spiracy of wives
against their husbands, and husbands against their wives; children
sacrificed by the doings of a mother; families whose peace is ruined by
intrigue and violence; men everywhere falling upon their own swords; the
wife murdering her own husband for the sake of marrying another; woman
practiced, skilled, in the art of poisoning--such is the picture of Pagan
life in the most enlightened age of Rome.

Let any man compare society in our country, or in any protestant country,
with the state of society under the reign of the Caesars, and he will see
what the Christ has done for our race. The spirit that sustains our social
institutions does not grow cold even at the grave, but is felt beyond
death. How is it in heathen lands? The sweetest loves of life give way to
suspicion and envy; the jealousy of love, the thirst for power and
ambition, drives them away, often as soon as the flowers and beauty of
youth are gone. Where Christ reigns it is not so. Yet there are those who
would have us believe that the religion of Christ is an unsocial, selfish
religion. If it is unsocial and selfish to have no sympathy with
wickedness, to promote all that is virtuous and kind, pure and true, to
take pleasure in all that subdues the malignant and beastly, the ambitious
and cruel, then it is an unsocial and selfish affair. If it is unsocial
and selfish to take pleasure in that which elevates and moulds character
in the image of God, and fits it for angelic society hereafter, then it is
truly unsocial and selfish.

LAW, CAUSE, AND AGENT.

The word law denotes the unceasing, regular order in which an agent or
force operates. It should, consequently, be distinguished from cause or
efficiency; it being only the manner, or mode, according to which an agent
or cause manifests itself. Therefore law is neither cause or agent. Yet it
implies an agent, or an energy; for without these law is nothing--does
nothing. The laws of nature had no existence until nature existed. That is
to say, the laws of water did not exist until water existed, etc. So it is
easy to perceive the truth that the laws of nature created nothing. Nature
is said to be the aggregate of everything; therefore nature created
nothing. The laws of nature, being the rules according to which effects
are produced, demonstrate the existence of a cause or agent which
operates. As the rules of navigation never steered a ship, so the law of
gravity never moved a planet