already been said, that our rulers in the executive, legislative, and
judicial departments, both in the general and State governments, should
have _an abiding consciousness of accountability_--should live under _a
felt pressure of obligation_--to the Sovereign of the universe, which
should assume, as it must where it exists at all, a practical, binding
force? Is it too much to ask, that they should remember that they are
the servants of God for good to this great people, and that to their own
Master they stand or fall? That they rule by God's permission, and for
his ends; and that a higher tribunal than any on earth awaits the
termination of their responsibility to man? That they should remember
their obligation, in common with those who elevated them to office,
"whatever they do, to do all to the glory of God;" and the solemn truth,
that a sin against God or man, whether of omission or of commission,
whether committed in private, in the family circle, or in the high
places of authority, is no less a sin, when committed by a judge, or a
legislator, or a chief magistrate of a State or nation, than by the
humblest of his constituents? In a word, do we claim too prominent a
place for religious principle in the administration of public affairs,
when we avow our desire that the rulers of a people, who are the
nominal, and in a free government the _real_, representatives of the
people, should be daily and practically aware, that they are accountable
to a higher Power, thus realizing, if not in the highest and most
Christian sense, yet in the literal signification, the picture of a good
ruler drawn by the prophet, who, in the name of the almighty Ruler,
declares, "He that ruleth over men, must be just--_ruling in the fear of
God_!"
We cannot reflect without occasion for the deepest gratitude, that in
contemplating the advantages of such a state of mind and of heart, as
possessed by men in authority, we are not confined to _a priori_
reasoning. England has had her Alfred, her Edward VI., and her Matthew
Hale; Sweden her Gustavus Adolphus; our own most cherished and beloved
country, a Washington, and a Wirt, with many others among the dead, and
not a few among the living, to whom our readers may recur as we proceed,
both for illustration of our meaning, and proof of our assertions.
Among the effects of this sense of obligation, which go to show its
importance to every man in public life, we mention first, _its influence
in checking the love and pride of power_. It will not be said by any
man, who has acquired even a smattering of the science of human nature,
that the simplicity of our republican institutions excludes all danger
from this source. It is the great weakness of man, to desire power; and,
having it, to be proud of it; and, in his pride, to abuse it. It
matters not whether it be the power of a monarch on his throne, or of
the humblest village functionary. If it be _power_, or even the
semblance of power, it charms the eye of the expectant, and, too often,
turns the head of the possessor.
True, in this land, power walks in humble guise. She rides in no gilded
chariot--is clothed with no robes of state--is preceded by no heralds
with announcement of noble titles--is decorated with no ribbons and
stars. Nor is there an office worth seeking, as a matter of gain, except
in some special cases, growing rather out of individual character and
circumstances, than from design on the part of legislators. But who will
deny, that RANK, here, as elsewhere throughout the wide world, has its
attractions? And who, that has thought upon the subject carefully,
doubts that they are as strong, as if it were hereditary? As far as
pride of heart in the possessor is concerned, undoubtedly the temptation
is even greater. That rank is _not_ hereditary, and is therefore
attainable by individual effort, opens a fountain of ambition in a
thousand hearts, which, under another constitution of society, would
never have known ambition, but as _a strange word_, while the fact that
it is ordinarily the prize of talent, attaches to it an additional power
to tempt and seduce the mind. It need not be said, that so far as this
love and pride of power exists, it tends to subvert all the true ends of
government.
That the influence of a sense of subordination and accountableness to
the Supreme Being, will be direct and strong in checking these
tendencies of human nature, is so plain as to command assent without
argument. Who can be proud in the perceived presence of infinite
splendor and worth? How can ambition thrive under the overshadowing
greatness of almighty Power?
It is recorded of Gustavus Adolphus, that being surprised one day by his
officers in secret prayer in his tent, he said: "Persons of my rank are
answerable to God alone for their actions; this gives the enemy of
mankind a peculiar advantage over us; an advantage which can be resisted
only by prayer and reading the Scriptures." This remark, though it does
not specify the moral dangers to which the royal worshipper was exposed,
has reference, undoubtedly, in part, if not mainly, to that pride and
loftiness of heart, which are the unrestrained denizens of those high
regions in the social atmosphere, which lie above the common walks of
life. Let a man in one of the high places of the earth, be accustomed
only _to look down_, and he is ready like Herod of old, to fancy the
flattery, truth, which tells him he is a god;--let him _look up_;--there
Jehovah sitteth above the water floods and remaineth king forever!
Another important effect of such views of religious obligation, will be
seen _in restraining the blind and ruinous excess of party feeling_. He
is a short-sighted politician indeed, who utters a sweeping denunciation
of party distinctions. And if they may be harmless, and even in some
cases form the very safety of the nation, then party _feeling_, without
which _parties_ could not exist, is, in some of its degrees and
developements right and desirable. But like the lightning of heaven,
while it purifies the political atmosphere, how easily and how quickly
may it desolate and destroy! In its healthful action, it is like the
gentle breeze, which refreshes man and fertilizes the earth; in its
excess, like the tornado, which sweeps away every green thing, and even
upturns the foundations of many generations.
When it is a modification of true-hearted patriotism, seeking the public
good by party organizations, it is right and safe; but when it is the
offspring of the wicked selfishness, already described, it is restrained
by no bounds, and directed to no good end. When a public officer, of
whatever rank, becomes the servant of a party, instead of being a
servant of God, for good to the _people_, it is not difficult to foresee
the consequences.
No argument is necessary to show that he who feels himself accountable
to God, will be but slightly constrained by the bonds of party
influence. So far as he regards the ends of a party as accordant with
the true ends of government, which in some cases may be nothing more
than the truth, and in others nothing _less_--his sense of religious
obligation will of course not interfere with his diligent prosecution of
those ends. But at that critical point, where ends zeal for party, for
the sake of the common weal, and begins zeal for party, for the party's
sake, and for ambition's sake, there a sense of paramount obligation,
like the magnetic power, will still the whispers of selfishness, and
counteract the tendencies of party commitment. The Christian politician
knows no party but the party of patriots, or, if that party be divided,
he seeks not the building up of either fragment for its own sake--but
the building up on the best and most hopeful, or if need be, on the
ruins of both, the great fabric of public welfare. Who does not desire
to see a deep sense of allegiance to one who is our Master, pervading
the leaders and the adherents of the great political parties, into which
it is so common and perhaps necessary, for nations to be divided?--under
such an influence, how might excesses be restrained, needless
repellances be neutralized, and how soon, instead of fierce bands of
brethren gathered in distinct and opposing array, like the dark clouds
of summer, meeting over our heads, might we see the beauty and the
strength of party organization, without its wide severance and its
deadly hate, like the rainbow, which is not more beautiful in the
variety of its colors, than in the grace with which the divine Painter
has blended them.
It will be denied by none, of whatever religious or political faith,
that public morals are, under a government like ours, the life-blood of
national strength and safety. The day that shall behold us a nation of
gamblers, or duelists, or profane swearers or drunkards, or
Sabbath-breakers--will be the day of our political death. Armies, and
navies, and enterprise, and numbers, with a sound hereditary government,
may for a time give prosperity to a dissolute immoral people. But in a
government like ours, where the laws and the administration of law, are
as quickly and as certainly affected by the popular sentiment, owing to
frequent elections, as the sunbeams are reflected from the summer
clouds, prosperity cannot survive morality a single day. And who can
tell how important, in this view, it is, that our public men should be
public models of private virtue!
Oh, when, our hearts exclaim, when shall the _evil_ example be unknown
in the high places of power; and purity, truth, high-toned Christian
morality, beam like another sun, from the seats of influence? The true
answer to this question would afford another argument for the importance
of that sense of religious obligation which has now been considered. The
command of God is the only mandate in the universe which can effectually
restrain human passions and desires. The voice which comes attended by
the sanction, "Thus saith the Lord," is the only voice which can
successfully say, "peace! be still," to the winds and the waves of wrong
inclination. When our rulers shall "all be taught of God,"--and yield
themselves to a constraining sense of his dominion, and their own
accountableness--then, and not till then, will they as a body, be such
models of private correctness and virtue, as many of them, both among
the dead and among the living, have been, for the imitation of the young
men, the hope and glory of our land.
Again, and it is the last consideration we shall present, how powerful a
tendency would such views on the part of our rulers, possess, to awaken
the utmost vigilance in the guardianship of their sacred trust, and to
elevate the mind and heart to the purest feelings, and the noblest
efforts.
A sense of accountability, in some manner and to some tribunal, is
essential to ensure fidelity under all temptations to indolence or
perversion, in every case in which men are the recipients of any trust.
Apply this principle to the case of him who holds some political station
of high importance. He feels himself responsible, not only to men, but
to God. He knows and remembers that he is the _servant of God_ for good,
to the people. This remembrance and impression is the sheet anchor of
his steadfastness. Other principles _might_ hold him amidst the storms
and commotions of the popular sea, and of his own heart; this _must_.
With what care will he watch the precious trust, which comes to him
under the seal of heaven! How sedulously will he guard the doors of the
temple of liberty, when he perceives within it the altar of God, and
finds his sentinel's commission countersigned with the handwriting of
Jehovah! His heart, too, will be filled with the purest and most exalted
sentiments.
The fountain from which such a man daily drinks, sparkles with the
elements of all that is grateful and refreshing.
The purest patriotism, the sweetest charities of domestic life, the most
expansive and wise benevolence, all spring up in the heart together, the
consentaneous and harmonious fruits of the love and fear of God. It was
in the same school that Wilberforce learned to love the slave--Howard to
love the prisoner--Wirt to love his country--and all to love the world.
They _feared and obeyed God_--and all noble and generous emotions grow
spontaneously in the soil of the heart thus prepared and enriched.
Nor is the effort less marked or less salutary upon the _mind_. Its
thoughts are loftier, and its purposes deeper and more steadfast, for
being conversant with the great subject of divine obligation. No man can
think much of the Deity, and realize strongly His constant presence and
inspection, without an elevation of views, and a growing consciousness
of that mental power, for the right use of which he is accountable to
Him who bestowed it. We were not made to inhabit a godless world, and we
cannot make it so, in speculation and in practice, without a
deterioration analogous to the dwarfish tendency of emigration to a
region colder than our native clime. "God is a sun," to the mental as
well as to the moral powers; and in the frozen zone of practical
atheism, both degenerate and die. The noble motto, "_Bene orasse est
bene studisse_," applies with hardly less force to secular, than to
sacred studies.
With what energy must it arm the soul of the patriot statesman
struggling against wrong counsels, and discredited dangers, to know that
the God of truth and of right, sees and approves his course! With what
new power does his mind grasp a difficult and embarrassed subject, when
he feels that the Former of that mind, now demands from him an exertion
of its highest powers! What exciting power, to call forth the most
thrilling eloquence, can be found in the crowded senate-chamber,
compared with the consciousness that for every word he must give account
to Him, whose applause, if he fulfils his high behest, will surpass in
value the shouts of an enraptured universe besides!
A NEW-ENGLAND WINTER-SCENE.
EXTRACT FROM A LETTER TO A FRIEND IN ONE OF THE WEST INDIA ISLANDS.
By William Cutter.
I have sometimes almost envied you the perpetual summer you enjoy. You
have none of the bleak, dark wastes of Winter around you, and have never
to look, with aching heart, upon all fair, bright, beautiful things,
withering before your eyes, in the severe frown of frosty Autumn. It is
always green, and fresh, and fragrant, in your Islands of eternal June.
Your gardens are always gardens, gay and redolent with sweet blossoms,
and rich with ripe fruits, mingling like youth and manhood vying with
each other, "from laughing morning up to sober prime," pursuing, without
blight or dimness, the same gay round--blooming and ripening--ripening
and blooming, but never falling, through all generations. Through all
seasons, you have only to reach forth your hands, and there are bright
bouquets, and mellow, delicious fruits, ready to fill them. Your trees
have always a shade to spread over you; and they cast off their gorgeous
blossoms, and their luxuriant load, as if they were conscious of
immortal youth and energy--as if they knew they should never fade,
become fruitless, or die. There is no frail, bending, withering age, in
any thing of nature you look upon--no blasting of the unripened bud by
untimely frosts--no falling prematurely of all that is beautiful and
rare, to remind you daily that time is on his flight, and that you will
not always be young. I wonder you do not think yourselves immortal in
those everlasting gardens! Oh! that perpetual youth and maturity of
every thing lovely!--how I have sometimes envied you the possession!
But I shall never envy you again. No--delightful as summer is, soft as
its breezes, and sweet as its music, I would not lose the unutterable
glory of this scene, that is now before me, for all the riches of your
Island,--its unfading summer, and everlasting sweets. I wish I could
describe it to you--could give you some faint idea of its celestial
splendor. But, to do it any justice, I should have travelled through the
fields of those glittering constellations above me, to borrow images
from the host of heaven. The attempt will be vain--presumptuous--but I
will try to tell you as much of it as I can.
The day has been dark, cold, and stormy. The snow has been falling
lightly, mingled with rain, which, freezing as it fell, has formed a
perfect covering of ice upon every object. The trees and shrubbery, even
to their minutest branches, are all perfectly encased in this
transparent drapery. Nothing could look more bleak and melancholy while
the storm continued. But, just as evening closed in, the storm ceased,
and the clouds rolled swiftly away. Never was a clearer, a more spotless
sky. The moon is in the zenith of her march, with her multitude of
bright attendants, pouring their mild radiance, like living light, upon
the sea of glass that is all around us. Oh! how it kindles me to look at
it! how it maddens me that I have no language to tell it to you! Do but
imagine--The fields blazing out, like oceans of molten silver!--every
tree and shrub, as far as the eye can reach, of pure transparent
glass--a perfect garden of moving, waving breathing chrystals, lighted
into unearthly splendor by a full, unclouded moon, and scattering
undimmed, in every direction, the beams that are poured upon them. The
air, all around, seems alive with illuminated gems. Every tree is a
diamond chandelier, with a whole constellation of stars clustering to
every socket--and, as they wave and tremble in the light breeze that is
passing, I think of the dance of the morning stars, while they sang
together on the birth-day of creation. Earth is a mirror of heaven. I
can almost imagine myself borne up among the spheres, and looking
through their vast theatre of lights. There are stars of every
magnitude--from the humble twig, that glows and sparkles on the very
bosom of the glassy earth, and the delicate thorn that points its
glittering needle to the light, to the gorgeous, stately tree, that
lifts loftily its crowned head and stretches its gemmed and almost
overborne arms, proudly and gloriously to the heavens--all
glowing--glittering--flashing--blazing--like--but why do I attempt it?
As well might I begin to paint the noon-day sun. Give a loose to your
imagination. Think of gardens and forests, hung with myriads of
diamonds--nay, every tree, every branch, every stem and twig, a perfect,
polished crystal, and the full, glorious moon, and all the host of
evening, down in the very midst of them--and you will know what I am
looking at. I am all eye and thought, but have no voice, no words to
convey to you an impression of what I see and feel--No, I'll not envy
you again! What a picture for mortal eyes to look on undimmed! The
eagle, that goes up at noon-day to the sun, would be amazed in its
effulgence. It is the coronation-eve of winter--and nature has opened
her casket, and poured out every dazzling gem, and brilliant in her
keeping, and hung out all her rain-bow drops, and lighted up every lamp,
and they are all glowing, twinkling, sparkling, flashing together, like
legions of spiritual eyes, glancing from world to world, in such
unearthly rivalry, that the eye, even of the mind, turns away from it,
pained and weary with beholding. There--look--but I can say no more, my
words are consumed, drunk up in this unutterable glory, like morning
mist when the sun looks on it!
LOCH KATRINE.
By N. H. Carter.
An eminence in the road afforded us the first view of Loch Katrine, a
blue and bright expanse of water, cradled among lofty hills, though
moderate both in point of altitude and boldness, when contrasted with
those which had already been seen. The first feature that arrested
attention, was the peculiar complexion of the water, which is cerulean,
and differs several shades from that of the other Scottish lakes. Its
hue is probably modified by the verdure upon the shores, as well as by
the geological structure of its bed, in which there is little or no mud.
Like some of our own pellucid waters, it is a Naiad of the purest kind,
sleeping on coral and crystal couches. Its blue tinge was doubtless in
some degree heightened by the distance whence it was first descried, as
well as by the deep azure of the skies after the late storm.
Hastening to the shore, we waited some time for the oarsmen, who
accompanied us from Loch Lomond, to bring out their boat from behind a
little promontory, which for aught I know, was the very place where Rob
Roy and Ellen Douglas used to hide their canoes. There is no house
within several miles of the landing. The only building of any kind is a
small temporary hut, of rude construction, serving as a poor shelter in
case of rain. As this lake has become a fashionable resort, one would
suppose the number of travellers would justify the expense of a
boatman's house, which would relieve the oarsmen from the trouble of
walking half a dozen miles, and the tourist from the vexation of paying
for it.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, seven of us, including the boat's crew,
embarked, and commenced a voyage to the foot of the lake, a distance of
nine miles in a south-eastern direction. Winds and waves both conspired
to accelerate our progress, and no Highland bark probably ever bounded
more merrily over the blue billows. The cone of Ben-Lomond rapidly
receded, and Ben-venue and Ben-an, on opposite sides of the outlet, came
more fully in view. At the head, Glengyle opens prettily from the
north-west, with serrated hills forming the lofty ramparts of the pass,
in the entrance of which is a seat belonging to one of the descendants
of Rob Roy M'Gregor. The width of the lake is about two miles, with
deeply indented shores, which are generally bold and romantic,
exhibiting occasionally scattered houses and patches of cultivation,
particularly on the north-eastern borders. Our course was nearest the
south-western side, touching at one little desolate promontory, to
exchange boats, and often approaching so close, as to enable us to
examine the scanty growth upon the margin.
In about two hours from the time of embarkation, we reached Ellen's
Island, near the outlet; and half encircling the green eminence, rising
beautifully from the bosom of the lake, our Highland mariners made a
port in the identical little bay, where the far-famed heroine was wont
to moor her skiff, fastening it to an oak, which still hangs its aged
arms over the flood. This miniature harbor is also signalized, as the
place where Helen Stuart cut off the head of one of Cromwell's
soldiers. As the story goes, all the women and children fled hither for
refuge. After a decisive victory, one of the veterans of the Protector
attempted to swim to the island for a boat, with an intention of
pillaging and laying waste the asylum; but as he approached the shore
the above mentioned heroine, stepped from her ambuscade, and with one
stroke of her dirk decapitated the marauder, thus rescuing her narrow
dominion with its tenants from destruction.
The Island is small and rises perhaps fifty feet above the water. It
rests on a basis of granite, covered with a thin coat of earth, through
which the rocks occasionally appear, and which affords scanty nutriment
to a growth of oak, birch, and mountain ash. The red berries of the
latter hung gracefully over the cliffs, in many places shaded with brown
heath. A winding pathway leads to the summit, which is beautifully
tufted, and affords a charming view of the surrounding hills and waters.
In a little secluded copse near the top stands Ellen's Bower, fashioned
exactly according to the description of the same object in the Lady of
the Lake. Those who are curious to form a minute and accurate image of
it, have only to turn to that picture. The exterior is composed of
unhewn logs or sticks of fir, fantastically arranged, with a thatched,
moss-covered roof, and skins of beasts converted into semi-transparent
parchment for windows. Every thing within is in rustic style. A living
aspen grows in the centre, and supports the ceiling. Upon its branches
hangs a great variety of ancient armor, with trophies of the chase. Here
may be seen the Lochaber axe, Rob Roy's dirk, and sundry other
curiosities. A table strewed with leaves extends nearly the whole
length of the bower. The walls are hung with shields, and the skins of
various animals. Chairs and sofas woven of osiers fill the apartment.
The chimney is formed of sticks, and the head of a stag with his
branching horns decorates the mantlepiece. Half an hour was passed in
lolling upon Ellen's sofas, and in examining her domestic arrangements.