ing the fact, that states can be happy only in proportion as they are virtuous ; and whatever imposes a restraint on private life contributes to the general welfare. Here Christianity has decidedly the advantage over all systems. The perfect code of morals, and the self-denying virtues inculcated by it, act as a noble check on the irregular passions of mankind, and form the best safeguard of virtue and happiness. Besides laying the only sure foundation, it asserts dominion over the thoughts and intents of the heart, a spiritual sovereignty, beneath whose silent, yet irresistible, influence moral evils are gradually receding, and the earnest or dawn of a bright day is opening to the benighted regions of the earth.
But, lastly, apart from other considerations, Christianity is entitled to the lasting gratitude of the world by propounding and enforcing moral and political duties, without alarming jealousy by interfering with merely
