and dishonorable, than the opposite vice. The blessing of God attends the one; his frown and curse, the other. "Honor thy father and thy mother which is the first commandment with promise-that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth” (Eph. vi. 2, referring to Ex. xx. 12). "Cursed be he that setteth light. by his father or his mother; and all the people shall say, Amen" (Deut. xxvii. 16). And yet again: "The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pluck it out, and the young eagles shall eat it" (Prov. xxx. 17).

The duties

4. FILIAL AFFECTION AND GRATITUDE. which have already been named are incomplete without this. Those offices are to be performed not merely as duties, and because they are required by the laws and customs of society, by self-respect, and by the divine command, but from a higher principle than the single sense of duty, from love, the pure affection and deep gratitude of the heart. The relation in which our parents stand to us, entitles them to our sincere affection and gratitude. To no human beings are we so much indebted as to them. They have given us being; they have provided for our physical wants; have fed and clothed us; have watched our steps by day, and our slumbers by night; have denied themselves, that they might make better provision for us; have educated us in whatever of useful learning and of good manners we have acquired; have done what they could-it is to be hoped-to train us for usefulness and happiness here and hereafter. As we grow up, we may possibly perceive faults of character in them, faults, perhaps, in their mode of educating and governing us; but no such defects, whether real or imagined, can ever discharge the obligation on our part of true and earnest gratitude and love.

The character that is wanting in this, is wanting in all that is manly and noble. The heart that lacks this emotion, is essentially a mean and selfish heart.

Nor is this duty one that ceases to be required of us as we come ourselves to manhood. Time, in its never-ceasing progress, reverses the order in which life began: the child becomes a parent, and the parent by-and-by becomes again a child. The arms that held us in infancy, require now the strength of our more robust and vigorous forms; the hands that toiled and the feet that moved so readily for all our wants, must now depend on us for support. By every little act of kindness and attention, by all the sweet and soothing ministry of love, it is for us to discharge that debt. Happy for us, if, over the grave of a parent, we never have occasion to drop a tear of regret that we were in any measure negligent of this sacred duty.

PART I V.

DUTIES TO THE STATE.

CHAPTER I.

NATURE AND FOUNDATION OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

Ir has already been remarked that there exist in the world two great and distinct institutions, the Family and the State, having each its own organization, its own laws, its own object, its own proper duties. Of these, the former has already occupied our attention, and we approach now the consideration of the latter.

The State what. — In order to clearness, we must ascertain precisely what is meant by the state. I understand by the state, a community organized under one form or system of government, and dwelling together, under that government, in one and the same territory. Those thus associated for purposes of government, compose the

state.

The word is frequently employed in a somewhat different sense from that now given, — sometimes, to denote the idea of civil government in the abstract, without reference to the aggregate of individuals that compose the state; sometimes, also, to denote the power that exercises authority and administers law in the community thus organized

as when Louis Fourteenth of France declared, “I am the state."

The true idea, however, of the state, I take to be that already given. When we speak of the family, or of the state, as institutions, we do indeed, use those terms abstractly; but when we come to define more fully our meaning, we say, the family is a little community, consisting of those related by ties of marriage and consanguinity, dwelling under one roof, and holding property in common; and, in like manner, we say, the state is a larger community, organized under one form of government, and dwelling together in the same country or territory.

A

Not every Community a State. It is not every and any community, or company of men, that constitutes a state, even though they may inhabit the same territory. They must be an organized community, and that for the purpose of government- a united whole, bound together by one and the same system of civil administration. herd of wild beasts roaming together over the western prairies is a community; a horde of savages, scarcely less wild and lawless, may dwell together without the forms of civilized society; but neither of these communities is a state. Those who came over in the pilgrim bark, the May-Flower, were a community, united in one and the same great enterprise, yet only a collection of separate families and individuals, and nothing more, until, in the cabin of that little vessel, there was drawn up the instrument that constituted them an organized community, and prescribed the form of their future government; that instrument drawn and signed, they became from that moment a state.

It will be to our purpose, in the further discussion of the subject proposed for consideration in the present chapter,

to inquire as to the origin and object of civil government - how such an institution ever came to be, and for what ends designed; also, as to the foundation on which it

rests

whence comes its authority. These topics will be discussed in the following sections.

§ I. ORIGIN AND OBJECT OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT.

ORIGIN OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. - If we inquire for the origin of this institution,-the manner in which such a thing as the state, or civil government, came to be, -we must go back, doubtless, to a very early period of civilization - to the first rude beginnings of human history. The germ of civil authority lies, if I mistake not, in the family; the members of which, united by closest ties of sympathy and common interest, are subject to the parental authority and control. This is the first form of obedience, and the first kind of government. "A family," it is well said by Paley, ❝contains the rudiments of an empire. The authority of one over many, and the disposition to govern and to be governed, are in this way incidental to the very nature, and coëval, no doubt, with the existence of the human species."

It is easy to see how, from this simple beginning, the principle of civil government, taking its rise, may have extended, till, as now, it embraces nations and centuries in its sweep. The respect and homage due to the wisdom and authority of the parent, do not cease when the children approach the maturity of riper years. Around the tent of the father gather, in process of time, the tents of the children; the government of the family becomes gradually the government of many families, all united by ties of consanguinity and common origin, all owing and owning allegiance to a common ancestor. The general direction and