those which control the soul. Though constructed with measureless skill, and acting under impulses of divine origin, the body is only a servant of the soul. Its mechanism, its vitality, its appetites, its instincts are all acknowledged to be subordinate to other powers which inherit it for a season, and which can mar its structure or even suppress the instincts necessary to its self-preservation with the approval of the Divine Author of both natures.

Among the faculties of the soul there exists no less distinction of rank and authority. There are powers which scem especially designed for the present life, whose action is essential to its earthly preservation, happiness, and progress. There are others that are evidently of a higher grade and sublimer destiny, which, for the most part, are kept in abeyance here, and allowed only in rare instances to assume the supremacy and to reveal the latent powers of their being. There are yet others that oversweep all these inferior energies, and claim their obedience on penalty of leaving them to the fatal anarchy of the lowest passions.

These faculties are called generically the propensities or sensibilities, the intellect and the moral nature. Most of the propensities, though capable of coöperating with the higher powers of the soul, in by far the greater portion of their activity and the greater part of mankind, act independently of all moral guidance. They are confined too, largely, to this state of existence. Self-love is generally considered as the basis solely of earthly pleasure; esteem regards earthly favor; desire for existence includes mainly a passion for earthly life; curiosity is limited to earthly inquisition; and sociality to the divers forms of affections arising from, and centering in, earthly relations.

In our devotion to this portion of our nature, the demands of the intellect are often neglected. Passion rules the hour, rules every hour, and Thought toils as its bond slave. The mind is chiefly studious to obtain means for

gratifying the propensities. It seeks gain, frames plans, pursues studies chiefly that vanity, pride, or lower lusts may have the larger indulgence. Only in occasional moments does it tower before mankind, when the over-sated passion reveals its own inferiority, or when some Leibnitz or Newton has mounted above the narrow skies that bound their vision, and transmitted some of their discoveries to these slaves of mere desire.

Above the intellect rises the moral nature, and claims the service of both these classes of faculties. It asserts its authority over them by allowing them, if rebellious, to run into ruinous excess of riot and of skepticism, and by enabling them, if obedient to its dictates, to grow harmoniously and happily, after their original design.

It was not intended that this diversity of constitution should lead to discord and mutual injury. The law of the body had no original hostility to that of the soul. Our selfish and our social nature were made to act in unison. The duties pertaining to earthly life had no essential opposition, but rather an essential oneness with those that lead out to another existence. The mind, and heart, and conscience were designed to be as harmonious as the nature of God himself, in whose image they are created. These complex duties and interests, so marvelously interwoven, have no constitutional defects or variances. There was no entangling of threads, no jarring of chord with chord, as they came from the hand divine. It was a microcosm combining in outward form and inward action the same multiplicity in unity, and complexity in simplicity, that is exhibited by that infinite macrocosm, the universe itself. Under their united action every institution of man, domestic, social, or civil, every outgrowth of his nature, could have been established and matured without possibility of imperfection or collision. The family would have been an harmonious unit, full of life and love. The State

would have respected every right, and aided while it embraced all minor movements in its rounded fullness. The Church would have been identical with the State, though superior to it, informing it with the more subtile life of the soul, hanging its humbler dome in the heaven of heavens. Art, commerce, handicraft, every form and force of activity, would have each moved righteously and efficiently in its own sphere, while they aided, rather than impeded, the congenital vocations. Earth and Man would have been one with Heaven and God.

But a hostile element invades the soul, and anarchy prevails. Satan mars the machinery of God. Excess of indulgence or of abstinence becomes the mode of human action, and ignorance of the truc law, or inability to pursue it steadily, prevents their perfect harmony and growth. This disorder possesses every man, and is revealed in all the organizations into which his wants and nature are expanded.

"The trail of the serpent is over them all."

Under such conditions, it becomes us to study carefully our duty in every relation we sustain, whether to ourselves, our fellow, or our God, remembering that all these relations meet and melt into Him who is their only Source and everlasting Life.

Among these qualities are those feelings and ties that compose the organism called the State, or civil government. The last has the narrower significance. Civil government means, primarily, the authority of a city. It shows that a condensed population gathered around competent leaders, subdued and then ruled the scattered peoples beyond their walls. But the State that which stands has the calm look of permanence, the solid shape of eternity. It expresses the confidence and the restfulness of man. "Here

I have peace. Here I have room for the quiet growth of all my being. These arms of power are around me to shield

and to support. By it my weakness is made strong, my littleness enlarged, my single-hand made myriad-handed, my poverty is changed to unmeasured affluence, and my paltry personality becomes majestic and mighty as the oneness of the sea.' ""

Well may we be careful how we assail or undermine this hope of the Race. Well may enmity to its will be branded by the word second only to murder, if second to that, in the abhorrence of man - treason. For what is he who destroys individual life, compared with him who slays the State?

But if the State has such a root in the instincts of mankind, it, too, must beware lest it pervert its office from the protector to the destroyer of its people. For as high as it is exalted in love and power by its willing subjects, when it is an instrument of justice, so low will it plunge in the execrations of its people, in weakness within and abroad, if it make itself the instrument of injustice. Exalted to heaven, it shall be cast down to hell.

In this hour, then, when the people are perplexed by the action of the State, it is our solemn duty to examine the ground of its origin, and the relations it sustains to the higher law of our nature, -the voice of God in the soul of man, before we consider how its late enactments comport with that law, and what are our individual duties under the circumstances it has forced upon us.

Civil government exists by the will of God. The social element in man in its development into its natural forms reveals itself in that of the State. This is its last expression. Under it this propensity has the fullest range and action. Solitary man becomes the family, the community, the nation.

But since the idea of nationality springs from this propensity, its government must be under the supervision of the faculties which govern its source; that is, the Judgment

and Conscience. If not, then the gregarious habits and laws of beasts are civil government, for their instinct is identical with this propensity in its original action.

If this desire for social organization originates with our Creator, and is placed under the control of our intelligent and moral nature, then must it be developed only in accordance with the will of the Creator, and under the direction of IIis law written in our hearts and in His Word. It cannot grow to its due and destined height without coming into connection, and perhaps into collision, with other faculties and duties. Only the appointed ruler of the soul can decide between conflicting passions, or lead them each to their proper fullness, and so make the whole an harmonious unit.

Since, then, the process of forming a civil government must be guided by our moral nature, the duties we owe it, in its right or wrong procedure, are all referred to the same tribunal. Before the judgment seat of the Conscience must it stand. If that condemns it, then must it plead guilty; if that forbids obedience to its wrong behests, they must be disobeyed; if that demands that it should repeal its laws and make them conformable to the law of God, it must hasten to obey on pain of the righteous displeasure and sure judgments of God, who will sustain the authority of the Conscience, His vicegerent, against all combinations and all adversaries.

Two questions here arise :

1st. How shall we know when the decrees of the State are inconsistent with the Will of God?

2d. How shall we act when we are satisfied that such an inconsistency exists?

I. How shall we know when the decrees of the State are inconsistent with the Will of God?

We should include the institutions with the acts of government, for the error of its customs usually precedes