Edwardsville spectator. [volume] (Edwardsville, Ill.) 1819-1826, 1821-08-14

man with his Creator, and in his &C.
quaintance with himself. 1t was an ad-
vance in the knowledge of his duties and
his rights. TWAS step in the progress
of man in comparison with which the
Magnet and Gunpowder, the wonders of
either Indias, nay, the Printing Press it.
self, were but the PAGES of a pigmy TO
the stride of giant. If to this step of
human advancement Germany likewise
lays claim in the person of Martin Lu
Their, or in the earlier but Intellectual
martyrdom of John Huss, England may
point to her Wiclifie as yet more pri-
NATIVE yindicator of the same righteous
cause, and may insist on the glory OF
having contribu ed her share to the i'm
provement of the moral condition OF
man.
The corruptions and usurpations Of
the Church were the immediate object
OF these reformers; but, at the foundation
of all their exerlions, there was a single,
plain, and almost self-evident principle
that man has right to the exercise OF
his own reason. 1t was this principle
which the sopbistry and rapacity OF the
Church had obscured and obliterated,
and which the intestine divisions of the
same Church itself first restored. The
triumph of reason was the result OF in
curry and discussion. Centuries of de-
solating wars have succeeded, and oceans
of human blood have flowed for the final
establishment of this principle; but i,
was from the darkness of the Cloister
that the first spark was emitted, and
from the arches of an University that it
first kindled into day. From the discus
sion of religious rights and duties, the
transition to that Of the political and civil
relations of men with one another, was
natural and unavoidable ; in both, the re-
formers were met by the weapons OF
temporal power. AT the same glance
of reason, the tiara would have fallen
from the brow of priesthood, and the
despotic sceptre would have departed
from the hand of royalty, but for the
sword by which they were protected
that sword which, like the flaming sword
of the Cherubim, turned every way to
debar access to The tree of life.
The double contest against the OPP
pressors of the Church and State was
too appalling for the vigor, or too COM
prehensive for the faculties of the re-
formers of the European Continent. In
Britain alone was it undertaken and in
Britain but partially succeeded.
1t was in the midst Of that fern enta-
ton of the human intellect which brough,
right and power in direct and deadly con-
4ict with each other, thatihe rival crowns
Of the two portions of the British Island,
were united on the same head. Ii was
then that, released from the manacles Of
ecc lesiastical domination, the minds OF
men began to investigate the foundations
Of civil government. But the mass OF
the nation surveyed the fabric of their
institutions as it existed in fact. 1t had
been founded in conquest; it had been
cemented in seryitude, and SO broken
and moulded had been the minds ot
this brave and intelligent people to them
actual condition, that instead Of solving
civil society into its first elements in
search of their rights, they looked back
only to conquest as the origin OF their
liberties, and claimed their rights but as
donations from their kings.
This fal,ering assertion of freedom is
not chargeable indeed upon the whole
nation. There were spirits capable OF
tracing civil government to its founda-
ton in the moral and physical nature OF
man; but conquest and servitude were
so mingled up in every particle of the
social existence of the nation, that they
had become vitality necessary to them,
as a portion of the fluid, itself destruc-
tive of life, is indispensably blended with
the atmosphere in which we live.
Fellow Citizens, it was in the heat OF
this war of moral elements, which
brought one Stuart to the block, and
hurled another from his throne, that our
forefathers sought refuge from its fury,
in the then wilderness of this Western
World.
They were willing exiles from coun-
try dearer to them than life.-But they
were the exiles of liberty and of con-
science, dearer to them even than their
country. They came too with Charters
from their kings: forever in removing
to another hemisphere, they "cast long
ing, lingering, looks behind," and were
anxiously DESTROYS of retaining ties Of
connexion with their country, which, in
the solemn compact Of a charter, they
hoped by the corresponding links of al
legiance and protection to preserve.
But to their sense of right, the charter
was only the ligament between them
their country. and their king, Trans.