course so far innocent. We see food, delicious fruits perhaps, and it is impossible for us to prevent the appetite from becoming excited. But instantly the instinct of property comes up and suggests to us, that it is not ours, and immediately checks the desire and prevents us from being willing to act according to the suggestions of appetite. But it is altogether in the power of our will to choose which of these suggestions we will follow, that of appetite, or the instinct of property. We may stifle the suggestions of the sense of justice, and encourage the appetite for fruit, till at last we determine that we will gratify the appetite at the expense of the moral sense. Then every man feels that he commits sin. And sad experience proves in every community that the moral sense is not strong enough to induce men to do right. What is then to be done? The first attempt is for each individual to defend what he feels to be right by force. That however, will not succeed, for the wrong doer may be physically stronger than the defender of the right. But what one man cannot do, many can. Many individuals combine to defend the right against any one who chooses to violate it. They get

together and consult that universal moral nature which God has given to them all, and write out a list of those primary impressions of right which God has inscribed on all their hearts, and agree to stand by them; and this is the origin of laws. But as the whole community must have something else to do beside standing under arms to keep each other in order, they delegate this office of seeing that those primitive rights are enforced to a few, whom they clothe with sufficient power to accomplish the purpose. Thus it is that law and government are only the living expression and enforcement of those moral instincts, which are some of the constituent elements of the human soul. Thus it is that government is called in the Scriptures, and the language of the world, an institution of God. Hooker, in his Ecclesiastical Polity, thus speaks of law: "Her seat is the bosom of God, her voice is the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempt from her power." It was in accordance with this apprehension of things that kings of old were called the children of the gods. In our own Sacred Writings they

are called gods, and sons of God, because they are the ministers of that justice, which is God's, which went forth originally from his throne, and after penetrating and governing all things, comes back to perch for ever upon his sceptre.

Government is the means which, under the guidance of Providence, mankind have adopted for the enforcement of the moral instincts, and it is perfect when it enables every man to enjoy his own, what God has given him, in security and peace. A good government therefore is one of the greatest earthly blessings. It gives the widest scope to the human faculties. It invites and encourages man to put forth his highest energies, and placing no bar to his exertions, enables him to produce the greatest results. Under a good government a people advance with giant strides along the road of improvement. They are strong, prosperous, and contented. God intended mankind for prosperity and contentment, he put his moral law within their hearts to accomplish that purpose.

But it unfortunately happens that governments may prove false to the purpose for which they were created. They may through

mistake misinterpret the law written on the heart, or through corruption bend it to their own purposes; and thus power conferred to do good may become irresistible to do wrong. Good laws may be badly executed, or not executed at all. Or they may be incumbered by so many useless forms as to cost more than they are worth, or be attended with so much delay as altogether to defeat the ends of justice. Thus that which was intended by God as the greatest blessing, when perverted becomes the greatest curse. Abuses of government are of all things most difficult to correct. They become so fixed by habit and prescription that it is next to impossible to shake them off. So far are governments oftentimes from being the executives of the dictates of the moral sense, the purpose for which they were appointed, that they arm the moral sense of mankind against them, and the whole people rise in their might and put them down, and re-assert and re-establish the primitive laws of moral rectitude.

It is saddening to contemplate the infinite miseries, which have been heaped upon mankind by bad government. Think of the millions who live, and have lived in Asia, not

one of whom has ever known what good government is. What is, bad and unjust as it is, has become so fastened upon the people as to shut out of their conceptions what ought to be. The actual has been so long inculcated, and so long acquiesced in, that it has taken the place of the just, those primitive and natural ideas of right, which God originally stamped upon the soul of

man.

To secure the performance of the right as well as the perception of it, God has implanted in the human heart besides the sense of justice, the feeling of benevolence. As he has given us peculiar affections towards our nearest relatives to secure the performance of necessary duties, such as the parental and the filial tie, so has he given us a feeling to correspond to our relations to the whole species, but fainter in intensity because the duties it secures are less imperious and indispensable. We naturally wish well to the whole human family. Where there is no conflict of interest, no previous injury or prejudice, we had rather learn that any human being is in health, prosperity, and happiness, than hear that he is sick, or in