The Portland daily press., 1864-04-23

One example may DO found in the course
which thousands of profoundly Iod-eaIlnB
men have taken, through all our natlonal MS
tory, in the solemn duty OF etecting our no
TONS ruler. Have God-iearing mea insisted
that none but God-iearing men should rule
over themp Have men who believe IN virtue,
and temperance and the common moralitles
of life demanded that those whom they ele-
waite TO office, should not be men wanting
any one OF these things? Let the actual
biographies of our civil rulers answer What
type Of outrage on morality has not occupied
seats OF honor and exalted trust in our gov
eminent? What one crime of the calender
is lacking from the history of some of those
to whom We haye been accustomed TO look
up, and to whom We have taught our children
70 look up, as administrators of law over us
We have had infdels, adulterers, and drunk
ards in our Presidential chair. We have had
thieves, blasphemers and murdereIs in our
halls OF Congress.
And yet there was never an election oil one
of these men, which the combined moral sem
timents of those who proiessedly condemn
such immoralities, could not have infallibly
prevented. Why then were they not preven-
ted? What kind of legerdemain of the con
science was it, which permitted men who in
the sphere of their religious life and private
behaviours, are careful not to be touched
OF such sins, TO cooperate, and coope-
III ltlH1
duellsts and blasphemers to places of public
trust? Why did they feel theyhad a shadow of
right to place 10 positions of earthly rule,
men whose whole life was insult aud defiance
to heavenly authority? Simply because they
blinded themselves to the truth, that the king
dom of God covers every inch OF the terri
tory of the kingdom OF this world. Simply
because they accepted the delusion that there
are two standards of what is moral, two rules
of what is safe, the one for affairs of religion,
the other for affairs of state. They sank
down into quiet acqueseence in the doc
trine OF radical and eternal opposition
between the realms If civil government
and moral law. And so it came about that
thousands of men, who in the sphere of church
aud private life, were patterns of all the de-
votons and the purities, could without an
apparent shadow of conscious inconsistency,
In their public capacity ratily and honor all
the immoralities of our brothes and our jais.
Out of prayer meeting where they had
asked the Lord 10 bid his holiness shine forth,
they could go to the convention and hold up
their hands for a man with whom their daugh-
tiers would not be safe, and on whose lips the
name of their God whom they had Just in
voked, was coupled only with oaths Sup
plicating Christ to gather multtudes TO the
glory Of his heavenly world, they join hands
with those who are content If they can only
see the devil have his way in this earthly one.
They bind themselves by satan's anti-christian
caucusses. They stand to his immoral party
nominations. They vote the regular ticket
Of the Pit, while they pray, nevertheless for
the coming Of the kingdom of heaven"
Notice very briefly, las another illustration
OF this accepted enforcement of the spheres
OF Gods kingdom and human afiarsl the po-
sition so long taken by the majority of our
natlonscitlzens on the question of human STAR
cry. The petition THY kingdom come Thy
will be done, as in heaven, so in EARTH was a
petition far the greater number of these citi-
zens had learned in infancy at their mothers
knee been familiar with always and accepted
as most fitting and important supplication.
Well, then, pray it, by all means! But con-
slider moment VIII there be chattel slav-
cry when the kingdom of God really comes a?
Ii Gods will were actually ''done on earth as
IL is done in heaven" would there he men and
women groaning because of the robbery of
right OF property and family and intelligence,
and selt-control? Would there be scourges and
manacles for guiltess sufferers, if the wv i'll Of
God were done on earth as il is done in heaven?
Would there be millions of men who could
not defend their claim to the children they
had begotten, from the arbitrary determine
ton OF another man to sell them from their
parents forever-if Gods will were done?
Would there be countless multitudes of wo-
men given over without the least shadow of
owners
supposing Gods will to be done?
How then came il about, that through all
those weary years, (which thank God, seem
to be drawing TO their closel how came it
about, that this legalized curse which the first
breath Of Gods will would have swept into
the abyss, kept on its devourng and extend
ing way, always By the permission aud largely
by the active defence and cooperation, of the
very men who daily uttered the words, "Thy
ho done 4, Il = 4 A.
How could they, thousands Of them, without
one apparent twinge of conscious inconsis-
tency, legislate in behalf of what they suppli-
Gated against in prayer? How could they
spend their days in careful building up, what
on their Bonded knee of evening, they petit
TONED God TO pull down?
The answer is plain, albeit it is astonishing
such an answer can be true. They put an i'm
passible gulf between the things they prayed
for, and the things they worked for. They
wanted the kingdom of God TO come; but
they had trained themselves to expect its APP
pearlng only ia some seventh heaven of re-
moyedness from this world; thing of costa
cies and inward experience s OF souls divorced
from their bodies, and celestial beatitudes
quiteseparate from earthly charities. Slavery
could endure here, and be extended here, for
religion was a matter of souls. Manacles
could elank, and weeping households be dis
membered, was there not Canaan beyond
deaths river, where those for whom Gods
Will had nothing good on earth, could possibly
arrive and repair their damages, sustained in
world from whose benign arrangements they
had been left out, and in which il was allowa-
Die TO make them the very paving-siones over
which the Chariot of Trade should magnif-
Gently roll?
These are but two illustrations of a divorce
ment OF Gods kingdom from human affairs
OF which we as people have been long guilty.
1t Is because we have thus separated religion
from affairs, that affairs wear the terrible as
pect they do this day. 1t is because we have
sorefused TO apply the law of the kingdom of
God. TO the government of our land, that that
land trembles to the tread of million armed
men.
Would you know the reason why acres on
acres of Wondering bodies lie scarce ankle
deep beneath the springng grasses of Mary
land, Virginia, and Tennessee? Ii is because
we, as people have rejected the mild sway
OF Divine principle in civil matters aud accep-
ted instead laws of ant-Diyine aud Satanic
sovereignty, whose inevitable Issue is disor-
der, agony, and blood 1t Is because when
We have prayed Christ's prayer, "Thy kingdom
come, Thy will be done on EARTH" we have not
honestly accepted that petition In its full
meaning and intent and earnestly and unfal-
terlngly striyen to hare earthly affairs, public
and individual, go according to His will We
have paltered with Gods kingdom in double
sense, and our reward is the judgments
which are upon u.s.
What then is our remedy? Plainly to re-
verse our course. To recognize the eternal
sway and the universal applicability, of the
principles OF heavenly trust I'M earthly affairs