the ordeal of wealth and influence and honor and power, for a long series of years, without deteriorating in character, without so much as the smell of fire upon his garments, has given the highest proof of the rectitude and stability of his principles of which the case is susceptible.

Why should

2. So of nations. In the moral battle-fields of earth, where defeat slays its thousands, success slays its tens of thousands. This is lamentable, but it is true. Great prosperity begets pride, presumption, audacity, vice. the strong and well think of a physician, or trouble themselves about the laws of health? It is when the grasp of mortal disease is upon them that they turn for refuge to those blessed laws of physical economy, a more timely regard for which would have averted the blow.

3. And why should men and states pause to think of moral questions while all seems to be well enough without such troublesome and disagreeable reflections-while trade and commerce thrive-while gold pours into their coffers — while their ships and trains come and go, and not a ripple disturbs the surface to remind them of the whirlpools that boil below? Not till commerce dies, and the golden streams cease to flow, and the gulf of bankruptcy yawns, and the wolf is at the door, and the roar of the tempest is heard, and public virtue perishes, and fraud, peculation and profligacy are the order of the day, and universal shipwreck and ruin impend, and the avalanche of retribution begins to descend, and society itself with all its treasures, and all government and all law and all order and all faith and hope and truth seem ready to sink into one abyss of irretrievable perdition,—not till then will the mass of men bethink them, that, having sown the wind, it is meet and inevitable that they should reap the whirlwind, and that the only refuge from destruction is in a general return to those immutable principles of rectitude and justice

which are the stability alike of all divine and human governments.

4. During the infancy of this nation, the divine law, more generally and reverently than now, was acknowledged as the only standard of public virtue, and its Author solemnly recognized as the almighty and beneficent Arbiter of human events. Poor and feeble, menaced by powerful enemies and purified by terrible sufferings and sacrifices, our fathers leaned upon the arm of Jehovah, and devoutly laid the beams of the great temple of civil and religious liberty, In their weakness they were strong. For generations, the nascent empire of the West presented the grandest spectacle of integrity and rectitude that the world ever saw.

5. But alas! history must have another victim. Enemies more formidable than foreign fleets and armies assailed the fortresses of the Republic. Wealth, luxury, selfishness, greed, have done their fell work. The outposts of public virtue have crumbled, one by one, till the citadel itself is tottering to its fall. The picture of moral ruin which I have drawn fails to portray the sad reality. It is not extravagant to say that the annals of civilization will be searched in vain for examples of public wickedness and profligacy so stupendous and appalling as those which preceded and have attended the revolt of the Southern States. The fearful truth can only be epitomized by the terrible words, "Sin when it is finished bringeth forth death.”

6. But such colossal crimes are not the growth of a day— slowly, insidiously, for years, the moral cancer has been gnawing at the vitals of the nation. In our effort to escape from the imaginary danger of puritan rigor, we have drifted steadily towards the real peril of unbridled license. Where is the simple truthfulness, the tender conscientiousness, that should make beautiful the lives of our children? What

precociousness in vice, what defiant spurning of moral restraints do we find at the fireside and in the school-room. What eye now moistens at the touching story of George Washington and his little hatchet?

7. What are our public schools doing to arrest this destructive tendency? Are educational men sensible of their responsibility in this matter? Can that culture be complete —can it be safe,— which ignores the moral nature? Is it not practicable to bring the school children of the state more directly and powerfully under the influence of right moral ideas and principles? Is it not a necessity? Have we any security at all, without this, that they will become upright and virtuous citizens?

8. Let it not be said that what is here recommended would conflict with the undoubted right of each individual to prescribe what sentiments shall be imparted to his children in matters of religious faith. Nothing sectarian should find a place in the instruction of our public schools. But the moral and preceptive parts of the Gospel are not sectarian. If they are, then charity is sectarian, purity is sectarian, forgiveness is sectarian, forbearance is sectarian, all things lovely and of good report are sectarian; earth, air, fire, water, sun, moon, stars, and heaven itself are sectarian, and nothing is left for humanity at large, but the devil!

CV. OUR SCHOOLS MUST IMPART MORAL CULTURE.

NEWTON BATEMAN.

1. It should be proclaimed in every school that there are original, immutable, and indestructible maxims of moral rectitude,great lights in the firmament of the soul,-which no circumstances can affect, no sophistry obliterate. That to

this eternal standard every individual of the race is bound to conform, and that by it the conduct of every man shall be adjudged. It should be proclaimed that dishonesty, fraud, and falsehood are as despicable and criminal in the most exalted stations as in the most obscure, in politics as in busiThat the demagogue who tells a lie to gain a vote, is as infamous as the peddler who tells one to gain a penny.

ness.

2. It should be taught that an editor who wantonly maligns an opponent for the benefit of his party, is as vile as the perjured hireling who slanders his neighbor for pay. That the corporation or the man who spawns by the thousand his worthless promises-to-pay, under the name of banking, knowing them to be worthless, is as guilty of obtaining money under false pretenses, as the acknowledged rogue who is incarcerated for the same thing under the name of swindling. That the contractor who defrauds the government under cover of the technicalities of the law, is as much a thief as he who deliberately and knowingly appropriates to his own use the property of another.

3. In a word, let it be impressed in all our schools that the vocabulary of heaven has but one word for each willful infraction of the moral code, and that no pretexts or subterfuges or sophistries of men can soften the import or lessen the guilt which that word conveys. Tell the school children that the deliberate falsifier of the truth is a liar, whether it be the prince on his throne, or the beggar on his dunghill, — whether it be by diplomatists for reasons of state, or by chiffonniers for the possession of the rags in the gutter. Tell them that he who obtains money or goods under false pretenses is a swindler,- no more nor less, -be the man and the circumstances what they may.

4. Tell them that he who irreverently uses the name of the Deity is a blasphemer, whether he be a congressman or a

scullion. Tell them that he who habitually drinks intoxicating liquors to excess is a drunkard, whether it be from goblets of gold in the palatial saloon, or from tin cups in a grogshop. Tell them that he who speaks lightly or sneeringly of the honor of woman is a calumniator, be his pretensions to gentility what they may. And so with the whole catalogue of vices and crimes, till the line of demarcation between good and evil shall be graven so deeply upon the mind and conscience that it can never be obliterated.

5. Let our public schools do this, and the life-giving influence shall be felt through every vein and artery of the body politic. A divine fire shall be kindled that will purge the foul channels of business, finance, and politics, and consume the subtle network of sophistries like stubble. Let our public schools do this, and a generation of men shall come upon the field of active life, who will bring back in the administration of public and private affairs, the purer days of the Republic,--men in whom the high crimes and misdemeanors, the frauds and peculations which now disgrace and ruin the country shall be unknown.

6. And, while vice is stripped of its specious disguise and denounced in all its forms under its own hateful names, let our schools fail not to point the young to those substantial and enduring honors which cluster in eternal loveliness upon the brow of virtue. While the youthful citizen is taught to detect and detest the former, let him be allured and ravished by the ineffable attractiveness of the latter. Lead him to the mount of transfiguration and show him the moral and spiritual brightness that may encircle a human being, even in this life. Tell him that the conquest of self is more glorious than victories by land or sea. Tell him that there are laurels which will be green and fadeless when the chaplets of conquerors shall have crumbled to dust, and their names and deeds be forgotten.