The banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1844-1847, 1846-08-19

citiz Of the country. Here our du-
Ties. as we'll as our privileges, ale alike
innumerable, indispensable :. and as end
less as the compass Of human lite itself
We have yet another and highest of all,
our relation 10 God as our maker and 10
His church. repeat then, that all
these, with other memberships, harmo-
niousy move in their proper spheres,
concentrating in the grand, and para
mount, social relation that Of citizen of
the country. And yet the policy and
argument of" AMo THEos," is to divest
me of some of the highest duties and
dearest privileges Of citizenship.
Why then, as citizen, have l not
right, and is it not equally my duty and
privilege, TO indict viola,ors Of the law,
although l might happen to be Com
missioner of roads, member of'a Town
Council or a temperance man?
All how false the del:cacy! how
senseless the prejudice and how mani
iestly unjust this must appear, when we
have the reason assigned, viz Kit is i'm
polite and will pre- udice the cause +"
This is the unmeaning cry Of multi
tudes, not knowing what they say or
whereofthey affirm Honesty isthe best
policy" and the path of duty is always
polite, bu, it is short sighted policy, and
great sin to make duty bend to policy,
or swerve from the path of rectitude for
fear of prejudice. Impoli:.c it is the
watch word of the weary politician and
the willy Jesuit, s,rang word, not
known in the vocabulary of the honest
and the brace. The laws delay by fine
and imprisonment is quite mild in my
humble opinion. l feel more disposed
in honest indignation, directly to annihi-
late the whole line in an instant, without
any circumlocution about it, as the very
women in Michigan, recently y demolish
ed Bowling ally, which their husbands
had not the man!iness or the courage to
do. But this would be force! and per
haps the opposite extreme from that
sgent!s & @'t Of persuasion" suggested in
" Temperance notions"
would ask, if 1T be splitting a hair
south and south west," 10 distinguish
public and private wrongs, public and
private offences, public and private NOR
als2 If so, then the able commentaries
of Blackstone, and the wisdom of legis-
lation: both civil and ecclesiastical are
alike unmeaning-labor lost. There is
difference wide as east and west, in iu-
rIsprudence, between the Legislative, the
judicial and executive departments of
government; and the same sensible dis
tinction exist between public and private
morals, betwixt temperance and social or
der. | have pointed out many widely
different evils affecting social order, us
we'll as temperance, in the traffic of H.
quor This is the granm co~spicuous DIS
tinction. The law is emphaticnIIy the
guardian of p~bIic morals, as being indis,
pensably necessary TO social order, with
ou, which property and life itself would
not be worth possessing; could not be
possessrd. The gospel on the other
hand reaches individual or private mo
rality, by changing the heart, and is
the. only sovereign remedy for ,nnladies
Of the mind, and the only remedy tha,
is permanent and abiding in all moral
reiormations The third division, is
temperance societies, whose peculiar
office it is, to enlighten and d.
rect public opinion, addressing itself TO
the understanding, the reason and the
interest Of men; arguing tina, the food
Of drunkenness, c.n alone be arrested
by sealing up the fountain OF moderate
drinking; persuading men, that indi-
vidual happiness is founded on social
happiness, that the temperance enter
Prise as but an effort to change the drunk
ing wsages Of the community to sober
usages that it is but habit, and that ha-
bit unnatural, not proceeding from the
natural evil propensi,Ies Of the human
heart, as do others, but altogether con-
tracted, and popular by habit, and by
fashion alone. These motives are ad-
dressed TO men for their temporal welfare.
But more--in its distinctive characteristic
as the cause Of humanity, it attaches it.