captivity as an excuse for sin? Shall the partisan with his own hand
efface the prerogatives of his humanity, and dare to trample on the
laws of God, though he has not, and _because_ he has not, the courage
to break the leash in which he is led along like a hound watching his
master's eye? No. Every one of us is bound by higher obligations than
those which connect him with a party. If the higher and the inferior
obligations come in conflict, let the true man snap the latter, as if
they were bands of tow and not fetters of iron.

The most powerful instrument that a political party can use for the
accomplishment of its ends, whether good or bad, is the press, and
therefore this should be placed under the control of moral and
religious conviction. A press which violates the sanctity of truth and
lends itself to unrighteous uses, is a disgrace to the community which
gives it support, and which cannot long endure its presence without
feeling its disastrous influence. If men sit beneath the shade of the
poison-tree, they cannot but inhale its noxious atmosphere. The press
should be consecrated to intelligence and virtue; but if, instead of
the service which it may render to the highest interests of man, it
condescends to become the pander of his prejudices and the slave of
his passions, to do the scavenger-work of a party in the unclean ways
of falsehood and calumny, it deserves only scorn and reprobation. An
independent press is a blessing to a land; but a vagabond or a
hireling press is a nuisance. The independence of the press! much
talked about, but little exemplified, and probably little understood.
It does not consist in recklessness of assertion, or violence of
language, in gross misrepresentation, and grosser assault on
character; but in maintaining itself above the fluctuations of opinion
in the serene heaven of truth and principle, in trying political
theories and measures by the standard of a pure morality, in breasting
the current of popular or party sentiment when it runs towards evil,
and in advocating the right though it have few to speak on its behalf.
Why cannot we have a press that shall exhibit this character? Ought it
not to exist in a Christian nation? Now, with honorable exceptions,
our public journals give no evidence that the conception of such a
character was ever entertained, or at best indicate that it is
regarded as an ideal excellence, about which practical men need not
trouble themselves. The ton