whatever power may be necessary to protect society against anarchy within or destruction from without; for the safety and well-being of society are as paramount to individual liberty as the safety and well-being of the race are to that of individuals; and, in the same proportion, the power necessary for the safety of society is paramount to individual liberty. On the contrary, government has no right to control individual liberty beyond what is necessary to the safety and well-being of society. Such is the boundary which separates the power of government and the liberty of the citizen or subject in the political state, which, as I have shown, is the natural state of man, the only one in which his race can exist, and the one in which he is born, lives, and dies.

It follows from all this that the quantum of power on the part of the government, and of liberty on that of individuals, instead of being equal in all cases, must necessarily be very unequal among different people, according to their different conditions. For just in proportion as a people are ignorant, stupid, debased, corrupt, exposed to violence within and danger without, the power necessary for government to possess, in order to preserve society against anarchy and destruction, becomes greater and greater, and individual liberty less and less, until the lowest condition is reached, when absolute and despotic power becomes necessary on the part of the government, and individual liberty extinct. So, on the contrary, just as a people rise in the scale of intelligence, virtue, and patriotism, and the more perfectly they become acquainted with the nature of government, the ends for which it was ordered, and how it ought to be administered, and the less the tendency to violence and disorder within and danger from abroad, the power necessary for government becomes less and less, and individual liberty greater and greater. Instead, then, of all men having the same right to liberty and equality, as is claimed by those who hold that they are all born free and equal, liberty is the noblest and highest reward bestowed on mental and moral development, combined with favorable circumstances. Instead, then, of liberty and equality being born with man,-instead of all men,

and all classes and descriptions, being equally entitled to them, --they are high prizes to be won; and are, in their most perfect state, not only the highest reward that can be bestowed on our race, but the most difficult to be won, and, when won, the most difficult to be preserved.

· PENN'S MOTIVE.-ALONZO POTTER, D.D.

THAT trust in God, that simple love of Jesus and of those for whom he died, which prompted William Penn to come out to this new land, that he might make what he calls "the holy experiment," setting "an example to the nations of a just and righteous government," that spirit of true and universal brotherhood which drew from him, as he stood unarmed and undefended under the great elm at Shakamaxon, and saw, "as far as his eyes could carry," the painted and plumed children of the forest gazing upon him as a new and strange ruler; that love to God and man, which then impelled his great heart to say to them, "I will not call you brothers or children, but you shall be to me and mine as half of the same body;" which two years later, when he left for England, prompted him to send to this city of brotherly love, which he had founded, the message, "And thou, Philadelphia, virgin of the province, my soul prays for thee, that faithful to the God of thy mercies in the life of righteousness, thou mayest be preserved unto the end:"-And again, when he wrote replying to the charge, that he had manifested, while here, restless ambition and lust of gain, and made this memorable prediction: "If Friends here (i. e., in Pennsylvania) keep to God, and in the justice, mercy, equity, and fear of the Lord, their enemies will be their footstool; if not, their heirs and my heirs too, will lose all." Brethren! Has our course as a people, been thus loyal to God? Has it been true to this, our beginning-faithful to justice, mercy, and the fear of the Lord? If not, we may plume ourselves upon our wealth and enterprise, upon our far-reaching domain, upon our achievements in arts or

in arms; but we should tremble, when we remember with whom, as a nation, we are to reckon. We should tremble, when we consider that his retribution is unerring for nations as for individuals, and that, while in the case of individuals, just punishment may wait to another life, in the case of nations it must fall here.

REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT.-STORY.

WHEN we reflect on what has been, and is now, is it possible not to feel a profound sense of the responsibleness of this Republic to all future ages? What vast motives press upon us for lofty efforts! What brilliant prospects invite our enthusiasm! What solemn warnings at once demand our vigilance, and moderate our confidence!

The old world has already revealed to us, in its unsealed books, the beginning and end of all its own marvellous struggles in the cause of liberty. Greece, lovely Greece, "the land of scholars, and the nurse of arms," where sister republics, in fair processions, chanted the praises of liberty and the gods, where, and what is she? For two thousand years the oppressor has bound her to the earth. Her arts are no more. The last sad relics of her temples are but the barracks of a ruthless soldiery; the fragments of her columns and her palaces are in the dust, yet beautiful in ruin.

Where are the republics of modern times, which clustered around immortal Italy? Venice and Genoa exist but in name. The Alps, indeed, look down upon the brave and peaceful Swiss, in their native fastnesses; but the guarantee of their freedom is in their weakness, and not in their strength. The mountains are not easily crossed, and the valleys are not easily retained.

We stand, the latest, and, if we fail, probably the last, experiment of self-government by the people. We have begun it under circumstances of the most auspicious nature. We are in the vigor of youth. Our growth has never been checked by

the oppressions of tyranny. Our constitutions have never been enfeebled by the vices or luxuries of the old world. Such as we are, we have been from the beginning,-simple, hardy, intelligent, accustomed to self-government and self-respecí.

The Atlantic rolls between us and any formidable foe. Within our own territory, stretching through many degrees of latitude and longitude, we have the choice of many products, and many means of independence. The government is mild. The press is free. Religion is free. Knowledge reaches, or may reach, every home. What fairer prospect of success could be presented? What means more adequate to accomplish the sublime end? What more is necessary, than for the people to preserve what they themselves have created?

oceans.

Already has the age caught the spirit of our institutions. It has already ascended the Andes, and snuffed the breezes of both. It has infused itself into the life-blood of Europe, and warmed the sunny plains of France, and the lowlands of Holland. It has touched the philosophy of Germany and the north, and, moving onward to the south, has opened to Greece the lessons of her better days.

Can it be, that America, under such circumstances, can betray herself? that she is to be added to the catalogue of republics, the inscription of whose ruin is," They were, but are not." Forbid it, my countrymen! forbid it, Heaven!

RIGHTEOUSNESS EXALTETH A NATION.-STEVENS. YOUNG men, God has given you a good land, and has laid upon you responsibilities in connection with this land at once vast and solemn. The future of this land will be what the young men of this land shall make it.

The Psalmist, in one of his magnificent passages, calls upon the pious Israelite to "walk about Zion and go round about her, tell the towers thereof, mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation following, for this

God is our God for ever and ever So, young men, I call upon you to walk about our American Zion and go round about her, tell the towers of her strength, mark the bulwarks which support her freedom, consider the palaces of her glory and were I called upon, on this day of our nation's independence, to indicate the towers, the bulwarks, the palaces which give to our land strength, beauty, glory, I should not point to our public buildings, magnificent as they are; nor to our army and navy, gallant and covered with laurels as they are; nor to our territorial vastness, embracing as it does almost a continent; nor to our commerce, our manufactures, our railroads, marvellous as these are, but I would point you to the open Bible, the open door of the church, the open door of the school-house, the sacred ministry, the ordinances of grace, the wonderful power of the religious press, the banded associations of religion and benevolence, the unfettered right of conscience, and the reverence which, as a people, we pay to the Christian Sabbath; these are the towers, the bulwarks, the palaces which confer on us a strength, a glory, and an influence such as God has given to no other nation under the whole heaven. Would you preserve and exalt this nation, send abroad the Bible, build up the church of the living God, infuse the principles of divine truth into every school, academy, and university, sustain the institution of the ministry, scatter the products of your religious press as so many leaves from the tree of life, conduct with vigor the great schemes of associated benevolence, preserve intact the rights of conscience, and keep holy the Sabbath day. Do these things, and our nation will have a righteous government, a righteous system of education, a righteous judiciary, a righteous literature, a righteous commerce, and in the individual man, the family group, the social circle, the civic community, the state, and the nation, there will prevail truth, to the exclusion of falsehood and error; peace, to the exclusion of revenge, bloodshed, and war; love, to the exclusion of personal and national animosities and strifes; holiness, to the exclusion of every sin; justice, to the exclusion of all oppression; the Christian graces, Faith, Hope, and Charity, more beautiful than the fabled graces of