For three hundred years the Church has been on the side of the past, and the future has been with statesmen and philosophers. During these three hundred years of insurrection, revolution, experiment, and philosophizing, philosophers and statesmen have brought forth two grand conceptions, which are to serve as the basis of the whole future. These two conceptions are EQUALITY and PROGRESS, or the Incarnation of the Word in all men, making all thereby the sons of God, and therefore equal one to another; and the indefinite perfectibility of the race; giving therefore an Ideal to the Church, and making it its duty to labor for the realization of this perfectibility for all men, and in all the aspects of their being. These two conceptions were already in the mind of Jesus, but were only partially embraced by the Church. It admitted the divinity of human nature only in the case of one man, and progress, perfectibility, only in the spiritual order. Now all men are divine, and progress must be sought in the material order no less than in the spiritual. This progress is indefinite; no term can be placed to it. These are the grand conceptions, which have come forth from past labors and past struggles. They have cost much, but they are worth all that they have cost. These are the foundations of future society, EQUALITY AND PROGRESS, LOVE TO ALL MEN, AS HERETOFORE THERE HAS BEEN LOVE TO JESUS, efforts to set the race forward to more and more advanced stages of civilization. Here is the Ideal. Morality, piety, all that is praiseworthy and noble will consist in efforts to realize this Ideal. This Ideal is now affirmed, and not by one man only, but by millions of warm hearts, that thrill at the very words EQUALITY and PROGRESS. They are affirmed in the very soul of the age in which we live, and the Church must accept them, and become an organism for their realization, direct all activities, intelligences, and sympathies to their realization. The existing Church may accept this Ideal. She is already an organism for that purpose, did she but know it. Her clergymen may become prophets, and from the heights of every pulpit in Christendom

proclaim, that all men are sons of God, and indefinitely progressive; and that the love and worship of God consist in the love of all men, and in efforts to advance the race in civilization. But if she will not thus proclaim, if she will not make it matter of discipline, and regard the neglect to labor in the cause of equality and progress an offence, deserving the censure of the Church, then a new Church will organize itself, a new temple will rise at the magic words, as did the walls of Thebes as the prophet touched his lyre.

The time of denial has gone by. Protestantism is obsolete. The time has come to affirm, and to affirm with emphasis. The race is tired of mere analysis, criticism, dissecting, which gives not life, but takes it away. It demands a broad and generous synthesis, positive convictions, positive institutions, and a positive mission. It would act. Infidelity there may yet be; men no doubt are still disputing, whether there be or be not a God, whether the Scriptures were or were not given by divine inspiration, whether there be or be not a life beyond this life. Vain disputings all. He who would have faith must go forth and act. He who will do the will of God shall know there is a God. He who will cultivate love to all men, by seeking to do good to all men, shall never doubt that there is a common Father of all; and he in whose heart eternally wells up a living love for all that live, who perpetually aspires, shall want no arguments to convince him. that he cannot die. He lives immortality. Let the Church once more aspire, let its face be turned to the future, and let it command the moral, physical, and intellectual advancement of the race, command it in the name of God, and bless him who is able and willing to live or die for it, and faith will be restored, and men will live again. Christ will then reappear, and the kingdom shall in very deed be given to the saints who will possess it forever and ever. Even now, they who

have eyes may see the Son of MAN coming in the clouds of heaven, in all the glory of his Father, surrounded by all pure and loving spirits, to gather his

elect from the four corners of the earth, into a holy association, animated by a single spirit, and directed by a single will, for the brilliant conquest of the future. He comes. Lift up your heads, ye who have sighed under bondage, open your eyes, ye who have sat long in the region and shadow of death, exult, ye who have waited to see the salvation of God, for he cometh, and the day of redemption is at hand, and all the ends of the earth shall see the glory of God, and rejoice together.

GOVERNMENT is not, as the author of Common Sense asserts, "at best a necessary evil." It has its origin and necessity in what is good, not merely in what is bad in human nature. It rests for its support on elements as pure, as elevated, and as indestructible as those on which rests religion itself. It will not, therefore, cease to operate, nor become less essential as an instrument of social progress and well being, in proportion as men advance in wisdom and virtue, as is contended by a portion of our modern philanthropists.

Man was made to live in society, in intimate relations with his race, and he can live nowhere else. It is only in society, and by its aid, that he can grow, and expand, and fulfil the end of his being.

Society is inconceivable without individuals, but it has an existence, a destiny distinguishable, if not separable from theirs. It acts ever in relation to individuals, and through individuals, but its action is not theirs, nor merely an aggregate of isolated activities. It is not itself an aggregate, a collection, but a unity, an individuality, living its own life, which extends from the indefinite past to the illimitable future.

Society becomes a unity, an individual, by organizing itself into the state or commonwealth. So organized, it

is government, and its action is governmental action. Or in other words, and a more limited sense, government is the result of this organization, and the agent through which it operates.

Society organized into the state or commonwealth, that is, as government, has for its mission the maintenance of every member of the community, in the free and full possession of all his natural liberty, and the performance, in harmony with this natural liberty, of those labors demanded by the common good of all, which necessarily surpass the reach of individual strength, skill, and enterprise.

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The maintenance of each and every member of the community in the full possession of his natural liberty is the first duty of government. Till this be done, nothing is gained. But this is not all. No individual is sufficient for himself, and however free individuals may be, if left to act always as individuals, without concert, without union, association, they can accomplish little for themselves, or for the race. Savages are as free, individually, as can be wished; but the savage state is the lowest conceivable form of social life. it there is no progress. The individual is poor and solitary, wandering the earth as an outcast, and doomed to subsist on wild berries, or the scanty products of fishing or the chase, always precarious, and at best but feebly sufficing for his subsistence. There are labors. demanded for the growth and well-being of the individual, which no single individual can perform. These must be performed by association, that is, by government. Government, besides maintaining the natural liberty of the individual, must open the resources of the country, construct roads and bridges, railways and canals, open harbors, erect light-houses, protect commerce and navigation, build school-houses and churches, asylums and hospitals, and furnish the means of universal education, of the highest industrial, scientific, and artistic culture for all the children born into the community.

The end of government is then two-fold. Those

who regard its mission as merely negative, merely that of preventing or redressing the encroachments of one individual upon another, restrict quite too much the sphere of its activity; and those who look only to the positive labors it may perform for social progress and well-being, and urge it on to their performance, regardless of the rights of individuals, defeat themselves; for there is no good that can compensate the loss of liberty.

The ENDS of government are determined by the law of eternal and absolute Justice, and are everywhere and always the same. Always and everywhere is it obligatory on government to maintain justice between man and man, and to direct the activity of society to the common good of all its members. Of this no government may ever lose sight. No statesman may raise in regard to it a question of expediency, allege that it is difficult or inconsistent, and that it may, therefore, be sacrificed to something more easily attained.

But the FORM of the government is a mere question of means to an end. One form of government in itself is no more just and equitable than another, and no more obligatory upon a people. That form is the best for a people, which in its practical workings best realizes the true end of government. In some countries this may be the monarchical form, in others the aristocratic, in others still the democratic, or some modification of one or all of these.

Hitherto all governments have failed to realize, in any tolerable degree, the two-fold end of government designated. The American governments form no exception to this statement. They have merely demonstrated that the American people can maintain a strong and stable government without kings or nobles; nothing more. It remains to be demonstrated, that they can establish and maintain wise and just governments, which fulfil their duty alike to society and the individual. Beyond the recognition of political rights, our governments do nothing more for individual liberty, or for social progress, than the governments of the more advanced European nations are doing. In the science