The Bible-the Patriot's Book.

PATRIOTISM has in all ages, and by all nations, been deemed one of the noblest passions that can warm and animate the breast of man. It is a constituent element in the human constitution. There is a principle implanted in us by our Creator which prompts us to seek our own safety and happiness. But our happiness is inseparably connected with that of our family, relations, friends, neighbors, and of the whole community subsisting under the same social compact, governed by the same laws and magistrates, and having a common interest with ourselves. The love of one's country, therefore, is the natural expansion of self-love-a necessary consequence of the wise and rational love which a man owes to himself and the individual who is destitute of this affection, has crushed the instinct of humanity, and is a rebel at once against the dictates of reason and the precepts of religion.

By what means can national prosperity and perpetuity be secured?

The mere diffusion of knowledge will not be sufficient for this purpose. I would not advance a syllable in disparagement of any efforts to enlighten the public mind, but I am thoroughly convinced that the adoption of the common school system of instruction

-the extensive and cheap publication of newspapers and books and the multiplication and endowment of academies, lyceums, and colleges, cannot, of themselves, secure a nation's freedom, union, and happiness. The teaching of reason, here, is in harmony with the lessons of history. Men, to be good citizens, must not only know their duty, but be inclined to do it. They need more than light. But there is no power in mental cultivation to give this disposition. Secular sciences-such as that of mechanics, numbers, and languages-leave the conscience untouched, and this being the case, no result of this nature can be expected from them. In all their range, there is not a single principle that can connect itself with moral feeling, and hence a moral effect from them would be an effect without a cause. It would be just as natural to look for a knowledge of Botany to grow out of a knowledge of Astronomy.

And where are the nations of Antiquity! Many of them were learned and refined. They are the confessed models of genius, and taste, and arts, and philosophy. But where are they? Greece, for instance, had Athens, with her celebrated schools, and her Acropolis, as a grand depository for everything the most splendid in painting, sculpture, and architecture. She had Corinth, also, where the arts and sciences were carried to such perfection, that Cicero termed it, "totius Grecia lumen." But where, I ask, is Greece now, with her proud cities ?-Where is Rome, too-imperial Rome-with all her pomp

and polish—all her intelligence and power? "They were, but they are not"-their glory has departed.

And why has this been the melancholy doom of all these mighty nations? The reason is at hand: the politics they erected and adorned were built like Babylon, the capitol of one of the oldest of them, with clay hardenel only in the sun, which has long become a mass of ruin, undistinguished from its parent earth. They were without perpetuity, because they were without the essential element of it.

The case of France may likewise be appropriately referred to. Previously to the revolution which, during the last century, shook this country to its centre, the people were not ignorant. Twenty thousand persons had been employed in writing books. Even in the midst of the most shocking scenes which were then exhibited, science was fast advancing. La Place was busy with his investigations in Astronomy, and in the higher branches of Mathematics. Chemistry was flourishing in the hands of successful cultivators among whom was Lavoisier, who was dragged from the laboratory to the guillotine, to die, because he was rich. Indeed, all the branches of physical, and many other departments of science, were rapidly extending themselves. Why, then, was there a "reign of terror ?" Why were the foundations of morality more completely subverted than probably ever before in any civilized state? Why did selfishness, avarice, revenge, dishonesty, rapacity, malignity, licentiousness, impiety, inhumanity and

cruelty, prevail to an extent, of which the annals of the world, perhaps, furnish no parallel? Why did the Goddess of Liberty retire from the throne as the Goddess of Reason was elevated to it? Let the true answer to this inquiry be whatever different persons may suppose it to be, the proof is still conclusive, that more than knowledge is necessary to save a people from the grossest demoralization, from anarchy, and from ruin itself.

The same thing is true in relation to that morality which is merely the deduction of human reason. Experiments have been made of the conservative power of systems of this description. Paganism had its didactic codes, and they contained much that deserves to be admired. But though they themselves long continued, they could not prevent a general depravity of manners. They stood, but as the summit of a rock from the sides of which the vegetable mould has fallen, without soil to give root to a principle, or to support the bloom, or feed the fragrance of a virtue. Not even the men who prepared them, were governed by them in their conduct. Whilst they held up the mirror for others, they could not or would not see themselves. They were philosophers, professed teachers of wisdom; but, ably as they could write on duty-well as they could prescribe for the public they were, for their own melioration, "physicians of no value." Socrates, himself, who has been more panegyrized than any of the rest, has, from his habit of interlarding his conversation with

1

profane oaths, and from a visit he made to an Athenian courtezan, dark shades resting upon his character, which any man of correct ideas of morality in our day would be ashamed of, and would expect to cover him with disgrace. And, as these codes did not operate favorably upon the higher and educated classes of society, neither did they, as might readily be inferred, improve the lower and illiterate. Degeneracy still abounded.

Nor is it strange that such was the case. It is by no means difficult to account for the fact, that these wise men, whilst they saw what was right, and approved it, followed that which was evil. Still less difficulty is there in understanding why it was that the people at large were not benefitted by the directions which they received. These directions, or precepts, had nothing to enforce obedience to them. They wanted authority. They were a "dead letter" -like Sampson, apparently able to accomplish much, but, like this mighty man, when "shorn of his strength." They were regarded as embodying mere advice-opinions of teachers, and nothing but opinions which every one might listen to or not, receive or reject, as it suited their interest, passions, principles or humors, without any consciousness of violating an obligation; and hence the consequence was, what it ever must be in similar circumstances, that they proved not to be of sufficient efficacy to counteract the innate propensity of men to evil, and