ious, individual, of his country in the present age. More than forty years ago, Buckminster spoke of the love of money as threatening to reduce our country almost to unlettered barbarism. And the common impression, I apprehend, still is, that the love of money is the special sin of New England at least. I do not question either the prevalence or the evil of this spirit. But I think it is only secondary. The radical element of character in the American confederacy is English, modified by the peculiarities of the position into which it has been thrown. Now, the distinguishing vice of the English character, both in Europe and in America, is lust, or I may rather say, pride of power. Money is sought indeed; not, however, for money's sake so much as for the help which it gives in the acquisition of power. In England, with all its wealth, the end sought by its commerce, its labors, its methods. of government, is not, I think, wealth, but supremacy of dominion. The Church itself is a portion of the national power; its religion sanctifies and establishes a government on whose subjects, it is boasted, the sun never sets. So in this country. From the highest station of official dignity or individual influence to the lowest, through all intermediate gradations, the prevalent idea is the prowess of the American Union. The Church is less intimately related to this idea, so is less reverently honored; but, on the other hand, conscious of the want, the Church learns to fawn on the civil power; to cringe, to flatter, to extol its American spirit. And however it may have been once, religion itself,

at this moment in our country, is presented in the humiliating attitude of servility to the secular influences. Let a form of oppression become lawful; let a course of aggressive hostilities be entered into by the state, however unjustly; let a system of legislation or of action, however immoral, be fixed by established authority, and how soon is the voice of religious remonstrance hushed! The false maxim, Religion has nothing to do with politics, involving, of course, the tremendous assertions, that Religion, by which is necessarily meant, in our country, Christianity, has nothing to do with making those laws which are to govern ourselves and our children, none can say to what extent or through what duration, and that Christianity has nothing to do with the temporary measures, such as making war or peace, establishing or overthrowing slavery, and the like,—a maxim as profligate as it is false, and, if carried out to its legitimate applications, grossly atheistic,- has still attained a strong hold of the American mind, and has secured in many cases the obsequious acquiescence of church and pulpit. The falsehood, the atheism, on the one side, and the servility, on the other, have their first foundation in this same pervading pride of national greatness, joined on the ecclesiastical side by the hope of upbuilding through political sympathies the form of religion which the sect adopts.

This central idea shapes the type of character which forms the universal pattern, besides operating directly to produce its own image in the individual. If the country must surpass the whole

world by its power, then the person must surpass every other man. The very child catches the infection of this pride; and what Britain has done on oceans or foreign shores, and what our country has done on its borders or coasts or seas, or in its aggressions on Indians or Mexicans, he must do within his own narrow circle; blow for blow, strife for victory, struggle for power, in the nursery, on the playground, in the school-house. With the same domineering pride he grows up, and either glories in his ascendency, if he can reach it, or slinks away dispirited, envious, revengeful, if he fails. The European race in America has trampled on the African, and when a better sentiment, and still more, felicitous circumstances, have hindered the extreme of irresponsible despotism, the same despotic temper finds its gratification in contempt, in sarcasm, in calumny, in exclusion, in cold and bitter sneers. Less, indeed, of religious formality do we find connected with this pride of power; but what there is, as has been said, panders to it. And wherever the man is found most truly representing this local spirit, this American prowess, no matter what the depth or the shallowness, in other respects, of his principles and his soul, he stands out thenceforth as the most applauded model.

Now, true repentance is not barely sorrowing for our depravity; not barely putting aside those bad habits which violate the common forms of morality; not barely putting on a religious profession and demeanor: it is more than this; it is separation from the prevalent spirit and maxims of

an unchristianized society, and entering into the heavenly kingdom of love and purity and peace. It is ceasing to be Jew, whether Pharisee or Sadducee; ceasing to be Greek or Roman, barbarous or refined; ceasing to be Gentile, superstitious or atheistic; ceasing to be Catholic of Middle Age or Protestant of later day; ceasing to be English or American, rejecting the models presented us by both, the principles by which both have been governed, the spirit by which both are animated; ceasing to be sectarian and national and selfish,. and becoming Christian, human, lovers of man: all, indeed, retaining our organic peculiarities, individual, social, religious, national, but accepting the celestial light in which these shall be transfigured and exalted, and wrought, amidst endless variety, into universal harmony.

SERMON XIX.

UNRIGHTEOUS DECREES.*

ISAIAHI X. 1, 2.

WOE UNTO THEM THAT DECREE UNRIGHTEOUS DECREES, AND THAT WRITE GRIEVOUSNESS WHICH THEY HAVE PRESCRIBED; TO TURN ASIDE THE NEEDY FROM JUDGMENT, AND TO TAKE AWAY THE RIGHT FROM THE POOR OF MY PEOPLE, THAT WIDOWS MAY BE THEIR PREY, AND THAT THEY MAY ROB THE FATHERLESS!

I HAVE approached this service, I confess, with some sadness. I could not conceal from myself the fact, that to many my views are offensive; that to more, the public statement of them may seem needless, if not worse; and that in such effusion of my sentiments as this I may be deemed alike traitorous to the country which has given us birth and disobedient to the religion wherein is our eternal life. Nay, to do this on an occasion like the present; in the very hour which sets before us the symbols of love and peace, to thrust into the midst of us elements of discord, may seem as ill-timed as it is ever injudicious. If I felt that apology were wanted for the choice of time, I might say

* Delivered in the First Church, Salem, April 6, 1851.