Great Throughts Treasury

"The cultivation of the religious sentiment represses licentiousness?inspires respect for law and order, and gives strength to the whole social fabric."

"The education of youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention. [I]t is much easier to introduce and establish an effectual system ... than to correct by penal statutes the ill effects of a bad system... The education of youth ... lays the foundations on which both law and gospel rest for success."

"The foundation of all free government and all social order must be laid in families and in the discipline of youth. Young persons must not only be furnished with knowledge, but they must be accustomed to subordination and subjected to the authority and influence of good principles. It will avail little that youths are made to understand truth and correct principles, unless they are accustomed to submit to be governed by them."

"The Christian religion, in its purity, is the basis, or rather the source of all genuine freedom in government... and I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable in which the principles of that religion have not a controlling influence."

"The freedom of the press is a valuable privilege; but the abuse of it, in this country, ? is a frightful evil. The licentiousness of the press is a deep stain upon the character of the country; & in addition to the evil of calumniating good men, & giving a wrong direction to public measures, it corrupts the people by rendering them insensible to the value of truth & of reputation. The ecclesiastical establishments of Europe which serve to support tyrannical governments are not the Christian religion but abuses and corruptions of it."

"The fourteenth of February is a day sacred to St. Valentine! It was a very odd notion, alluded to by Shakespeare, that on this day birds begin to couple; hence, perhaps, arose the custom of sending on this day letters containing professions of love and affection."

"The heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head."

"The opinion that human reason left without the constant control of Divine laws and commands will ... give duration to a popular government is as chimerical [unlikely] as the most extravagant ideas that enter the head of a maniac... Where will you find any code of laws among civilized men in which the commands and prohibitions are not founded on Christian principles? I need not specify the prohibition of murder, robbery, theft, [and] trespass."

"The reasonableness of the command to obey parents is clear to children, even when quite young."

"The lack of [reading anthologies] had led to the use of the Bible as a textbook, a reprehensible practice for two reasons. First, the uniform, antique style prevents the acquisition "of a complete knowledge of words and of the modern manner of writing." Second, "such a common use of the Bible is a kind of prostitution of divine truth to secular purposes." Familiarity breeds disgust, levity, and wickedness, which lead to a profanation of the "awful solemnities of inspiration."

"The Law of nature is a rule of conduct arising out of the natural relations of human beings established by the Creator and existing prior to any positive precept [human law]... These ... have been established by the Creator and are, with a peculiar felicity of expression, denominated in Scripture, ordinances of heaven."

"The very idea of a system of religious principles and a mode of worship, prescribed and established by human authority, is totally repugnant to the spirit of Christianity. Every establishment is only a milder term for tyranny... It is an insult to humanity, a solemn mockery of all justice and common sense, to assume that right of entailing our opinion and formalities of devotion upon posterity, or to exclude them from the protection or emoluments of government for a non-conformity dictated by conscience."

"There iz no alternativ. Every possible reezon that could ever be offered for altering the spelling of wurds, stil exists in full force; and if a gradual reform should not be made in our language, it wil proov that we are less under the influence of reezon than our ancestors."

"The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and his apostles... and to this we owe our free constitutions of government."

"This general disposition to subject the slight and fleeting influence of human example and opinions, for the controlling authority of divine commands, is among the most gloomy presages of the present times. Without a great change of public taste ? the progress of depravity will be as rapid, as the ultimate loss of morals, of religion, and of civil liberty, is certain. God has provided but one way, by which nations can secure their rights and privileges ? by obedience to his laws. Without this, a nation may be great in population, great in wealth, and great in military strength; but it must be corrupt in morals, degraded in character, and distracted with factions. This is the order of God?s moral government, as firm as his throne, and unchangeable as his purpose; and nations, disregarding this order, are doomed to incessant internal evils, and ultimately to ruin."

"Unaffected modesty is the sweetest charm of female excellence, the richest gem in the diadem of her honor."

"Tyranny is the exercise of some power over a man, which is not warranted by law, or necessary for the public safety. A people can never be deprived of their liberties, while they retain in their own hands, a power sufficient to any other power in the state."

"When a citizen gives his suffrage [his vote] to a man of known immorality he abuses his trust [civic responsibility]; he sacrifices not only his own interest, but that of his neighbor; he betrays the interest of his country."

"Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community."

"When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty; if the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will be violated or disregarded. If a republican government fails to secure public prosperity and happiness, it must be because the citizens neglect the Divine commands and elect bad men to make and administer the laws."

"Why not include a provision that everybody shall, in good weather, hunt on his own land and catch fish in rivers that are public property and that Congress shall never restrain any inhabitant of America from eating and drinking, at seasonable times, or prevent his lying on his left side, in a long winter's night, or even on his back, when he is fatigued by lying on his right."