s nature, given to us as a law,
a rule of action, which we can accept or not, taking upon ourselves the
consequences of its rejection. There can be no standard of absolute
right other than the law of God; there can be no other invariable and
eternal rule of human action.

And if this position be true of individuals, most assuredly is it true
of nations, which are but individuals in the concrete, subject to the
same vicissitudes, governed by the same laws, physical and moral, and
following the same path of development. Only that form of government
which recognizes the Supreme Being as the chief of rulers, and His law
as the source and model of all human law, can be sure of truth and
justice on its side, both in its dealings with other nations and in its
regulation of its own internal affairs. Only such a form can work
steadily for the advancement of its people, both by leading them forward
and by smoothing the rugged path to perfection, and removing every
obstacle which impedes the national progress. However near the
principles of our Government may approach to those of the Divine law,
there is still room and urgent necessity for reform. Yet, in the
universal disfavor into which theocracies have fallen, and in the
intense desire which pervades our people to avoid the complicated evils
of a union between church and state, every attempt to unite religious
principles with those of government is looked upon with positive alarm;
and justly so, since the experience of past centuries proves that both
thrive best in separate spheres, however near they may approach each
other in the abstract, and that when united, the one is apt to prove a
hamper on the other, through the introduction of error and corruption;
while, separated, they act as a mutual restraint, each tending to
control the abnormal development of the other. For these reasons reform
in this particular must move from the people to the government, not from
the government to the people.

And here we come to the root of the whole matter, to the field where
reform is most needed, that is, in the moral condition of our society.
While there are few nations in which there is such a diversity of
religious views and multiplicity of religious sects, there are few
peoples which are so proverbially irreligious as our own. Yet our
condition in this respect is rather a neutral one than otherwise, for
while we are without any positive immorality which should make us
preeminent abov