tion, is the loss of that generous and earnest Public Spirit which has been so closely connected with all that is memorable and permanent in the history of civilization. In the progress of society through all the advancing stages of the civil process, the power of public spirit, the devotion of each to the common welfare and success, is certainly one of the essential and controlling forces. The existence and progress of society are alike dependent upon the actual though perhaps unconscious contribution of personal effort and influence to the general interest and the general elevation. Such a relation seems to be the normal attitude of the individual as well as first and necessary requisite of civilization.

Trace now the influence of this principle through the changing phases of an advancing civilization. In the first and lowest state, we find society just emerging from a condition of individual independence and lawlessness. The influences which impel mankind towards social order and unity, are now struggling to overcome the strong tendency to decline, and to combine in one harmonious onward movement, the scattered elements of social coherence and advancement. The idea of the State, that social and civil personality to whose strength and support all must contribute, is dawning on the enlightened vision of an awakening people. A sense of mutual dependence and obligation, the strong cords of common interests and hopes, bind together the members of society with a generous enthusiasm and devoted patriotism.

But such an era of outward activity and of vigorous individual and social development, is followed naturally and perhaps inevitably by an age of outward repose and of intellectual and speculative progress. In this tranquil season of reflection we may observe in general a weakening of social sympathy and a loss of public spirit and patriotism. The very firmness and security of the social and civil arrangements and the long absence of active exertion for their preservation, tend to withdraw from them the common attention and interest. The subjective spirit of reflection and speculation, diverts the thoughts and activities of men from common and public subjects, to the fields of private culture and study. The ignorance and folly of the uneducated and unthinking are left, not only to work out their own corruption and degradation, but even to assume, through designing and depraved leaders, the guiding hand in the destinies of the State. The influence of foreign travel and residence also contributes to weaken the bonds which attach the wealthy and refined to that narrower community or nation to which they owe their first and highest obligations. Thus, through the indifference of the educated and the folly of the ignorant, society sinks into stagnation and debil

ty, or plunges into anarchy and misrule. The strong cement of unselfish Public Spirit, the constant sense of common purposes and interests, of mutual obligations and duties, is weakened, and the strength and security of the social structure is destroyed.

We specify as a further evidence of decay in high civilization, the loss of faith in the power of Ideas and Moral Truths.

It requires but a slight knowledge of man's nature and soul, or but a brief glance at his history and achievements, to be persuaded that devotion to intellectual ideas and moral truths is the one greatest impelling power to which he can be subjected. Observe the power of an awakened faith in ideas, in every era of revolution and reform, or in those periods of national strength and vigor which make all the glory of history. Faith in intellectual and moral truth is, beyond comparison, the mightiest of all the natural forces which act in history and human progress.

Let us watch the action of this force in the process of civilization. The age of barbarism is distinguished by an absence of intellectual and moral ideas, and a want of appreciation of the beauty and power of those sentiments which appeal to man's spiritual capacities and nature. The awakening from this spiritual stupor and blindness, and the subsequent career of progressive development and elevation, are caused and maintained by the presence and power of absorbing ideas and purposes. The violence and insincerity of the former social life, and the rudeness and ignorance of the former individual life, disappear at the approach and diffusion of thoughts and purposes which are in harmony with the nature and destiny of man. In the later civilization, and in the midst of the multiplied and abounding enjoyments of the strong and orderly development of society, the popular reliance seems to be transferred to agencies and instruments which are but secondary and temporary in power and vitality. A sensuous and materializing spirit, which trusts in artificial associations and material agencies, usurps the place of the earlier and higher faith in spiritual forces.

This fact has received wide and impressive illustration in all the history of civilization. We may observe its influence on Government, in the spirit which leads men to overlook its proper and spiritual end, and to center the attention solely on outward forms and specific measures. Hence it is, that all valuable political revolutions have resulted in the reassertion or annunciation of those political principles and ideas, which are higher and more lasting than all forms or institutions. We may trace the same truth in the progress of every important form of Religion. The Christian Church was the natural result

of that earnest and absorbing faith which possessed the whole being and energies of its early Apostles. While it maintained the reality of its faith, and the simple power of its unshaken reliance on the deep and august truths of the Gospel, its progress was resistless and beneficent. But the spirit of materialism robbed it of its truest power and highest blessing. The Church became, to the minds of its disciples, a vast outward organization to control the material interests and direct the political destinies of the world. Then came Luther, in the might of a single Christian principle, before which the strength and grandeur of the Romish hierarchy has become weakness and vanity. The same general fact is also illustrated in the history of Literature and Art. See how every luxurious or sensuous tendency was checked and subdued in the mind and soul of Milton. Beauty had no place in that austere and spiritual culture, save as it followed in the train of great and sublime thoughts of truth and goodness. But with the progress of the material interests of society, the strength of such a moral and intellectual culture gives place to the weakness of a predominantly æsthetic spirit. Literature and Art, once moulded mainly by the spiritual wants and aspirations of man, now lend their seductive influence to carnalize and stifle all that is distinctively spiritual in the development of society.

In the imperfect survey, which has now been taken, of the nature and process of civilization, we have found an inherent and radical weakness in what we denominate its natural forces and elements. We have seen that no form of society contains, of itself, any principle of permanent self-support and self-conservation. The impressive lesson is again enforced,—that a Divine overruling influence must descend into the circle of human efforts and natural forces, to secure a permanent success and to preserve a lasting elevation. The Christian Religion, as tested in reason or in history, is the single power which is adequate to strengthen the weakness and overcome the evils which attend the progress and conflict of civilization. This alone discloses to the mind and impresses upon the heart those "truths deep as the centre" which are connected with man's origin and destiny. Other influences are mighty; this alone is invincible. Other forces may build up society; this alone can preserve and perpetuate it. The lofty truths of Philosophy can ennoble and dignify; but the solemn truths of Religion can alone re-create and sanctify. It gives to the State its highest authority and most august sanctions, as an organism with God for its author, the good of all for its end, and for which, in the light of reason and conscience, a man may lay down his lfe. In disclosing the true

ideal of the State, and enforcing the sacredness of human rights, Christianity furnishes the permanent and highest incentives to an earnest and vigilant Public Spirit, while, in the accord of its spiritual faith with human freedom, the Church and the State become, at last, harmonious parts in the beautiful unity of a Divine plan.

Civilization, gathering to itself the strength of such motives and the benignity of such influences, shall become pure and strong, refined and permanent. It shall outlast the conflicts of earth, and fade away only into the brighter glory and higher life of an eternal kingdom.