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ters; universal rights are superseded by grants of exclusive privileges; statute prosecutions for the expression of unpopular opinion, stand in the place of the individual right of thought and speech; property becomes of more worth than man; and instead of general laws, extending over every one equal protection, thus give a special legislation. Not there shall we find our text book, or an authentic commentary there

on.

If we seek for the illustrations of our fundamental principles in their results upon the general character and spirit of society, shall we find there the theory of natural rights planted and flourishing in the strong foundations of public opinion? Nay, here least of all. Here, too, individual man is scarcely known, and only as an undistinguishable element of a mass. He does not stand out prominently as a separate integral existence; but, from being a unit, has almost vanished into an infinitesimal fraction. Public opinion, or gigantic associations usurping its attributes, are swallowing up the individual in their huge vortices. All the force there is in man is in his social accidents and connexions; he is not strong by himself, but only by his party. Society has become a machine, or combination of machines. Moral force is losing its power, and giving place to mechanism. By societies of every type and object, by party mechanism, by statutes, which, never more than one form of the expression of public opinion, are now only results of social and party mechanisms; the individual is in danger of becoming nothing, of sinking into oblivion, and leaving time and space to that aggregate irresponsibility, the public. And more; he is in danger of losing the power of independent volition, of forsaking a vice, or practising a virtue, without putting himself into the leading-strings of association. Associations assume and control his personal responsibilities, until it will be happy for him if he do not cease to be conscious that he has any. We shall, therefore, seek in vain in society for the illustrations which we are in search of;

but we shall discover something of the modes, "by which the same control under a free government, may be exerted over individual opinion and action, that is exerted over them by despotisms and hierarchies."

But man was not made to be a machine, a fraction; to lose his separate existence, and be incorporated in a mass; nor to suffer his free volitions to be overwhelmed by his social sympathies. It is the mission. of education to rescue him from this individual annihilation; to develope the great central law and attribute of his being; that man, each man by himself, in reference to all other men, is essentially and inalienably free, and the brother and equal of every man. This great first truth must be roused from its almost. dead sleep in constitutions and popular declamation, and brought out again, with new annunciations, into the high-ways and bye-ways of society; into the humble road-side schoolhouse, and into the halls where high science has her throne. Instead of being a parchment formula, let it be made a living, all-pervading energy; presiding in the assemblies of legislation; and giving an irresistible, but tranquil and legitimate power to public opinion. From this central principle let all social doctrines radiate; by this primary law be all social maxims and usages tried. It will then be perceived that society, or government, as embodying and representing the material force of society, is but the creature of man's individual freedom, and not the controller. In its ultimate analysis, society is an association for mutual protection; the security of each individual in the possession and exercise of his natural, absolute rights. Within the limits of those rights, society has no authority of gov-. ernment over him; and if she exercise any, she is guilty of tyranny; the laws, she enacts to limit or restrain them, are repugnant to the higher law of man's nature, and of no validity. This freedom, these rights, are a wall of sanctity around each individual, which society should not dare to scale, which cannot be broken over without unspeakable injury to society itself.

On the recognition of these principles, the stability, even the existence, of free communities depend. I can form no conception of a freedom in society, of which the freedom of individual man is not the primary element; of man as man, with rights not derived. from society, prior to society, beyond the control of all other men, beyond the reach of government, laws, or public opinion. It is no impeachment of the validity of these rights, that the individual may and does. abuse them. The power to abuse them is a necessary element of liberty. "God leaves man in his freedom, and does not control it, though man, in abusing it, brings damnation to his soul." The legitimate exercise of freedom can never work harm to others, or to society. There can be no collision between the clear rights of one individual, and those of another, any more than in the use of the all-pervading elements; for the rights are identical and universal. "So long as one does not trespass upon the rights of others, nor place obstacles in the way of their full and free exercise, society has no authority to interfere with his course."

These principles are in the highest degree practical; for in man's freedom lies his power of full and perfect development. They should be made the startingpoint, and fixed as landmarks along the whole course of practical education. They should cheer the schoolboy's wearisome discipline with hope and confidence. To man they should be a universal presence, filling him with the fulness of strength, courage, and indomitable energy for all the "sublime possibilities" of his being.

ART. II.-NO ERROR CAN BE USEFUL; NO TRUTH CAN BE INJURIOUS. A DISCOURSE, BY THE EDITOR.

I HAVE not taken my text from the Bible. The practice of taking a passage of Scripture for a text, when one is about to give a discourse, is not always convenient, and seldom answers any very good purpose. Every discourse should be upon some one subject, designed to teach some one truth, to correct some error, to inculcate some useful lesson, or to bring home to the conscience some one duty. This subject, this truth, this error, this lesson, or this duty should always be distinctly stated, and clearly set forth; and if this be done, it matters little whether it be by means of a passage from the Old Testament or the New, by a passage from some other book, or without either.

Sermons are in general quite too formal, quite too dull, and quite too destitute of far-reaching and quickening thought. "Dull as a sermon," is a common saying, and will be till sermonizers break loose from their fetters, and become able to speak out, in free and natural language, their thoughts and feelings as they rise fresh and living to their own minds and hearts. But they will hardly do this till their congregations become able to receive strong and living thought in free and natural language; not till the people come to understand what is the great end and aim of preaching. Preachers who comprehend their mission do not preach for the sake of producing a sermon, they do not prepare a discourse for the sake of preparing a discourse; or if they do, they are languid, uninteresting, and unprofitable. No man can speak well, or with interest, unless he speak because he hath something he wishes to say. If he have no topic on which he has thoughts struggling for utterance, if he have no great truth he is anxious to bring out, if he see no error in faith or in practice that he burns to correct, no lesson that he feels himself commanded to unfold, no duty that he dare not refrain from enforcing, in vain

will he attempt to speak; in vain will he select his words, round his periods, and polish his sentences; his words will be cold, and his discourse will make as little impression on his hearers as oil in running over polished marble.

To be eloquent one must be in earnest; to speak with power one must speak on a subject which presses heavy on his heart, must speak out of a full mind, from a soul laboring with great thoughts, lofty aims, and firm resolves. He must speak himself, throw out his very soul, and breath his very being into the souls of those he addresses. The pulpit, with us, except in rare cases, does not allow a man to do this It studies to be decorous, and is afraid of uttering a loud and stirring voice, lest it offend good breeding and sin against correct taste. It is too calm, too polished, too genteel, to be efficient. It wants energy, freedom, earnestness. Men do not speak from it in the tone of settled conviction, and solemn earnestness.

To contribute my share towards correcting the evil, I break myself from the hamper of a text; I abandon the usual pulpit style; and, when I please, stray beyond the usual range of pulpit topics. I wish to see united. with the eloquence of the pulpit the eloquence which has hitherto been called forensic, and that which has been accounted appropriate only to the popular assembly. I want the pulpit to send forth a voice that shall instruct, warn, rebuke, kindle, inspire men on all subjects which can concern them as human beings, as social, moral, religious beings. In my judgment the time has passed by, when the pulpit had nothing to do but to describe the terrors of the day of judgment, and compel the sinner to enter the kingdom of heaven by arguments, drawn only from the wailing and the gnashing of teeth of the damned.

Men's minds have in these days been somewhat expanded. They run over more topics; they think and reason and speak on more subjects than they once did. They have read beyond the Shorter and even the Longer Catechism, and cannot be made to confine their faith

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