Mark Hopkins

“ Without God, the universe has no cause, its contrivances indicate no intelligence, its providence no goodness, its related parts and processes no unity, its events no convergence to one grand result, and the glorious spectacle presented in the earth and the heavens, instead of calling forth admiration and songs, is an enigma perplexing to the intellect, and torturing to the heart. ”

“ Indeed, so far as responsibility is concerned, the divine government considers man, whether in solitude or in a crowd, solely as an individual, and produces an isolation of each as complete as if he were the only person in the universe. God knows nothing of divided responsibility, and whether acting alone, or as a member of a corporation or of a legislature, every man is responsible to him for just what he does as a moral being, and for nothing more. ”

“ God, the universe of matter is as the evening cloud that lies in the sunlight, radiant, and skirted with glory; without him it is the same cloud cold and dark when that sunlight is gone. Without God, man is an orphan ”

“ By thus bringing the moral nature of man to act in opposition to power, and by giving him light, and strength, and foothold, to enable him to sustain that opposition, christianity has done an inestimable service, and has placed humanity at the only point where its highest grandeur appears. At this point, sustained by principle, and often in the person of the humblest individual, it bids defiance to all the malice of men to wrest from it its true liberty. ”

“ And here I remark, that it is only incidentally that human government is necessary to man as a social being at all. Society was before government, and if man had retained his original state, it might, perhaps, have existed without it till the end of time. Man is constituted by his Creator a social being; he has faculties to the expansion and perfection of which society is requisite, but he has no faculties the necessities of which constitute him a political being. There must be politicians, just as there must be farmers, and merchants, and physicians, that they and others may enjoy social life ”

“ These are furnished by the government of God, which is not only a system of restraint and protection, but also, and chiefly, of inducements to excellence. Into the ear of the humblest of its subjects it whispers, as it points upward, "Glory," "Honor," "Immortality," "Eternal Life." It is parental in its character, makes us members of a family, gives us objects of affection, and by its perfect standard of moral excellence, and the character of God which it sets before us, it purifies and elevates the mind. Without a God to whom he is related and accountable, man has neither dignity nor hope. ”

“ This is the only liberty known under the government of God. He who knows it not is the slave of sin. He who struggles not for it, is in a contented bondage of which physical slavery is but a feeble type. The perfection of this liberty is only another name for moral perfection, which, as I have said, is the great end of the individual; and as the direct motives and means for the attainment of this are furnished only by the government of God, it is evident that "We ought to obey God rather than men." ”

“ I certainly know, and my hearers are fortunate if they do not know, neighborhoods in this land of liberty and equality, where the only use made of liberty is to render families and society wretched, and where the only equality, is an equality in vice and social degradation, which no man is permitted even to attempt to rise above without constant annoyance. Better, far better, is family affection, and kind neighborhood under a regal, or even a despotic government, than such liberty as this. ”

“ Government then is not an end, but a means. Society is the end, and government should be the agent of society, to benefit man in his social condition. The extent to which it can do this will depend on its form, and the power with which it [19] is entrusted. Absolute power, which should be used for this purpose, is generally abused. Considering itself as having interests distinct from those of the people, it too often seeks to keep them in a state of degradation, and to appropriate to itself the largest possible share of those blessings which ought to be equally diffused. ”

“ This inefficacy of our government to produce moral and social reformations should be well understood, because it throws the fearful responsibility of maintaining our institutions directly upon the people, where it must rest. A government originating in society, can have but slight ground to stand on in resisting its downward tendency. That there is in society such a tendency, all history shows. As nations have become older, they have invariably become more corrupt. They have never reached that point in general morality at which men cease to corrupt each other by associating together. ”

“ He is the creature of God, is subject to his laws, and can find his perfection, and consequent happiness, only in obeying those laws. As his moral perfection, the life of his life, is involved in this obedience, it is impossible that any power should lay him under obligation to disobey. The known will of God, if not the foundation of right, is its paramount rule, and it is because human governments are ordained by him, that we owe them obedience. We are bound to them, not by compact, but only as God's institutions for the good of the race. ”

“ When this is done, when patriotism, and philanthropy, and religion, have caused an ebb-tide in the flood of evil that was coming up over the land, then government may come in, not to carry forward a moral reformation by force, but to erect a barrier against the return of that tide. It can secure what these agents have gained. It can put a shield into the hands of society, with which it can, if it pleases, protect itself against that selfishness and malignity which always lurk in its borders, and which moral [21] influence cannot reach. ”

“ It is, as I have said, the power which man has to accept or reject this law of his being, the great law of love, that renders him capable of character, and it is evidently as a theatre, on which this may be manifested, that the present scene of things is sustained. Not with more certainty do the processes of vegetation point to the blossoms and the fruit as the results to which they conspire, than does every thing in the nature and condition of man indicate the formation of a specific, voluntary, moral character, as the purpose for which God placed him here. ”

“ It brought the conscience to a point where it not only might resist human governments, but where, as they were then exercised, it was compelled to resist them. This appeared when the text was uttered, and there was then a rock raised in the ocean of tyranny which has not been overflowed to this day. The same qualities which make the conscience so potent an ally of power, must, when it is enlightened by a true knowledge of God and of duty, and when immortality is clearly set before the mind, make it the most formidable of all barriers to tyranny and oppression. ”

“ Whatever elevates the individual, whatever gives him worth in his own estimation and that of others, whatever invests him with moral dignity, must be favorable both to pure morality and to civil liberty. ”

“ Her quiet teachings and mute prophecies, her indexes pointing to the spirit land, instead of being felt as a mockery, are in accordance with the best hopes, and the revealed destiny of man. Life, too, assumes a new aspect. A common destiny is set before all, and the consciousness of it runs as a thread of sympathy through the race. The poor man is elevated when he sees that the principle of duty may be tried and strengthened in his humble sphere, as well as in those that are higher, and his labor becomes a cheerful service done with good will from the heart. ”

“ Republican government then, is not so much the cause of a good social state, as its sign. It can never be borne up, with its stars and stripes floating, upon the surface of a society that is not strongly impregnated with virtue. ”

“ Who is it that stands before its walls, and utters its doom? It is a despised Jew. And who is he that walks in pride upon those walls, and as he points to that mighty city as the centre of civilization [35] and power, as combining every advantage of climate and of commerce, mocks at that doom? It is a politician of those days. The voice of the prophet is uttered, and it seems to pass idly upon the wind. The eye of sense sees no effect. No clouds gather, no lightnings descend. ”

“ He is still the creature of God, a dweller in his universe, retaining every thing he ever possessed that was noble in reason, or grand in destiny, and in his solitude, where yet he would not be alone, the government of God would follow him, and would require of him such manifestations of goodness as he might there exercise—the adoration of his Creator, resignation to his will, and a temperate and prudent use of the blessings within his power. ”

“ Among them, as already intimated, the highest is the moral perfection of the individual; for as it is by his moral nature that man is distinguished from the inferior animals, so it is only in the perfection of that nature, that his perfection, as man, can consist. As absolute perfection can belong only to God, that of man must be relative, that is, it must consist in the proper adjustment of relations, and especially in the relation of his voluntary actions to the end for which God designed him. This is our idea of perfection, when we affirm it of the works of man. ”

“ Wo to this country, when the people shall cease to reverence the government as the institution of God because it is established through them; when they shall suppose that it is in such a sense theirs, that they can supersede its acts in any way except by constitutional forms. ”

“ When this has been done by multitudes it has caused power to respect the individual, to respect humanity; and while christianity was wading through the blood of ten persecutions, it was fighting more effectually than had ever been done before, the battles of civil liberty. The call to obey God rather than men met with a response, and it is upon this ground that the battle has been opened in every case in which civil liberty now exists. ”

“ Still, such a government, when under the direction of wisdom and benevolence, has power to produce great social and moral revolutions for the good of mankind. Such a revolution was commenced by Peter the Great, and his measures, though necessary, were such as none but an absolute monarch could have adopted. Aside from christianity, the judicious exercise of such a power is the only hope of a people debased beyond a certain point. The King of Prussia can maintain a better and more efficient system of schools, than any republican government. ”

“ The danger is that those who are in office, and those who wish for it, will, for the sake of immediate popularity, lend the sanction of their names to doctrines and practices, which, if carried into effect, must destroy all government. How is it else that mobs should often escape with so little rebuke? ”

“ But in their hands that morality is lopped off from the body of faith on which it grew, and produces no fruit. They may boast, as they do, of a liberty which they never could have achieved. But under its protection they advance doctrines and advocate practices which would corrupt it into license. Their only strength lies in endeavoring, in the sacred name of liberty, to corrupt the virtuous, and [28] to excite the hatred of the vicious against those restraints without which liberty cannot exist, and society has no ground of security. ”

“ If, for example, polygamy were established among us as it is among the Turks, a government like ours could do nothing for its removal. But religion could awaken a sense of obligation, and statistics could point out the number of poor women and uneducated children thrown by it for support mainly upon those who had pledged themselves to be the husband of one wife, and christian and philanthropic effort might show that it was injurious to individuals, and families, and the state; and then a law might be passed, as there has been, to defend society against this evil. ”

“ Every duty to man becomes [15] doubly sacred as due also to God, and the humblest life, pursued from a conscientious regard to his will, is invested with an unspeakable dignity. It is indeed, I may remark, this view of life that furnishes the only possible ground of equality. ”

“ Here religion comes in, and must come in, or "the beginning of the end" has come. The intellect must be enlightened, and the conscience quickened, and moral life infused into the mass; the good and the evil must commingle in free conflict, and public sentiment must be changed. ”