nevolence, gratitude, complacency and heroism are not exercised
in an insolated condition--they are called out only in mutual associations
with our fellow-men.

The noblest efforts of intellectual strength and of human ingenuity are
made under the most powerful influence of society. Thus encouraged, men
have collected armies, founded kingdoms and governed them. In such
kingdoms the arts and sciences have flourished in a greater or less
degree, and imperfect morals have crowned their labors and lifted their
minds as high as their unaided powers have permitted. Such has been the
best condition in which the Scriptures ever found the social state. The
structure has been incomplete, resting upon no solid basis, and only
imperfectly cemented together. Such a state of society has always been a
proper object for the modifying and controlling influences of a purer
system of morality, founded upon a pure religion.

What has been the state of society in times past without the light of
revealed religion? There are evils in the social state where the Christian
religion exists, but they were there before the Gospel of Christ visited
those places. It is very common for unbelievers to charge the calamities
of the social state to the Christian religion, but it is a dishonorable
mode of argumentation. The proper question is this: Has humanity ever been
well organized in the social state without the presence and influence of
the Bible? Has it ever been well governed under such circumstances? Have
men respected the social rights and obligations or properly understood
them in the absence of revealed religion? Has the religion of Christ been
a disturber of the social organization where social rights were properly
understood and regarded? or has it set aside the rights and obligations of
men in social life where men were enjoying peaceable, happy relations?
Does its legitimate influence make men more wicked and miserable? An
honest answer to these questions will commend the religion of Jesus
Christ, and do honor to him as our Lord and Master. The Scriptures have
been the means of establishing institutions which have stood for
centuries. Where society has been disjointed and out of order, without
bonds or adhesiveness, the Scriptures have been introduced, banishing
disorder and bringing peace and good will to man. They have silently
operated in the social surroundings and gradually elevated Pagan lands out
of Paganism. They refine and cleanse