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The Government of Man.
We will now turn our attention a little to the government of man, and
see how that will compare with the foregoing, for man stands at the
head of this beautiful creation; he is endued with intelligence and
capacity for improvement; he is placed as a moral agent, and has the
materials put into his hands to work with, the works of his Father
as a pattern, the conduct of many of the inferior creation as an
example--and might make the earth a garden, a paradise, a place of
uninterrupted happiness and felicity, a heaven below. And if God had
not delegated this moral agency and power to man, and thus given him
the privilege, in part, of being the arbiter of his own destiny, such
it would have been to this day, like the Eden from which he was ejected
because of his transgression. For he had everything placed within his
power, and was made lord of the creation. The beasts, birds, fish,
and fowl, were placed under his control; the earth yielded plenty for
his wants, and abounded in fruits, grain, herbs, flowers and trees,
both to satisfy his hunger, and to please the sight, taste, and smell.
The fields waved with plenty, and produced a perennial harvest. The
fruits teemed forth in all their luscious varieties to satisfy his
most capacious desires. The flowers, in all their gaiety, beauty,
and richness, delighted the eye; while their rich fragrance filled
the air with odoriferous perfumes. The feathered tribes, with all
their gorgeous plumage and variety of song, both pleased the eye, and
enchanted and charmed the ear. The horse, the cow, and other animals,
were there to promote his happiness, supply his wants, and make him
comfortable and happy. All were under his control, to contribute to his
happiness and comfort, supply his most extended desires, and to add to
his enjoyment; but with all these privileges what is his situation?
With celestial blessings within his reach, he has plunged down to the
very verge of hell, and is found in a state of poverty, confusion, and
distress. He found the earth an Eden--a paradise; he has filled it with
misery and woe, and has made it comparatively a howling wilderness. And
let us not blame Adam alone for this state of things; for after his
ejection from Paradise, the earth was sufficiently fertile to satisfy
all the desires of man with moderate industry, and is at the present
day, if it were not for the confusion that exists, and if men were
properly situated, and its resources developd. But more of this anon.
At present we will examine some of these evils, and then point out
their cause, and the remedy.
We find the world split up and divided into different nations, having
different interests, and different objects; with their religious and
political views as dissimilar as light and darkness, all the time
jealous of each other, and watching each other as so many thieves;
and that man at the present day (and it has been the case for ages),
is considered the greatest statesman, who, with legislation or
diplomacy, can make the most advantageous arrangement with, or coerce
by circumstances, other nations into measures that would be for the
benefit of the nation with which he is associated. No matter how
injurious it might be to the nation or nations concerned, the measure
that would yield his nation an advantage, might plunge another in
irremediable misery, while there is no one to act as father and parent
of the whole, and God is lost sight of. What is it that the private
ambition of man has not done to satisfy his craving desires for the
acquisition of territory and wealth, and what is falsely called _honor_
and _fame_?
Those private, jarring interests have kept the world in one continual
ferment and commotion from the commencement until the present time;
and the history of the world is a history of the rise and fall of
nations--of wars, commotions, and bloodshed--of nations depopulated,
and cities laid waste. Carnage, destruction, and death, have stalked
through the earth, exhibiting their horrible forms in all their
cadaverous shapes, as though they were the only rightful possessors.
Deadly jealousy, fiendish hate, mortal combat, and dying groans, have
filled the earth, and our bulwarks, our chronicles, our histories,
all bear testimony to this; and even our most splendid paintings,
engravings, and statuary, are living memorials of bloodshed, carnage,
and destruction. Instead of men being honoured who have sought to
promote the happiness, peace, and wellbeing of the human family, and
greatness concentrating in that, those have been generally esteemed
the most who produced the most misery and distress, and were wholesale
robbers, ravagers, and murderers.
And from whence come these things? Let the apostle James answer: "From
whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even
of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not--ye
kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye
have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask
amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts." James iv. 1-3. Here is
evidently a lack of that consummate wisdom, that moral and physical
control, that parental power which balances the universe, and directs
the various planets. For let the same recklessness, selfishness,
individuality, and nationality there be manifested, and we should see
the wildest confusion.
Man has come in contact with man, morally, physically, religiously,
and nationally, from the foundation of the earth. If God's works had
done so, what tumult and ruin there would have been in the immensity
of space! Instead of the order that now prevails, man would have
been sometimes frozen to death, and at other times burned up; one
or two seasons of irregularity, even in climate, would depopulate
the earth. But what if the planets, irrespective of the power by
which they are controlled, were to rush wildly through space, and,
with their mighty impetus dash against each other? "What fearful
consequences would ensue." There would be "system on system wrecked,
and world on world." What terrible destruction and ruin! We have read
of earthquakes destroying countries, of wars depopulating nations--of
volcanoes overwhelming cities, and of empires in ruin; but what would
the yawning earthquake, the bellowing volcano, the clang of arms, or
a nation's distress, be in comparison to a scene like this? System
would be shattered with system; planet madly rush on planet; worlds,
with their inhabitants, would be destroyed, and creations crumble into
ruins. There would be truly a war of planets, "a wreck of matter and
a crash of worlds." These, indeed, would be fearful results, and shew
plainly the distinction between the beautiful order of God's work,
and the confusion and disorder of man's. God's work is perfect--man's
imperfect. The one is the government of God, and the other that of man.
We notice the same mismanagement in the arrangement of cities and
nations. We have large cities containing immense numbers of human
beings, pent up, as it were in one great prison-house, inhaling a
foetid, unwholesome atmosphere, impregnated with a thousand deadly
poisons; millions of whom, in damp cellars, lonely garrets, and pent up
corners, drag out a miserable existence, and their wan faces, haggard
countenances, and looks tell but too plainly the tale of their misery
and wretchedness. A degenerate, sickly, puny race tread in their steps,
inheriting their fathers' misery and distress.
If we notice the situation of the nations of Europe at the present
time, we see the land burthened with an overplus population, and
groaning beneath its inhabitants, while the greatest industry,
perseverance, economy, and care, do not suffice to provide for the
craving wants of nature. And so fearfully does this prevail in many
parts, that parents are afraid to fulfil the first great law of
God, "Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth;" and by
desperate circumstances are almost forced to the unnatural wish of
not propagating their species; while, corrupted with a correspondent
depravity with that which reigns among nations, they are found using
suicidal measures to prevent an otherwise numerous progeny from
increasing their father's misery, and inheriting his misfortunes. And
yet, while this is the case, there are immense districts of rich soil,
covering millions of square miles, inhabited only by a few untutored
savages, or the wild beast of the forest; and such is the infatuation
of man that in many districts of country, which were once the seats
of the most powerful empires, and where flourished the mightiest
nations, there is nothing but desolation and wildness. Such are Nineveh
and Babylon, on the Asiatic Continent; and Otolum, and many others
discovered by Stephens and Catherwood, in Central America; and recently
discovered ruins--unequalled in the old world--a little above the head
of the California Gulf. Not only their cities, but their lands are
desolate, deserted, and forsaken, and the same evils that once existed
there are transferred to another soil, all bespeaking plainly that we
want a great, governing, ruling principle to regulate the affairs of
the world, and assist poor, feeble, erring humanity.
Again, if we examine some of the details of these evils, we shall
see more clearly the importance and necessity of a change. Nearly
one-third, speaking in general terms, of the inhabitants of the earth
are engaged in a calling that would be entirely useless if the world
were set right.
If men and nations, instead of being governed by their unruly passions,
covetous desires, and ambitious motives, were governed by the pure
principles of philanthropy, virtue, purity, justice, and honor, and
were under the guidance of a fatherly and intelligent head, directed
by that wisdom which governs the universe, and regulates the motions
of the planetary systems, there would be no need of so many armies,
navies, and police regulations, which are now necessary for the
protection of those several nations from the aggressions of each other,
and internal factions. Let any one examine the position of Europe
alone, and he will find this statement abundantly verified. Look at the
armies and navies of France and England; and the confusion of Germany,
also of Austria, Turkey, Russia and Spain, not to mention many of the
smaller nations, and let their armies, their navies, and police be
gathered together, and what an abundant host of persons there would
be. They would be sufficient to make one of the largest nations in
the world! And what are they doing? To use the mildest term, watching
each other, as a person would watch a thief for fear of being imposed
upon, and robbed, or killed; but generally strolling around as the
world's banditti, robbing, plundering, and committing aggressions upon
each other; and if they have peace, acquiring it by the sword; and if
prevented from aggression and war, it is generally, not that they are
governed by just, or virtuous principles, but because they are afraid
that aggression might lead to combinations against them which would
result in their overthrow and ruin.
In the city of Paris alone, at the present time, and its immediate
environs, there are one hundred thousand soldiers, besides police to
a very great number, not to mention the vast number of custom-house
officers and others. Suppose we add to these their families, where
they have any, and where they have not, notice the vast amount of
prostitution, misery, degradation, and infamy, that such an unnatural
state of things produces. I give the above as an example of the whole,
but here the navies are not included. I say again, What are these all
doing? They do not raise corn to supply the wants of men, nor are they
occupied in any useful avocation; but they _must_ live, and their
wants must be supplied by the products of the labour of others. There
has to be an immense amount of legislation for the accomplishment of
this thing, and instead of having one government of righteousness and
the world obeying, we have scores of governments, all having to be
sustained in regal pomp, to be equal to their neighbouring nations;
and all this magnificence and national pride having to be supported
by the labour of the people. Again, all these legislatures have to
provide immense hosts of men, in the shape of custom-house, excise, and
police officers, to carry out their designs, all of whom, and their
families, help to increase the burden, till it becomes insupportable.
That, together with the unnatural state of society, before referred
to, in regard to the situation of the inhabitants of cities and the
nations, plunges millions of the human family into a state of hopeless
destitution, misery, and ruin, for they are groaning under all these
hopeless burdens without having sufficient land to till to meet their
demands, and as natural means fail they are obliged to have recourse
to those that are unnatural. Hence, in England a great majority of
the inhabitants are made slaves of, virtually to supply the wants of
the greatest part of the world, and are forced to be their labourers.
Thousands of them are immured in immense factories, little less than
prisons, groaning under a wearisome, sickening, unhealthy labour;
deprived of free, wholesome air; weak and emaciated, not having a
sufficiency of the necessaries of life. Thousands more from morning
till night are immured in pits, shut out from the light of day,
the carol of the birds, and the beauty of nature, sickly and weak,
in many instances for want of food; and yet, in the midst of their
wretchedness, gloom, and misery, you will sometimes hear them trying to
sing in their dungeons and prison-houses, in broken, dying accents,
"Britons never shall be slaves."
I will here give, as one example, an iron works that I visited lately
in Wales. One of the proprietors informed me that they employed fifteen
thousand persons, and paid them L5,000 per week. Most of these people
laboured under ground, in the pits, digging for iron ore and coal; the
remainder were employed principally about the furnaces, in rolling
the iron, &c., at heavy, laborious, fatiguing work. And who were they
toiling for? Principally for the Americans and Russians, at that
time, to furnish them with railroad iron. And what did they get for
their labour? The riches of those countries? No. L5,000 a week among
about fifteen thousand persons. I suppose, however, a number of these
were boys and girls. The average wages of men was from ten to twelve
shillings per week. And this is their pay for that labour; and yet the
masters are not to be blamed, that I can learn, for they are forced by
competition to this state of things, and by the unnatural, artificial
state of society. If they did not do this their workmen must be out
of employ, and ten times worse off, if that were possible, than they
are now. In the State of Pennsylvania, in America, where the railroads
run through coal and iron mines both, they leave them untouched, and
come to England for iron to make the rails of, that they cannot afford
to make at home, because of higher wages, and an _outlet_ to society,
which prevents them from being coerced into bondage. If the world was
right, the labour would be done there, and not here, and the labour of
carriage saved.
The situation of the peasantry and workmen in France, Germany, Prussia,
Austria, and Russia, and in fact I may say of Europe generally, is
worse even than that of the same class in England; and wherever we
turn our attention, we see nothing but poverty, distress, misery, and
confusion; for if men do not copy after the good and virtuous, they
generally do after the evil. When nations and rulers set the pattern,
they generally find plenty to follow their example; hence covetousness,
fraud, rapine, bloodshed, and murder, prevail to an alarming extent.
If a nation is covetous, an individual thinks he may be also; if a
nation commits a fraud, it sanctions his acts in a small way; and if
a nation engages in wholesale robbery, an individual does not see
the impropriety of doing it in retail; if a strong nation oppresses
a weak one, he does not see why he may not have the same privilege;
corruption follows corruption, and fraud treads on the heels of fraud,
and all those noble, honourable, virtuous, principles that ought to
govern men are lost sight of, and chicanery and deception ride rampant
through the world. The welfare, happiness, exaltation, and glory of
man, are sacrificed at the shrine of ambition, pride, covetousness
and lasciviousness. By these means nations are overthrown, kingdoms
destroyed, communities broken up, families rendered miserable, and
individuals ruined. I might enter into a detail of the crimes,
abominations, lusts, and corruptions that exist in many of our large
cities, but I shall leave this subject, and conclude with the remarks
of the prophet Isaiah, who gazed in prophetic vision on this scene:
"Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste,
and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants
thereof... The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof,
because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, and
broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the
earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate." Isaiah xxiv. 1, 5 and
6.
Iniquity of every description goes hand in hand; vice, in all its
sickening and disgusting forms, revels in the palace, in the city,
in the cottage; depravity, corruption, debauchery, and abominations
abound, and man, that once stood proudly erect in the image of his
Maker, pure, virtuous, holy, and noble, is vitiated, weak, immoral,
and degraded; and the earth, which was once a garden, not only brings
forth briars and thorns, but is actually "defiled under the inhabitants
thereof."
Those great national evils of which I have spoken are things which at
present seem to be out of the reach of human agency, legislation, or
control. They are diseases that have been generating for centuries;
that have entered into the vitals of all institutions, religious and
political; that have prostrated the powers and energies of all bodies
politic, and left the world to groan under them, for they are evils
that exist in church and state, at home and abroad; among Jew and
Gentile, Christian, Pagan, and Mahomedan; king, prince, courtier, and
peasant; like the deadly simoon, they have paralyzed the energies,
broken the spirits, damped the enterprize, corrupted the morals, and
crushed the hopes of the world.
Thousands of men would desire to do good, if they only knew how;
but they see not the foundation and extent of the evil, and
long-established opinions, customs and doctrines, blind their eyes,
and damp their energies. And if a few should see the evil, and try a
remedy, what are a few in opposition to the views, power, influence,
and corruption of the world?
No power on this side of heaven can correct the evil. It is a world
that is degenerated, and it requires a God to put it right.