4. It is, however, the duty of the civil magistrate, to protect every individual in the undisturbed right of worshipping God as he pleases. This protection, every individual has a right to claim, and society is under obligation to extend it. And, also, as this is a leisure day, and is liable to various abuses, the magistrate has a right to prevent any modes of gratification which would tend to disturb the peace of society. This right is acknowledged in regulations respecting other days of leisure or rejoicing; and there can be no reason why it should not be exercised in respect to the Sabbath.

5. And, lastly, the law of the Sabbath applies equally to societies, and to individuals. An individual is forbidden to labor on the Sabbath, or to employ another person to labor for him. The rule is the same, when applied to any number of individuals; that is, to a society. Hence, a society has no right to employ persons to labor for them. The contract is a violation of the Sabbatical law. It is on this ground that I consider the carrying of the mail on this day a social violation of the Christian Sabbath.

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PART II.

DUTIES TO MAN.-RECIPROCITY AND BENEVO

LENCE.

DIVISION I.

THE DUTY OF RECIPROCITY.-GENERAL PRINCIPLE ILLUSTRATED, AND THE DUTIES OF RECIPROCITY CLASSIFIED.

IT has been already observed, that our duties, to both God and man, are all enforced by the obligation of love to God. By this we mean, that, in consequence of our moral constitution, we are under obligation to love our fellow-men, because they are our fellow-men; and we are also under obligation to love them, because we have been commanded to love them by our Father who is in heaven. The nature of this obligation may be illustrated by a familiar example. Every child in a family is under obligation to love its parent. And every child is bound to love its brother, both because he is its brother, and, also, because this love is a duty enforced by the relation in which they both stand to their common parent.

The relation in which men stand to each other, is essentially the relation of equality; not equality of condition, but equality of right.

Every human being is a distinct and separately accountable individual. To each one, God has given just such means of happiness, and placed him under just such circumstances for improving those means of happiness, as it has pleased him. To one he has given wealth; to another, intellect; to another, physical strength; to another, health ; and to all in different degrees. In all these respects, the

human race presents a scene of the greatest possible diversity. So far as natural advantages are concerned, we can scarcely find two individuals, who are not created under circumstances widely dissimilar.

But, viewed in another light, all men are placed under circumstances of perfect equality. Each separate individual is created with precisely the same right to use the advantages with which God has endowed him, as every other individual. This proposition seems to me in its nature so self-evident, as almost to preclude the possibility of argument. The only reason that I can conceive, on which any one could found a plea for inequality of right, must be inequality of condition. But this can manifestly create no diversity of right. I may have been endowed with better eye-sight than my neighbor; but this evidently gives me no right to put out his eyes, or to interfere with his right to derive from them whatever of happiness the Creator has placed within his power. I may have greater muscular strength than my neighbor; but this gives me no right to break his arms, or to diminish, in any manner, his ability to use them for the production of his own happiness. Besides, this supposition involves direct and manifest contradiction. For the principle asserted is, that superiority of condition confers superiority of right. But if this be true, then every kind of superiority of condition must confer correspondent superiority of right. Superiority in muscular strength must confer it, as much as superiority of intellect, or of wealth; and must confer it in the ratio of that superiority. In that case, if A, on the ground of intellectual superiority, have a right to improve his own means of happiness, by diminishing those which the Creator has given to B, B would have the same right over A, on the ground of superiority of muscular strength; while C would have a correspondent right over them both, on the ground of superiority of wealth; and so on indefinitely; and these rights would change every day, according to the relative situation of the respective parties. That is to say, as right is, in its nature, exclusive, all the men in the universe have an exclusive right to the same thing; while the right of every one absolutely annihilates that of every other.

What is the meaning of such an assertion, I leave it for others to determine.

But let us look at man in another point of light.

1. We find all men possessed of the same appetites and passions, that is, of the same desire for external objects, and the same capacity for receiving happiness from the gratification of these desires. We do not say that all men possess them all in an equal degree; but only that all men actually possess them all, and that their happiness depends upon the gratification of them.

2. These appetites and passions are created, so far as they themselves are exclusively concerned, without limit. Gratification generally renders them both more intense and more numerous. Such is the case with the love of wealth, the love of power, the love of sensual pleasure, or with any of the others.

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3. These desires may be gratified in such a manner, as not to interfere with the right which every other man has over his own means of happiness. Thus, I may gratify love of wealth, by industry and frugality, while I conduct myself towards every other man with entire honesty. I may gratify my love of science, without diminishing, in any respect, the means of knowledge possessed by another. And, on the other hand, I am created with the physical power to gratify my desires, in such a manner as to interfere with the right which another has over the means of happiness which God has given him. Thus, I have a physical power to gratify my love of property, by stealing the property of another, as well as to gratify it by earning property for myself. I have, by the gift of speech, the physical power to ruin the reputation of another, for the sake of gratifying my own love of approbation. I have the physical power to murder a man, for the sake of using his body to gratify my love of anatomical knowledge. And so of a thousand

cases.

4. And, hence, we see that the relation in which human beings stand to each other, is the following: Every individual is created with a desire to use the means of happiness which God has given him, in such a manner as he thinks will best promote that happiness; and of this manner

he is the sole judge. Every individual is endowed with the same desires, which he may gratify in such a manner as will not interfere with his neighbor's means of happiness; but each individual has, also, the physical power of so gratifying his desires, as will interfere with the means of happiness which God has granted to his neighbor.

5. From this relation, it is manifest that every man is under obligation to pursue his own happiness, in such manner only as will leave his neighbor in the undisturbed exercise of that common right which the Creator has equally conferred upon both, that is, to restrain his physical power of gratifying his desires within such limits that he shall interfere with the rights of no other being; because in no other manner can the evident design of the Creator, the common happiness of all, be promoted.

That this is the law of our being, may be shown from several considerations:

1. By violating it, the happiness of the aggressor is not increased, while that of the sufferer is diminished; while, by obeying it, the greatest amount of happiness of which our condition is susceptible, is secured; because, by obeying it, every one derives the greatest possible advantage from the gifts bestowed upon him by the Creator.

2. Suppose any other rule of obligation; that is, that a man is not under obligation to observe, with this exactitude, the rights of his neighbor. Where shall the limit be fixed? If violation be allowed in a small degree, why not in a great degree? and if he may interfere with one right, why not with all? And, as all men come under the same law, this principle would lead to the same absurdity as that of which we have before spoken; that is, it would abolish the very idea of right; and, as every one has an equal liberty of violation, would surrender the whole race to the dominion of unrestrained desire.

3. If it be said that one class of men is not under the obligation to observe this rule in its conduct towards another class of men, then it will be necessary to show that the second class are not men, that is, human beings; for these principles apply to men, as men; and the simple fact, that a being is a man, places him within the reach of these obli