Political Science Of The State

604 POLITICAL SCIENCE,
that all the virtues, such as benevolence, moderation, self-
restraint, self-sacrifice, should be called into exercise on the
right occasion. But how can this standard be maintained
when there are no considerations to support it, except those
that are derived from prudence, and from the beauty of such
a character itself? The single vice of intemperance, by its
wide spread in the most intelligent countries and the best
governed, shows that freemen, where facilities for pleasure in
excess are within their reach, will exercise no self-restraint.
Simple societies without great wealth, with substantial equal-
ity, run along in a smooth track ; but when the relations of
men in a community become complicated, when inequalities
are continually arising from one cause or another, when a ten-
dency towards excitement becomes a characteristic of a people,
inordinate gratification is made the law of their life by many;
nor have the rules of right, or the conceptions of a perfect
life, any power over those who are in the whirl of excess.
There is then a need, in advanced societies above all, of a
principle which is not only regulative, but purifying and re-
formatory, which acts on character with a motive power, ap-
pealing, where it is received, to the leading forces in man's
nature, to love, gratitude, hope, as well as to the sense of
right, by influences not abstract* but drawn from life and his-
tory—above all, from the life of one who can act by a person-
al sway over those who accept his authority and guidance,
The union of the moral and spiritual in Christianity, and its
appeals to universal principles in human nature, adapt it, if
believed to be true, to be a controlling, permanent force in
society, And as such, it can act on those to whom political
power is entrusted, to make them fear God and serve the
people, and on those who are under law, to make them obe-
dient to law ; to lessen crime, to bind the parts and orders of
society together, to produce moderation and love of order;
to call forth at once the sense of rights because it discloses
the destiny of man, and the spirit of duty because its very basis
is obligation. I do not say that Christianity can sustain, or
that it ought to sustain, corrupt political parties ; I do not say