till, for ages, the use
he made of reason was to overcome the physical force of others, and to
render available his own portion. On this principle, and for this
object, variously modified, and more or less refined, have societies
been formed to this day; though, as morals are the fruit of which
intellect is the blossom, spiritualism--faith in moral power--has
existed in individuals ever since the first free exercise of reason.
While all nations were ravaging one another as they had opportunity,
there were always parents who did not abuse their physical power over
their children. In the midst of a general worship of power, birth, and
wealth, the affections have wrought out in individual minds a preference
of obscurity and poverty for the sake of spiritual objects. Amidst the
supremacy of the worship of honour and social ease, there have always
been confessors who could endure disgrace for the truth, and martyrs who
could die for it.--Such individual cases have never been wanting: and,
in necessary connexion with this fact, there has always been a sympathy
in this pure moral taste,--an appreciation which could not but help its
diffusion. Thence arose the formation of communities for the fostering
of holiness,--projects which, however mistaken in their methods and
injurious in their consequences, have always commanded, and do still
command, sympathy, from the venerableness of their origin. Not all the
stories of the abuses of monastic institutions can destroy the respect
of every ingenuous mind for the spiritual preferences out of which they
arose. The Crusades are still holy, notwithstanding all their
defilements of vain-glory, superstition, and barbarism of various kinds.
The retreat of the Pilgrim Fathers to the forests of the New World
silences the ridicule of the thoughtless about the extravagances of
Puritanism in England.

Thus far has the race advanced; and, having thus advanced, there is
reason to anticipate that the age may come when the individual worship
of spiritual supremacy may expand into national; when a people may agree
to govern one another with the smallest possible application of physical
force; when goodness shall come to be naturally more honoured than
birth, wealth, or even intellect; when ambition of territory shall be
given up; when all thought of war shall be over; when the pursuit of the
necessaries and luxuries of external life shall be regarded as means to
an end; and when the common aim of ex