the cruel, giving them habits which
make them at once superior to all Pagans.

Look at Rome and Persia in comparison with England and America. The
Persian's religion was the best of all the uninspired religions. They
worshiped their unknown god in the sun, moon and stars. In two reigning
principles they sought for an explanation of the present state of good and
evil mixed, which is the perplexing problem that has always confounded
unenlightened reason. The Persian's creed only exercised his intellect and
gratified his curiosity. It brought no power to bear upon his social
relations. Persian history is a mass of crimes, suffering and intolerance.
The government was a despotism, and polygamy gave laws to the domestic and
private relations of the citizens.

Ancient Rome stands foremost in all that moral culture and philosophy
alone can do for social institutions. Its religion was gross in the
extreme, exerting an unhappy influence upon the masses, while it was
disregarded by the priests who taught it, their sole object being to
terrify the multitude and keep them in subjection to the authorities of
the state. It was said by a Roman, "Our nation exists more by religion
than by the sword." But upon an examination of Roman history you will find
servitude, despotism, tumult, revolt, revolution and slaughter, peace and
war. The ambitions of rivals to the throne, and new schemes of rulers,
often deluged the country with blood and carried the sword to remote and
peaceable nations, till the horrors of civil war were realized in almost
every part of the world. Every now and then the powers of some great mind,
irritated by his calamities, having all the vices and none of the virtues
of his species, would rise up and wreak vengeance in deeds which can not
be thought of without sadness of heart.

How much better was ancient Greece? How much better are modern Pagan
nations? These evils have been extinguished in the ratio of the
circulation and influence of the Bible. The relation between the state and
its citizens the Bible recognizes as of divine appointment; the foundation
of civil government is the will of God. Government is an ordinance of God.
"The powers that be are ordained of God." The great author of our rights,
life, liberty, peace, order, public morals and religion, has not left
these interests to chance, anarchy or the social compact. Rulers were
ordained of God, and are rulers, not for their own exaltation, but for the
t