The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-07-29
WASHINGTON, ID. G.
THURSDAY, JULY &c, 1852.
THE FAITH OF cEsAR's HOUSEHOLD.

orc - saws Mr.. Nenable In speech lateiy ue-
liyorod in the House of Representatives. Some
gears ago Mr. Clay offered resolution IN the
Sonate calling upon the President to appoint
q dav of fasting, humiliation, and prayer, 10
avert or mitigate, or sanctfy the impending WIS.,
itotion of the Asatic cholera; he said, among
other things 81 am not a Christian; hope |
shall be before | die y he was about sixty
wears of age at the time He said in the same
snaech lit is natural to turn to God when
there is no help from man
Now. what is Christian statesman and
how is he the glory of his age! Is he Chris
tian statesman, who. when his craftsmanship
is finished and his life just closing, says,
trust in the atonement of the Saviour of men, as
the ground of my acceptance and my hope OF
salvation ~ adding, my faith is feeble, but
hope in His mercy and trust in His promises!"
Is it the age or the religion of the age that is
glorifed by the dying submission of great
man Surely it is not the statesman, but the
man, that dies; and if his own notion of " sal
vation - is that it is something future, some
thing after death - that a man is not saved
from his sins in this life, from their guilt
power, and practice, but from their proper
consequences in the next life-how is his Chris
tianity the glory of his age? Is it not in fact
as we'll as in his own opinion, only his own es-
cane. his own refuge from the retributions of
divine Justice! Religion may boast the honor
of disciple distinguished in the worlds opin-
ion. if it needs an honorable endorsement! and
such endorsement may help to make similar
profession easy to those who seek the honor
which cometh from man but how else fee
bic faith which in its nature is no more than
sentiment excited too late to be practice
in any of the rectitudes demanded by Chris
tianity. rather for their social uses than for
their religious truth - how else a reform at
three score and ten can be glory or boast or
benefit is not all apparent.
Mr. Underwood too says: "The lessons of
His Providence remind us that we have higher
duties to fulfil, and grayer responsibilities to
encounter, than those that meet us here, when
we lay our hands upon His holy word and in
woke His holy name, promising to be faithful
to that Constitution which he gave us in his
mercy, and will withdraw only in the hour of
our own blindness and disobedience and of
His own wrath Is this truei Is religion in
deed thus separated from our duty to our
neghbor! Are its obligations toward man
justly ranked so far below the homage which
it exacts toward God? Are the submissions Of
exhaustion, and the solictudes of dying man
for his own salvation, an acceptable substitute
for Righteousness of life or an atonement for
practical delinquency?
The Christianity Of the age is bound in duty
and honor to repudiate such report of it's re-
quirements; it is concerned to insist upon its
place and action in the everyday duties of life,
especially in those which relate to the largest
and most permanent interests of society. Re-
hgion must not permit itself to be changed
from directory for business into policy of
insurance, and so to be transferred from the
concerns of time to the speculations of eternity.
The greatest Teacher employed every conceiv-
able method to impress the eminently practical
character of the religion which he established
Look at his Sermon on the Mount, which is a
compendium of all his teachings. What war
ranty does it afford for exalting worship and
faith toward God above love and service to
man See, too, how every parable of his cor
roborates the morality rather than the doc
trines of his system and especially when he
lifts the curtain of the spirit world and dis
plays the principles and process of the final
Judgment, is there word there that counte-
nances the neglect or violation of duty to man,
as a less matter than a sentimental faith in the
atonement! 1t is true, or it is not true, that
we shall be judged, every man according to his
deeds done in the body that we shall reap that
which we have sown; and that the cry of
Lord, Lord !" will not answer when the ques-
ton is what improvement we have actually
made of our talents. Do the Scriptures author
ize the magnifying of the Divine mercy at the
expense of human duty, or allow that flatter-
ing the Most High is just as good as honoring
Him, or that sacrifice is an acceptable service
IN lien Of obediencei
verify it is an evil day for this world, when
Its religion is separated from its work and an
unsanctified morality is left TO save men from
their suiierings and to mend their manner of
life; and the whole of piety is reduced to the
matter Of worship, and the saving Of mems
souls after they are dead No wonder that the
higher law is formally excluded from the halls
oil legislation, and that conscience is held sub.
ordinate to expediency and compromise, when
ali the good there is in religion is supposed to
be Just as available to the sinner as to the
saint
What Is truth! said Plate; and turned
away from the presence of its embodiment; for
he meant not an inquiry, but denial of its
existence in any system Of opinions, and Of all
certainty concerning it. Had he waited for
The answer, that concerned him in his Office of
Governor, he would not have baptized his
hands to wash away the blood he was about
m the Indifference Of his skepticism, to shed.
nat man is the type Of those who ask, scorn-
,uny or doubtfully, what is truth or, what is
is authority over us And it is not too much
" say that his despair and suicide are better
ana more wholesome commentary upon his
Du'e and cowardly abuse of political power to
s'a''iy the public, than u late repentance, CON-
ps'ied either by fear or hope, or any other self
'Sh motive, could have been.
"s perhaps too much to expect tombstones
% Tell truth yet there is nothing so sacred in
'orrow rs in the law by which we live for the
'enes' ends Of our being; and when polit-
s.an' IN high places preach, they must be held
~"'~erabis to the canons of just critieism.