Man a moral wreck.

Influence of Christianity on the community.

moral and sentient beings into existence, you see a most conspicuous and terrible case of failure. The plans which God has formed for his social prosperity and happiness, are all deranged by his sins. The family, the home, the connection which binds parent to child, and child to parent, the social relations which link society together, all these intended fountains of happiness, are poisoned and spoiled by sin. Yes, all physical nature is great and glorious,—but man is degraded and in ruins. Every thing else, is right, but his heart is wrong. The object of his being, he does not accomplish; the happiness which is within his reach, and which he was made to enjoy, he does not gain; and he stands forth, in the view of all the intelligent creation, a mournful spectacle of ruin. It would seem that no man, who would candidly look at the facts, could ever for a moment imagine, that the world is at all in the moral and social condition, in which God intended it to be. No, it is a world in ruins,- a moral wreck, and our business is, while we live here, to save as many from it, as we can.

CHAPTER VI.

PUBLIC MORAL S.

"By manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.”

CHRISTIANITY has not only the power to secure eternal life to those who personally yield, to her claims,—she also exerts an immense influence in purifying and preserving the whole social community. She has, however, done less than christian writers have often claimed for her. She has not put a stop to war; she has not put a stop to slavery, or the slave trade; she has not infused moral principle into the mass of any extended populace, so as to prevent the

Christian and Pagan countries.

Crime and punishment in Boston.

necessity of governing them by physical force; and it is actually difficult to ascertain, from the contradictory reports of intelligent travellers, whether life and property are safer, or the state of public morals less corrupt, in Paris or London, than they are at Constantinople, or on the banks of the Hoang-ho.

We say, it is difficult to ascertain, the difference is so much less than it ought to be. The inquiry, fairly made, however, gives a result greatly in favor of Christendom. Life and property are safer, and public morals are far, very far less corrupted in English villages, among the hills and valleys of Scotland, in Germany, France, Italy, and New England,―than on the shores of the Caspian Sea, or on the plains of China, or in Syria or Java, or on the banks of the Niger and the Nile. And the difference is greater in reality, than in appearance, for we must consider, not only the actual state of public order which prevails, but the comparative degree of governmental pressure, which is found necessary in the respective countries, to secure it. The quiet and peace which reign in the interior of Christian countries, are maintained by a far lighter hand, than that which is necessary to control a community of Mohammedans or Pagans. A criminal in Boston has a remote and uncertain prospect of suffering before him, to deter him from crime. There is his hope of escaping detection,— for there is no argus-eyed police, or watchful spy, taking note of his movements. Then there are the forms through which he must pass, the extreme scrupulousness with which every evidence against him, not strictly legal, will be rejected; the ingenuity of his advocate; the feelings or the doubts of his jury; and, lastly, the calm impartiality of his judge, under the influence of no wish, but to make the punishment as light as justice will possibly allow. How different from the stern and unfeeling severity, with which the criminal of Constantinople is taken to the nearest officer of justice, who is, perhaps, responsible for the order

Crime and punishment in Constantinople.

of his district, with his head, and there, without ceremony or delay, bastinadoed, hung, drowned, strangled, or impaled. Yes; to ascertain the power of Christianity upon the condition of the community, we must take into view, not only the degree of public order which christian and unchristian countries secure, but the comparative amount of despotic pressure and severity which they find necessary in order to secure it.

The truth is, that a certain degree of regard for life and property, and of public order, is necessary for the very existence of society; and governments insensibly assume the degree of power, be it more or less, which may be necessary to secure this. So that the influence of Christianity upon a nation, will show itself, at first, not so much in lessening the amount of vice and sin, as in diminishing the pressure necessary to keep it within bounds. It lightens the hand of government, and softens its asperities. For it is public opinion which supports even the strongest governments, an opinion based on the necessity of suppressing disorder and crime. Christianity, by diminishing the tendency to disorder, compels government to lighten its hand. We see, therefore, in the comparative mildness and gentleness of christian governments, a tribute to the salutary influence of Christianity. But when we make the influence which she has exerted, as great as we can, by this and other considerations, how far is it below what it ought to have been. How sad is the moral and social condition of the most highly christianized country on the globe. How much is yet to be done in England and America, in removing abuses, arresting the progress of public vice, and in carrying the light, and the happy influence of the gospel into the great mass of society. How many wrongs are yet unredressed; how many vices yet unrestrained; how many unnecessary sorrows and sufferings reign every where, which Christianity, even in its indirect influence, might easily remove.

The Christian's appropriate work.

This chapter is to be devoted to a consideration of this subject; the way by which Christianity is to produce its salutary effect upon the moral and social condition of the community. Of course, the reader will not expect a specific plan of operations, for the removal of particular evils. These will vary with the nature of the evil to be remedied, and the extent of the moral means which may be brought to bear upon it. Our design will therefore be, not to lay down plans of proceeding for particular cases, but to bring to view such general considerations, as ought to be kept in mind, and allowed to influence our measures, and regulate the feelings of heart with which we attempt to carry our measures into effect.

1. It is a very serious question, and one which the Christian community ought to consider well, how far we are to leave our appropriate work of directly building up the kingdom of Christ, for the purpose of going forth into the world, to correct evils and abuses which reign there. No one, who understands at all the nature of sin and its remedy, can doubt that our great work here, is to bring as many individual souls as possible to actual repentance, and to raise the standard of holiness among those thus changed, to the highest point. This is laboring directly, to promote the kingdom of Christ,-the extension of its walls, and the purification and spiritual prosperity of all within. This is the true way, by which the remedy for sin, is ultimately to reach the full extent of the disease. The plan of Jesus Christ for saving the world, is not mainly, that the indirect influence of Christianity upon the public conscience, shall gradually meliorate the moral condition of unsanctified men in a mass, but that these men shall, one by one, be brought to conviction and thorough repentance, and made in succession, his followers and friends; not restrained a little, as a commursity, from their worst vices, by the indirect influence of the gospel, but changed thoroughly, as individuals, into new creatures in him. It is, therefore, to

Belation to the community.

promote the spread cf this individual, personal piety, that constitutes the great object at which we should aim. The other is secondary. It is occasional. Still, it has its claims. We are citizens of a community, as well as members of a church, and each relation gives rise to its appropriate duties. Cases often have occurred, in the history of Christendom, and are now continually occurring, in which religious men may go forth with advantage, into the great community, aud accomplish vast good, by the power of a moral influence, more efficient in its appropriate sphere than legislative enactments, or military force. Generally, however, the province of Christian labor, lies in a different region; and the influence which piety is to exert upon the great unsanctified mass of mind which envelopes it, is indirect, spontaneous, collateral; an influence which follows of its own accord, while the Christian is intent upon his own proper work of extending pure and thorough personal piety.

2. When we go out to act thus upon society, we must remember that we act as members of a community which is under one common responsibility with us to God, and that those whom we are endeavoring to influence, are not responsible to us. The evils which we attempt to prevent or mitigate, are sins against God, and they who commit them, are accountable to him for their guilt,-not to their fellow This should influence the tone and spirit with which we should approach them. We are like children whose father is away, and if some do wrong, the others are not clothed with any authority to arrest or punish it. The only remedy, is the gentle moral influence, which one child may properly exert upon another.

men.

A father sometimes, in such a case, returns, and finds an older child, dictating with earnest gesticulations and imperious tone, its duty to another. He stands before the little delinquent, putting down his foot with an air of authoritative command, and insisting upon some supposed