tural result of the principle of hatred, were it left to its native energies, and were it not controlled, in the course of providence, by Him who sets restraining bounds to the wrath of man.

In order to counteract the tendencies of this baleful principle, it is of the utmost importance that youth be trained up in habits of kindness, tenderness, and compassion, both towards human beings, and towards the inferior animals; that an abhorrence should be excited in their minds of quarrelling, fighting, and all mischievous tricks and actions; that they be restrained from the indulgence of malicious and resentful passions; that every indication of a cruel and unfeeling disposition be carefully counteracted; and that every tendency of the heart towards the benevolent affections, and every principle of active beneficence be cultivated and cherished with the most sedulous care and attention. For, in youth, the foundation has generally been laid of those malevolent principles and passions which have led to robbery, assassination, and deeds of violence,-which have filled the earth with blood and carnage and which have displayed their diabolical energy in so dreadful a manner amidst the contests of communities and nations.

Were the disposition to indulge hatred, which leads to every species of murder, completely counteracted, the greatest proportion of those evils which now afflict our world, would cease to exist. Human sacrifices would no longer bleed upon Pagan altars; the American Indians would no longer torture to death their prisoners taken in war, nor the New Zealanders feast upon the flesh and the blood of their enemies. The widows of Hindostan would no longer be urged to burn themselves alive on the corpses of their deceased husbands; norwould the mothers of China imbrue their hands in the blood of their infant offspring. The practice of Duelling would forever cease, and would be universally execrated as an outrage on common sense, and on every generous and humane feeling, and as the silly attempt of a puny mortal to gratify wounded pride or disappointed ambition, at the expense of the life of his fellow-creature. Despotism would throw aside its iron sceptre, and the nations would be ruled with the law of love; and plots, conspiracies, treasons, and massacres would be attempted no more. The fires of the Inquisition would cease to be kindled, the supposed heretic would no longer be consigned to the horrors of a gloomy dungeon, racks and gibbets and guillotines would be shivered to pieces and thrown into the flames, and the spirit of cruelty and persecution would be extirpated from the earth. Riot, tumult, and contention would be banished from our streets, and harmony and concord would prevail through out all our borders. War would forever cease to desolate the nations; the confused noise of invading armies, the sounds of martial music,

the groans of dying victims, and the hoarse shouts of conquerors, would be heard no more. Peace would descend from heaven to dwell with man on earth; prosperity would follow in her train, science would enlarge its boundaries and shed its benign influence upon all ranks; the useful arts would flourish and advance towards perfection; philanthrophy would diffuse its thousand blessings in every direction, and every man would sit "under his vine and fig-tree" in perfect security from all danger or annoy

ance.

SEVENTH COMMANDMENT.

"Thou shalt not commit adultery." This commandment is to be viewed as comprehending within its prohibition, every species of lewdness, both in thought, word, and action; as adultery, fornication, incest, polygamy, &c.; and likewise all those licentious desires and affections from which such actions proceed. In this comprehensive sense it is explained by our Saviour, in his Sermon on the Mount, and by the Apostles, in their letters to the Christian Churches. It is founded on the distinction of sexes which exists among mankind, and on the law of Marriage, which was promulgated immediately after the creation of the first pair-a law which was intended to limit, and to regulate the intercourse of the sexes; and to promote purity, af fection, and order, among the several generations of mankind. By this law the marriage union is limited to two individuals. He who made mankind at the beginning, says Christ, made them male and female, and said, " For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh." And, it might easily be shown, from an induction of facts, and from a consideration of the present circumstances of the human race, that this law, and this alone, is calculated to promote the mutual affection of the married pair, and to secure the peace and happiness of families, and the harmony of general society. By this law the union is made permanent, so long as the parties exist in this world. "What God hath joined, let no man put asunder." This regulation has a tendency to promote union of affection and interests, and to induce the parties to bear with patience the occasional inconveniences and contentions which may arise. Were divorces generally permitted, on the ground of unsuitableness of temper, or occasional jars, society would soon be shaken to its centre. Every real or supposed insult, or provocation, would be followed out, till it terminated in the separation of the parties; families would thus be torn into shreds; the education of the young would be neglected; parental authority disregarded; and a door opened for the prevalence of unbounded licentious ness. Soon after the commencement of the Ro

volution in France, a law, permitting divorces, was passed by the National Assembly; and, in less than three months from its date, nearly as many divorces as marriges were registered in the city of Paris. In the whole kingdom, within the space of eighteen months, upwards of twenty thousand divorces were effected; and the nation sunk into a state of moral degradation, from the effects of which it has never yet recovered. This is one of the many practical proofs presented before us, of the danger of infringing on any of the moral arrangements which the Creator has established.

The precept under consideration is to be considered as directly opposed to all promiscuous and licentious intercourse between the sexes. And the reasonableness of this prohibition will appear, if we consider, for a moment, what would be the consequences which would inevitably follow were this law to be set aside, or universally violated. A scene of unbounded licentiousness would ensue, which would degrade the human character, which would destroy almost all the existing relations of society, and unhinge the whole fabric of the moral world.-One end of the institution of marriage was, to "replenish the earth" with inhabitants, to perpetuate the successive generations of men, and to train up a virtuous and intelligent race to people the congregation of the heavens. But this end would be ultimately frustrated, were a promiscuous and unlimited intercourse to become either general or universal. For, it has been found, that, wherever such intercourse partially prevails, it strikes at the root of human existence, and has a tendency to prevent the operation of that law which the Creator impressed on all living beings, "Increase and multiply." In the haunts of licentiousness, in large cities, and in all such societies as those which formerly existed in Otaheite, under the name of Arreoy, the laws of nature are violated, the course of generation obstructed, and numbers of human beings strangled at the very porch of existence. So that were mankind at large to relapse into such licentious practices, the human race, instead of increasing in number, to replenish the desolate wastes of our globe, according to the Creator's intention, would rapidly decrease every succeeding generation, till after the lapse of a few centuries, human beings would be entirely extirpated, and the earth, barren and uncultivated, would be left to the dominion of the beasts of the forest.

But, although such a distant event were to be altogether disregarded, the immediate consequences of such unhallowed courses would be dismal in the extreme. That union of heart, affection, and of interests, which subsists between the great majority of married pairs, and those reciprocal sympathies and endearments which flow from this union, would be altogether unknown. The female sex. (as already happens in some nations,) with minds uncultivated and unpolish

ed, would be degraded into mere instruments of sensitive enjoyment, into household slaves, or into something analogous to beasts of burden, and would be bought and sold like cattle and horses. The minds of all would be degraded to the level of brutes, and would be incapable of prosecuting either rational or religious pursuits. Their bodies would be wasted and enfeebled with squalid disease: the infirmities of a premature old age would seize upon them; and before they had "lived half their days," they would sink into the grave in hopelessness and sorrow. A universal sottishness, and disregard of every thing except present sensual enjoyment, would seize upon the whole mass of society, and benumb the human faculties: the God of heaven would be overlooked, and the important realities of an immortal existence completely banished from their thoughts and affections. Thousands, and ten thousands of infants would be strangled at their entrance into life; and the greater part of those who were spared, would be doomed to a wretched and precarious existence. The training up of the youthful mind to knowledge and virtue would be quite neglected; and all that civility and softness of manners, which are now acquired under the eye of parental authority and affection, would be unknown in society. The endearing relations of father and mother, of brothers and sisters, of uncles, aunts, and cousins, and all the other ramifications of kindred, which now produce so many interesting and delightful associations, would fail to be recognised among men; for in such a state of society, the natural relations of mankind would be either disregarded, or blended in undistinguishable confusion.

Children, neglected or abandoned by their mo thers, would be left to the full influence of their own wayward and impetuous passions; they would depend for subsistence, either on accident, on pilfering, or on the tender mercies of general society; they would wander about as vagabonds, tattered and forlorn; their hearts shrivelled with unkindness, their bodies chilled with the rains and biting frosts, and deformed with filthiness and disease. They would be left to perish in the open fields, without a friend to close their eyes; and their bodies, unnoticed and unknown, would remain as a prey, to be devoured by the fowls of heaven. In every land would be seen multitudes of houseless and shivering females, set adrift by their seducers, wandering with their hungry and half famished offspring, the objects of derision and contempt; and imploring, in vain, the comforts of food, of shelter, and protection. For, among human beings, in such a degraded state, the kindly and benevolent affections would seldom be exercised; cold-blooded selfishness and apathy, in relation to the sufferings of others, would supplant all the finer feelings of humanity; which would dispose them to view the wretched objects around them with perfect indifference,

and even with contempt. "However it may be accounted for," says Dr. Paley, "the criminal commerce of the sexes corrupts and depraves the mind, and the moral character, more than any single species of vice whatsoever. That ready perception of guilt, that prompt and decisive resolution against it, which constitutes a virtuous character, is seldom found in persons addicted to these indulgences. They prepare an easy admission for every sin that seeks it; are, in low life, usually the first stage in men's progress to the most desperate villanies; and, in high life, to that lamented dissoluteness of principle which manifests itself in a profligacy of public conduct, and a contempt of the obligations of religion and of moral probity. Add to this that habits of libertinism incapacitate and indispose the mind for all intellectual, moral, and religious pleasures."*

In short, in such a state of society as would inevitably accompany a general violation of the seventh precept of the moral law, all the softness and loveliness of filial piety, of parental affection, of brotherly attachment, and of the intercourse of kindred, would forever cease; science and literature would be neglected; and churches, colleges, schools, and academies would crumble into ruins a sufficient stimulus would be wanting to the exercise of industry and economy; a lazy apathy would seize upon the mass of society; the earth would cease to be cultivated, and would soon be covered with briers and thorns, or changed into the barren wastes of an African desert. The foundation of all regular government would be undermined; for it is chiefly in those habits of submission and obedience which are acquired under the domestic roof, that the foundations are laid of that subordination which is necessary to secure the peace and order of mankind. Society would, consequently, be thrown into a state of disorder, and would speedily sink into oblivion, in the mire of its own pollution.

The positions now stated could be illustrated, were it expedient, by a variety of melancholy facts, borrowed from the history and the present state, both of savage and of civilized nations. The annals of Turkey, of Persia, of Hindostan, of China, of Japan, of the Society Isles, and even of the civilized nations of Europe and America, would furnish abundance of impressive facts, to demonstrate the demoralizing, and brutalizing, and miserable effects which would flow from a spirit of universal licentiousness. What revolting scenes would open to view, were we to survey the haunts of licentious ness which abound in Algiers, in Constantinople, in Teheran, in Pekin, in Canton, in Jeddo, and other populous cities, where the restraints of

Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy,

Book III. Part III. chap 2.

Christianity are altogether unknown! In such receptacles of impurity, every moral feeling is blunted, and every moral principle abandoned. Impiety, profanity, falsehood, treachery, perjury, and drunkenness, rear their unblushing fronts; and thefts, robberies, and murders, follow in their train. The unhappy female who enters these antechambers of hell, is, for the most part, cut off from all hopes of retreat. From that moment, the shades of moral darkness begin to close around her; she bids a last adieu to the smiles of tenderness and sympathy, to the kind embraces of father and mother, of sisters and brothers, to the house of God, to the instructions of his word, and to the society of the faithful. Instead of the cheering sounds of the Gospel of peace, her ears become accustomed to oaths, and curses, and horrid imprecations; the voice of conscience is hushed amidst the din of revelry and riot; every generous feeling is shrunk and withered; she stalks abroad like a painted corpse, to fill with horror the virtuous mind, and to allure the unwary to the shades of death; till at length, wasted with consumption and loathsome disease, she is stretched upon the bed of languishing, abandoned by her former associates, deprived of the least drop of consolation, haunted with the ghastly apparitions of departed joys, and the forebodings of futurity, and sinks, "in the midst of her days," into the chambers of the grave, without the least hope of a glorious resurrection. -And if we consider, that this is a picture of the wretchedness, not only of a few individuals, but of thousands, of tens of thousands, and of millions of human beings, it is impossible to describe the accumulated mass of misery which impurity has created, or to form any adequate conception of the horrible and revolting scenes of wretchedness which would be displayed, were the law under consideration to be set aside by all the inhabitants of our globe.

There is a certain levity and flippancy of speech in relation to this subject, which prevails among many who wish to be considered as respectable characters, which proceeds from a contracted view of the consequences of human actions. They conceive, that no great harm can be done to society, by a few insulated actions of the kind alluded to, especially if they be concealed from general observation; and that the Creator will be disposed to make every allowance for human frailty. But let such remember that, if it were right to violate this, or any other law of the Creator, in one instance, it would be right in a hundred, in a thousand, in a million, and in eight hundred millions of instances: and then all the revolting scenes now described, and thousands of similar effects, of which we cannot at present form a distinct conception, would inevitably take place. And, therefore, every man who, from levity and thoughtlessness, or from a disregard to the laws of heaven, persists in the occasional

indulgence of such unhallowed gratifications, indulges in a practice which, were it universally to prevail, would sap the foundations of all moral order, exterminate the most endearing relations of society, prostrate man below the level of the brute, open the flood-gates of all iniquity, diffuse misery over the whole mass of human beings, and, at length, empty the world of its inhabitants. The precept which we have now been considering, is one which, in all probability, is confired, in its references, to the inhabitants of our globe. At any rate, it would be quite nugatory, and therefore can have no place, in the moral code of a world where the distinction of sexes does not exist. And even in those worlds where a similar distinction may exist, the very different circumstances in which their inhabitants are placed, may render the promulgation of such a law altogether unnecessary. It appears to be a temporary regulation, to remain in force only during the limited period of the present economy of Providence; for, in the future destination of the righteous, we are told, that "they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." And, therefore, it is probable, that the recognition of such a law will not be necessary, in the intercourses which take place among redeemed men in the eternal world; but the principle on which it is founded, and from which it flows, will run through all the other new relations and circumstances in which they may be placed. In the existing circumstances of mankind, however, the operation of this law is essentially necessary to the stability and the happiness of the moral world; and, were its requisitions universally observed, the melancholy scenes to which I have alluded would no longer exist; the present and everlasting ruin of thousands, and of millions, would be prevented; and a scene of happiness and love, such as the world has never yet wit nessed, would be displayed among all the families of the earth.

THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT.

"Thou shalt not steal."

When the Creator had arranged our globe in the form in which we now behold it, he furnished it with every thing requisite for the suste nance and accommodation of living beings, and bestowed the whole of its riches and decorations as a free grant to the sons of men. To man he said, "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." Ever since the period when this grant was made, God has not left himself without a witness to his benignity, in that he has unceasingly bestowed on mankind "rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and

gladness." The earth has, in every age, brought forth abundance to supply the wants of all the living beings it contains; and there is still am ple room on its surface, for the accommodation and support of thousands of millions of the hu man race, in addition to those which now exist. But mankind have never yet agreed about the division and allotment of this free and ample gift of the Creator; for every one is disposed to think that his share in it is too small, and is continually attempting to make inroads upon the allotment of his neighbours. And to this disposition is to be ascribed more than one half of all the evils which have afflicted the world in every age since the fall of man. To counteract such a propensity in mankind, and to regulate their dispositions and conduct in relation to property, is the great object of this command, "Thou shalt not steal."

To steal, is to take the property of others, without their knowledge or consent, and to apply it to our own use. The most flagrant and violent breaches of the law, consist in robbery, housebreaking, pilfering, plunder, and pillage. But it may be violated in a thousand different ways of which human laws seldom take any cog nizance. It is violated by every species of fraud by which our neighbour may be injured in his wealth or property. It is violated in the ordinary commerce of mankind, by the use of false weights and measures; by selling deteriorated commodities as if they were sound and good; by depreciating the value of what we wish to buy, and concealing the defects of what we wish to sell; by contracting debts which we have no prospect of discharging, and neglecting to pay them when they are due; by breaches of trust, in the case of servants, guardians, executors, or public officers, embezzling and squandering away the substance of others, or applying it to their own use.-It is also violated by trespassing on the property of others, so as to injure fences, gardens, orchards, plantations or cornfields; and by that disposition to vulgar mischief which delights in breaking lamps, windows, and fences; in injuring and defacing public buildings, walks, and ornamental improvements; in hacking and carving walls, wainscottings, doors, and balustrades; and in cutting down trees and shrubs planted for use or for ornament.-It is violated when we retain borrowed articles beyond a reasonable time, when we suffer them to be injured through negligence, when we circulate them from one person to another, without the knowledge or consent of the proprietors, and when we apply them to purposes for which they were never intended, and which the lender never contemplated.-In short, this law is violated by every species of idleness, pride, vanity, gaming, and prodigality, which has a tendency to injure the external prosperity, either of our own family, or of the families of others.