s to regulate
the inward affections of the soul, and through them the outward life.
Thus it lays the axe at the root of all sin.

It is a _reasonable_ code, giving to God the first place in the human
heart, and to man only a subordinate place. Its first and great
commandment is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart;"
its second, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Thus it lays
broad and deep the foundations of a righteous character. If any moral
proposition is self-evident, it is that such a code as this, which
exalts God to the throne of the human soul and humbles man beneath his
feet, is not the offspring of human self-love. If any one would know the
difference between the Bible and a human code of morals, let him read
Cicero's treatise _on Duties_, perhaps the best system of ethics which
pure heathenism ever produced, but from which man's relation to deity is
virtually left out.

It is a _comprehensive_ code, not insisting upon one or two favorite
virtues, but upon all virtues. Just as the light of the sun is white and
glistering because it contains in itself, in due proportion, all the
different sorts of rays, so the morality of the Bible shines forth, like
the sun, with a pure and dazzling brightness, because it unites in
itself, in just proportion, all the duties which men owe to God and each
other.

Many who outwardly profess Christianity do not make the precepts of the
Bible their rule of life, or they do so only in a very imperfect way,
and thus scandal is brought upon the name of Christ, whose servants they
profess to be. But it is self-evident that he who _obeys_ the Bible in
sincerity and truth is thus made a thoroughly good man; good in his
inward principles and feelings, and good in his outward life; good in
his relations to God and man; good in prosperity and adversity, in honor
and dishonor, in life and death; a good husband and father, a good
neighbor, a good citizen. If there is ever to be a perfect state of
society on earth, it must come from simple obedience to the precepts of
the Bible, obedience full and universal. No man can conceive of any
thing more glorious and excellent than this. We may boldly challenge the
unbeliever to name a corrupt passion in the heart or a vicious practice
in the life that could remain. Let every man love God with all his heart
and his neighbor as himself, and bolts and bars, prisons and
penitentiaries, would be unnecessary. One might safely jou