, and their mantle has fallen upon their children. And though we have different ecclesiastical organizations, and different forms of worship, we all rally to the Protestant standard. Here we stand on one broad and brotherly foundation, with hearts thoroughly responsive to the great principles of the reformation. We have a "Christian Alliance," which embraces in its fraternal union the Protestants of the world! Let this be known throughout the dominions of the Pope, and it will hush the shout of triumph, which Romanists are disposed to raise over our fancied disunion and anticipated fall. No man, who has marked the Providence which has borne us, as a nation, thus far on eagle's wings, can believe "that we have been led out of Egypt to fall by the Amorites." If now and then you see a recreant from Protestantism, taking the backward track towards Rome and the dark ages, with affini ties leaning in the direction of the mitre, the crosier, and the chair of St. Peter, vacated by the uprising of the spirit of the age, think not that we are becoming Papists in this country. No, Protestantism is the deep, firm, fixed form of the religious sentiment in this land. It is a sentiment in harmony with our institutions, the offspring of thought and free inquiry, guided by the teachings of revealed truth. It does not go by authority, dogmatic, simply, because it is old; oppressive, because it has the disposition and the power; gaping and moping in indolent stupor over obsolete and exploded wisdom. It goes by the light of truth, the power of thought, and the impelling wants of millions perishing in ignorance and sin. It operates in a very simple and practical way. Warm up a man with the current religion of this country, and he will not dream of hunting for truth in the musty records of ancient convents, and there simmering his piety over the flame of a passive holiness. Neither will he think that a surplice, all silken and white, is necessary to symbolize the bright and pure light of his inner experience. Neither will he cry out for a cathedral, with images of departed saints, crucifixes of gold, and altars of ivory. But his cry will be, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Labor for the glory of God and the welfare of man will be the absorbing thought of his inquiring mind. Practical benevolence and not a passive sentimentalism marks the Protestant type of piety. It invents and applies instrumentalities for doing good, for removing oppressive burdens, for diffusing light, for facilitating the progress and happiness of our race. To use a figure; it is a tree, rooted in the soil of gospel truth, on whose trunk hang the branches of benevolence, pouring the strong life-giving sap into all their leaves and flowers-lifting its boughs so high and spreading them so far, that the pendant fruit may drop on all the world. Such is Protestant Christianity - the Christianity of this country, and destined to spread its hallowing influence over the entire globe. The eyes of all nations are now turned to us-the hopes of the world, under God, are dependent upon our exertions. We occupy the vantage ground of an immeasurable superiority for striking a blow for the downfall of error, and the triumph of truth. The grandeur of our destiny, and the prominent position we are to occupy in the conversion of the world, are scarcely appreciated or understood. Wherever our history is read, or the epic of our life is sung, there America has power-the power of a moral influence that will touch with electric rapidity the very heart of nations, and galvanize into vitality the dead forms of an ignorant and antiquated worship. Evarts, before he went to his reward, published a paper entitled "The Moral Destiny of the United States," in which, he showed from safe calculations, that in one hundred and seventy years, the population of this land would be swelled to one thousand millions! The growth of our country since proves its probable truth. We double our population once in twenty-five years. Think of a people possessing the elements, physical, intellectual, and moral, to which we have referred, increasing for two centuries, and how amazing is the responsibility of our position! For what a career prepared and preparing! To what a destiny tending! Ah! I love my country. There is more in this land to love than in any other beneath the sun. I love my God, who gave it, and the memory of our fathers who bled for it. "Lives there a man with soul so dead, We believe our country is destined to survive the disasters that may yet await it; like a proud promontory, whose base is in the deep, whose summit reaches the clouds; the drifting storms may strike upon its breast, the fretful ocean may dash upon its base; but it will stand as a beacon to the multitudes afar off-the home of liberty, and an asylum for the oppressed of all nations. We turn an incredulous ear to the cry of political alarmists about the dissolution of the Union. We are still sheltered by the wing of a kind Providence, and under auspices divine, if we are true to our principles, we shall yet achieve a sublime destiny. Let pious patriotism take down her suspended and silent harp, and on this day of public congratulation, cheer the world with the melody of strains. Let God be praised from land to land, and from sea to sea. Let the song rise and swell, waxing louder and sweeter till it be lost in that great hymn chanted in the abodes of light. Thus, my brethren, have I endeavored to set the past and present aspects of our country, in contrast before you. We have seen that progress has been made, in the physical, the political, the educational, and religious condition of our country; that we have been borne as on eagle's wings; that our land is full of interest and encouragement, to the nations struggling for freedom and light. But it may be asked; is not this strain of congratula tion ill-timed? Are not the hopes of the world wrapped in gloom? Has not the past year been one of reaction and discouragement? True, France has disappointed the hopes of freemen. Italy has struggled in vain; yet not in vain. Rome has fallen, and the Pope, like a vulture, awaits the last struggle of the victim, to gorge himself on the remains of the child of republicanism. Hungary, alas for her; she has fallen a prey to the Northern Bear and the eagles of Hapsburgh. Germany awakes from the dream of unity to find herself in the perfidious hands of Frederick William and Joseph. The pall of death seems to have settled down again on Europe, and the voice of freedom seems hushed to silence. This, however, is a partial and limited view. It leaves out of sight the purpose of God and the power of that Spirit which is abroad among the nations of the earth. The giant Liberty is not dead, but only slumbers to recruit his energies for a more vigorous and successful effort. Let evangelical light and truth be diffused: Let the Protestant principle work like leaven among the masses of the people. Let this be done and a foundation well laid, on which, popular rights and free institutions may stand forever. Until it is done, the upheavings of society and the throes of humanity will be, like the tossing fires of a volcano, to fall back again into the crater of passion and crime, or to overflow with the burning lava only to devastate and destroy. While then, we review the past, let us be prepared to meet the exigencies of the present, and anticipate a glorious future all radiant with the light of prophecy, and glowing with the full and finished purposes of Him, "who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, and to whom, the kingdoms of this world are given in covenant as the reward of his sufferings, and the trophies of his victory." * Thanksgiving Day. |