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The people who ordained such a noble constitution of government, and for whom it was made, are under the highest and most solemn obligations to preserve it for themselves, their children, and future generations.

"This constitution of government," says Justice Story, "must perish, if there be not that vital spirit in the people which alone can nourish, sustain, and direct all its movements. It is in vain that statesmen shall form plans of government in which the beauty and harmony of a republic shall be embodied in visible order, shall be built upon solid substructions, and adorned by every useful ornament, if the inhabitants suffer the silent power of time to dilapidate its walls or crumble its massy supporters into dust, if the assaults from without are never resisted and the rottenness and mining from within are never guarded against. Who can preserve the rights and liberties of a people when they shall be abandoned by themselves? Who shall keep watch in the temple when the watchmen sleep at their post? Who shall call upon the people to redeem their possessions and revive the republic, when their own hands have deliberately and corruptly surrendered them to the oppressor and have built the prisons or dug the graves of their own friends? This dark picture, it is to be hoped, will never be applicable to the republic of America. And yet it affords a warning, which, like all the lessons of past experience, we are not permitted to disregard. America, free, happy, and enlightened as she is, must rest the preservation of her rights and liberties upon the virtue, independence, justice, and sagacity of the people. If either fail, the republic is gone. Its shadow may remain, with all the pomp and circumstance and trickery of government, but its vital power will have departed."

The following language fell from the lips of Alexander Hamilton, on his resignation of the office of Secretary of the Treasury, in 1795. Holding in his hand a small book containing a copy of the Federal Constitution, he said, "Now, mark my words! so long as we are a young and virtuous people, this instrument will bind us together in mutual interest, mutual welfare, and mutual happiness; but when we become old and corrupt it will bind us no longer."

This dark condition of the republic, which would be produced by the general corruption of the people and the government, can only be prevented by the universal belief and appli

cation of the principles stated in Webster's address before the New York Historical Society. He says,

"If we and our posterity shall be true to the Christian religion,-if we and they shall live always in the fear of God and shall respect his commandments,-if we and they shall maintain just moral sentiments, and such conscientious convictions of duty as shall control the heart and life,—we may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country; and if we maintain those institutions of government, and that political union exceeding all praise as much as it exceeds all former examples of political association, we may be sure of one thing, that, while our country furnishes materials for a thousand masters of the historic art, it will be no topic for a Gibbon, -it will have no decline and fall. It will go on prospering and to prosper. But if we and our posterity neglect religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us that shall bury all our glory in profound obscurity.

"If that catastrophe," he continues, "shall happen, let it have no history! Let the horrible narrative never be written! Let its fate be like that of the lost books of Livy, which no human eye shall ever read, or the missing Pleiad, of which no man can know more than that it is lost, and lost forever."

CHAPTER XIII.

FIRST CONGRESS UNDER THE

CONSTITUTION-WASHINGTON

INAUGURATED

NEW

CHRISTIAN SCENES ATTENDING HIS INAUGURATION-PRAYER-MEETING OF ALL DENOMINATIONS IN NEW YORK-WASHINGTON'S INAUGURAL-ITS CHRISTIAN SENTIMENTS-DAY OF THANKSGIVING FOR THE CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT WASHINGTON'S PROCLAMATION CHRISTIAN ORDINANCE 1787-WASHINGTON'S LETTER TO LAFAYETTE JUDGE NASH'S VIEW OF THE MORAL ENDS OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

OF

THE first session of Congress after the adoption of the Federal Constitution opened with distinct legislative recognitions of the Christian religion. Washington was inaugurated and took

the oath of office on the 30th of April, 1789. Congress, the day before the inauguration, passed the following:

Resolved, That, after the oath shall be administered to the President, the Vice-President, and members of the Senate, the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives, will accompany him to St. Paul's Chapel, to hear divine service performed by the chaplains.

Chancellor Livingston administered the oath of office, and Mr. Otis held up the Bible on its crimson cushion. The President, as he bowed, to kiss its sacred page, at the same time. laying his hand on the open Bible, said, audibly, "I swear," and added, with fervency, that his whole soul might be absorbed in the supplication, "So help me God." Then the Chancellor said, "It is done!" and, turning to the multitude, waved his hand, and, with a loud voice, exclaimed, "Long live George Washington!" This solemn scene concluded, he proceeded with the whole assembly, on foot, to St. Paul's Church, where prayers suited to the occasion were read by Dr. Provost, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York, who had been appointed one of the chaplains of Congress.

Previous to his inauguration, on the morning of the same day, a general prayer-meeting of the various denominations of Christians in New York was held for the special object of praying for God's blessing to rest on the President and the new Government. The notice of the prayer-meeting is among the old files of the "New York Daily Advertiser," dated Thursday, April 23, 1789, and is as follows:

As we believe in an overruling Providence and feel our constant dependence upon God for every blessing, so it is undoubtedly our duty to acknowledge him in all our ways and commit our concerns to his protection and mercy. The ancient civilized heathen, from the mere dictates of reason, were uniformly excited to this; and we find from their writings that they engaged in no important business, especially what related to the welfare of a nation, without a solemn appeal to Heaven. How much more becoming and necessary is such a conduct in Christians, who believe not only in the light of nature, but are blessed with a divine revelation which has taught them more of God and of their obligations to worship him than by their reason they ever could have investigated!

It has been the wish of many pious persons in our land that at the framing of our new Constitution a solemn and particular appeal to Heaven had been made; and they have no doubt but Congress will soon call upon the whole nation to set apart a day for fasting and prayer for the

express purpose of invoking the blessing of Heaven on our new Government. But this, in consequence of the distance of some of the States, cannot immediately take place: in the meanwhile, the inhabitants of this city are favored with the opportunity of being present on the very day on which the Constitution will be fully organized, and have it thus in their power to accommodate their devotions exactly to the important

season.

In this view, it gave universal satisfaction to hear it announced last Sunday from the pulpits of our churches that, on the morning of the day on which our iilustrious President will be invested with his office, the bells will ring at nine o'clock, when the people may go up and in a solemn manner commit the new Government, with its important train of consequences, to the holy protection and blessings of the Most High. An early hour is prudently fixed for this peculiar act of devotion, and it is designed wholly for prayer: it will not detain the citizens very long, or interfere with any of the other public business of the day.

It is supposed Congress will adopt religious solemnities by fervent prayer with their chaplains, in the Federal Hall, when the President takes his oath of office; but the people feel a common interest in this great transaction, and whether they approve of the Constitution as it now stands, or wish that alterations may be made, it is equally their concern and duty to leave the cause with God and refer the issue to his gracious providence. In doing this, the inauguration of our President and the commencement of our national character will be introduced with the auspices of religion, and our enlightened rulers and people will bear a consistent part in a business which involves the weal or woe of themselves and posterity.

I have heard that the notification respecting this hour of prayer was made in almost all the churches of the city, and that some of those who omitted the publication intend, notwithstanding, to join in that duty; and, indeed, considering the singular circumstances of the day, which in many respects exceed any thing recorded in ancient or modern history, it cannot be supposed that the serious and pious of any denomination will hesitate in going up to their respective churches and uniting at the throne of grace with proper prayers and supplications on this occasion. "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord."-(DAVID.)

The people came out from the churches where Mason, Livingston, Provost, Rodgers, and other clergymen had given passionately earnest and eloquent expression to that reverent and profound desire for God's blessing upon the President and Government which filled all hearts, so universal was a religious sense of the importance of the occasion.

"The scene," said one, "was solemn and awful beyond description. It would seem extraordinary that the administration of an oath-a ceremony so very common and familiar-should to so great a degree excite public curiosity; but the circumstances

of the President's election, the importance of his past services, the concourse of the spectators, the devout fervency with which he repeated the oath, and the reverential manner in which he bowed down and kissed the sacred volume,-all these conspired to render it one of the most august and interesting spectacles ever exhibited. It seemed, from the number of witnesses, to be a solemn appeal to heaven and earth at once. In regard to this great and good man I may be an enthusiast, but I confess I was under an awful and religious persuasion that the gracious Ruler of the universe was looking down at that moment with peculiar complacency on an act which to a part of his creatures was so very important."

After divine service had been performed, Washington and the officers of the new Government and the members of Congress returned to the Federal Hall, where his inaugural was delivered. That address contains the following Christian sentiments:—

It would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States A GOVERNMENT instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homago to the great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses YOUR sentiments not less than my own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large less than either.

No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United States. EVERY STEP by which they have been advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of his providential agency.

And in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seems to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves on my mind too strongly to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influences of which the proceedings of a new and a free government can more auspiciously commence.

There is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine

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