luntary association might be dispensed with. Even
prudence might fail to calculate, how the present sacrifice to general
good is to be compensated; and charity would rebind the man to love his
neighbor as himself, and do as he would receive again.

It is further called "the perfect law of liberty;" as by a simple rule
it perfectly secures to individuals those immunities, which
constitutional provisions at best secure but imperfectly by complicated
apparatus, and where philosophy halts at the perversities of human
selfishness.

7. Faith alone is the sure foundation, whereto to add virtue
[courage], and that for the further addition of knowledge. This
courage is _du Coeur_--of the heart, and alone gives that simple love
of truth, which, for _its_ sake, dares equally to be new and singular,
or to be vulgar and common-place. Without that foundation, assuming to
be courageous enough to leave the beaten track, and reject received
opinions, one does but attain to the bravery, which, in its efforts to
dare danger or opposition, is sure to overact its part. Who holds an
even balance in weighing evidence, equally guarded against rejecting
the old, because it is old, or the new, because it is new? I know not,
unless such as have apprehended the _urwahr_--the essential truth,
which throws all temporal considerations into the shade.

There are two difficulties in the way of attempting changes in the
existing state of things, with good prospect of improvement. The first
arises from the force of habit, and a reluctance to try a new, it may
be, hazardous course. The other form the little discrimination
exercised, when men set about in earnest exchanging the old for the
new--discrimination to avoid treating the old as necessarily
antiquated, and the presumption of "laying again the foundation" of
all things. And these difficulties will hardly be met successfully,
except by men, in whom the fear of God has cast out other fear.

The intelligent part of the people of southern Europe have been, for
many years, more thoroughly divested of reverence for the papacy, than
was Luther in the days of his greatest vehemence. But they have
quietly taken things as they are. They have wanted Luther's substitute
for superstition--a fervently religious spirit. They have had only
worldly and political motives, for wishing to see the old imposition
done away; and these have been powerless against natural apathy, and
the fixedness of old e