inal meanings by the influence of delusive metaphors and
false associations.

Let us just see, in reference not to mere words, but to things, what
can be truly meant by the terms 'apostate or apostatizing Government,'
as applied to the Government of Great Britain. The words can have of
course no just application, in a personal bearing, to present members
of Government, as distinguished from the members of previous
Governments, seeing that the functionaries now in office are just as
much, or rather as little religious, as any other functionaries in
office since the times of the Revolution or before. In a _personal_
sense, England's last religious government was that of Cromwell. The
term apostate, or apostatizing, can have only an _official_ meaning.
What, then, in its official meaning, does it in reality express? The
government of the United Kingdom is representative; and it is one of
the great blessings which we enjoy as citizens that it is so,--one of
those blessings for which we may now, as when we were younger, express
ourselves thankful in the words of honest Isaac Watts, 'that we were
born on British ground.' At any rate, this fact of representation _is_
a _fact_--a _thing_, not a mere _word_. There is another fact in the
case equally solid and certain. This representation of the empire is
based on a population of about twenty-six millions of people; twelve
millions of whom are Episcopalian, eight millions Roman Catholic,
three millions Presbyterian, and three millions more divided among the
various other Protestant sects of the country. And this also is a
_fact_--a _thing_, not a mere _word_.

In the good providence of God we were born the citizens of an empire
thus representative in its government, and thus ecclesiastically
constituted in its population.

And it would be a further fact consequent on the other two, that the
aggregate character of the Government would represent the aggregate
moral and ecclesiastical character of the people, were every distinct
portion into which the people are parcelled to exert itself in
proportion to its share of political influence. But from the yet
further fact, that the portions have _not_ always exerted themselves
in equal ratios, and from other causes, political and providential,
the character of the Government has considerably fluctuated--now
representing one portion more in proportion to its amount than its
mere bulk warranted, anon another. Thus, in the days of the
C