The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1857-07-15

moral sense implanted in ALL and the love u truth
which To some extent exists in man. together with yaue
instinct of future state with its responsibilities which
of them possessed supplied independent motives VIM
tuous action and Individual Improvement. 1hc~c
eminent exceptions 10 be sure, but for the most part the
people found their only moral restraints In human law ad
looked for the rewards of vrtuous actions not mufh IA
their effects upon themselves IN the estimation In which
they to be held by society. Man thus depended 100
much upon his fellows and his government for bis
tycs to sefcuture and moral Improvement, and coDs
quently he apt To degenerate with his govern
ment, and decline with the institutions which gave the
society TO which he belonged importance and power
For the most part individuals pursued virtue and Wis
dom In proportion they encouraged 90 do ~ by
the society of which they members, and not be-
they loved these things for their own skes Gene
rally speaking, looked to this life only fur the
sequence of their actions or ii they looked beyond II
only to posthumous fame their idea Of future
state at best too vague and indstinct To furnish
strong and persistent motive for the conduct Of their
lives That great wesprng OF monl energy, the sense
Of eternal accountability lay sealed up tbs human
soul like the fountain within the rock, awaiting the
touch of divine power to reveal and set il free.
There required motive within the soul itself
to call out its highest energies and direct them towards
its progress and improvement This great want
supplied by the advent of Christ and the Divine Reyea
on which declared ith and gave the promise Of
higher hope and immortal destiny to man. IL cs-
tabshed within the bosom OF human society common
wealth, whose head in Heaven and whose subjects
upon earth IT sought to these subjects by
the highest of all sanconsthose of future state Of
Il
human soul receive the seed of life whose growth
TO be eternal and whose progress to be infinite To
the temptations OF the present and the things OF time and
sense, opposed eternal hopes and fears immortal I'm
mortal life to be the prize of the probationary strug
gle the souls consciousness Of its growth OF its ee
walton in the scale of existence of ts enlarged capacities
and desnies to sustain 1t amidst the trials of life and
the temptations of time and sense Man was no longer
dependent upon his fellow upon human society and gov
ernment for the means of happiness and improvement;
he bore within himself the light and hope which no
mortal hands could extngush Accordingly, this new
commonwealth made no question with the State IT toer-
ated all forms of government, and asked nothing but
liberation for itself in rcturna liberation which 1t was
idle to refuse for what motives to action could human
authority offer strong enough to overcome the sense Of
these awful responsibilities to higher power, ander
which the members of this community believed
themselves to be acting 1t to set the mortal against
the immortal, and time against eternity.
From this the work Of human progress became
tain and sure 1t no longer depended upon human gov
and societies. These might decline dissolve,
but there seen to be government whose en-
pre destined to be universal whose head and found
was in the heavens and to whom each human soul
might tender its allegiance and find itself strengthened
by the connexon Its great mission to improve and
purify the individual being, and, in proportion that
accomplished, public opinion moulded to amend
and maintain the institutions proper to human society
To claim, however that this new government was, or
could be- nallble would be to claim too much for al
though the law which called it into being divine yet
its ministers human subject TO the failtics OF
mortal nature, and required consequence of that
ture to carry the eenduring work Of progress and
Improvement Still history attests the obligations under
which lie to this agency for the mighty development
which around
During the decline and fall Of Roman power, until its
light and civilization were swallowed up in the night OF
the middle ages and throughout that period Of semi BAR
barsm and ignorance it tho church which preserved
sacred deposite whatever remained of human letters
of the stores of wisdom and knowledge which had been
accumulated in the past Ii was the church, too, which
exerted whatever of power exhibited to temper the
wild ri he barhn to he
oppressor and his victim. Human power could not gov
the subjects of this jurisdiction, but the church could
reach those Of human government And It did reach to
humanize and enlighen them 1t had no mission To
NEEDLE directly with temporal governments, although II
sometimes claimed the right and universally suffered for
the mistake. Its influence was TO be directed to the new
springs of action in the human SOUL to the individual
rvulets in their that sweed the great stream OF
public opinion which in past times has ruled the world
to extent and is destined to be yet more powerful
for the future
IT, then, with the means which have been describ-
ing has already achieved the wonderful progress Of
which many evidences around us what may we
not hope for him in the way OF development for the fu
tureG If man can acquire wisdom and knowledge not
only through his and understanding but also
through those of another, and If he accumulate
those intellectual stores and transmit them to his poster
ity what to be the boundaries of his future improve
mentg II each generation transmits to its
something than it received from its predecessors is
it not plain that mans development must proceed
through the series of an almost infne arnedal pro-
erosion There is limit it is true in the human fac
ulties themselves, but where shall alix it How
much extensive is the jurisdiction of even common
mind Of the present day the great domain OF thought
than that of Plato, Aristotle, OF Archnedes
ortven Of Nowton And if all this has been chiefly
accomplished through man power OF acquisition from
his fellow, who say where his conquests are to end
The power Of original conception thing, that of
comprehension understanding is another In man the
first is far more limited if indeed it exists at ALL than the
latter He and does comprehend conceptions which
Deity alone could have originated and day by day. lie
unthrcads the great purposes and schemes of creation he
is growing by additions from the Divine mind itself
Now, it must be manifest to the most common OBJ
that mans means TO accumulate this capital stock
of ideal wealth, and to communicate it to his fellow il
far greater at present than at any period OF his past his
tory The art of printing has made it impossible for any
hereafter to nict upon the world the loss that
occasioned by the burning of the Alexandrian library
The numerous public libraries and the multiplied copies
of valuable books in the hands of individuals relieve
from all apprchensions of this sort for the future We
no longer depend upon imperfect heirogyphc signs and
the esoeric doctrine of priests who believe that truth is
q thing too good for the herd, and possession
to be confined to few Nor have the means of inter
course and communication between been here
tofore comparable to what they now arc Within the
last centufywithin the last halfyccntury cycn-thcy
have increased than they did through flight of
ages before But above ALL the great corporations into
which German philosopher has aptIy resolved human
society and by which mans progress is conducted
corporations according his nomenclature is that of the
church.
have already advcrted to the agencies Of the Christian
church in the great work of human progress but have
compared them with those OF the church existed
before that era for the church has always been prime