standard of its coin? To
avoid, therefore, the evils of inconstancy and versatility, ten thousand
times worse than those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we have
consecrated the state, that no man should approach to look into its
defects or corruptions but with due caution; that he should never dream
of beginning its reformation by its subversion; that he should approach
to the faults of the state as to the wounds of a father, with pious awe
and trembling solicitude. Society is indeed a contract. But it is not a
partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of
a temporary and perishable nature.

It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art, a
partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a
partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a
partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who
are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each
contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primeval
contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures,
connecting the visible and invisible world, according to a fixed compact
sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral
natures, each in their appointed place.

These, my dear sir, are, were, and, I think, long will be, the
sentiments of not the least learned and reflecting part of this kingdom.
They conceive that He Who gave our nature to be perfected by our virtue
willed also the necessary means of its perfection. He willed, therefore,
the state--He willed its connection with the source and original
archetype of all perfection. They who are convinced of His will, which
is the law of laws, and the sovereign of sovereigns, cannot think it
reprehensible that this, our corporate realty and homage, that this our
recognition of a signiory paramount--I had almost said this oblation of
the state itself--as a worthy offering on the high altar of universal
praise, should be performed with modest splendour and unassuming state.
For those purposes they think some part of the wealth of the country is
as usefully employed as it can be in fomenting the luxury of
individuals.

It is on some such principles that the majority of the people of
England, far from thinking a religious national establishment unlawful,
hardly think it lawful to be without one. The commons of Great Britain,
in the national emergenci