humanity; who can tread dark and perilous ways, and not
stumble; can serve his fellow-men without degrading himself or
offending his Maker. The Christian citizen! who asks God's blessing
upon his discharge of the functions that belong to him as the
inhabitant of a free country; who appreciates the worth of his
privileges, and feels the solemnity of his duties; who forms his
opinions carefully, and expresses them manfully, though candidly; who
when he helps to elect a fellow-citizen to take charge of the
interests of the town, the Commonwealth, or the land, is impressed
with the sacredness of his own act; who upholds good institutions
because he wishes to see them prosper, and not for any sinister end;
who supports the measures which his understanding and conscience
approve, and will have nothing to do with any other institutions or
measures;--such a man, though his hands be callous with labour or his
clothes threadbare through poverty, deserves the respect of the
community. I would rather be such a man than a second Napoleon cutting
Europe into kingdoms and tossing crowns to his favorites.

All that I have now said, I trust, approves itself to the minds of
those whom I address. I have raised no structure of requisition for
which I had not first secured deep and broad foundations. If the views
we have taken of the authority and extent of the Divine government as
expounded by Christianity are just, it follows that men should be
devout, upright and benevolent everywhere; that is, in all situations
as well as in all places; in the State-house in Boston, and in the
Capitol at Washington, in a President's Cabinet, and in a Governor's
Council-chamber, in a political caucus, and at the freeman's
ballot-box. Religion must control and sanctify the whole life of the
individual and of the nation. And yet this doctrine is repudiated; yes,
openly and in high places. And _this_ doctrine of repudiation,--not a
birth of yesterday, but as old as civil government,--is that which
should be most indignantly rejected by honest men and good citizens.
It is said, that men need not be as scrupulous in their public as in
their private relations. There is a morality for the public man, and
another for the private citizen. There are two standards of conduct
even for the same person, in his private and in his public capacity. I
have heard it said by those who knew him well that an individual of
great influence, who had been placed in the most eleva