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Until within a very few years the execution of the laws for raising the revenue, like that of all our other laws, has been insured more by the moral sense of the community than by the rigors of a jealous precaution or by penal sanctions.
In assuming the responsibility of a Christian king to God for the good government of his realm, in surrounding the pledges whether of ruler or ruled with religious sanctions, the mediæval Church entered its protest against any personal despotism.
Will any one answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching? Will any one deny, that we are bound, and I would hope to good purpose, by the most solemn sanctions of duty for the vote we give? Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indifference to the tears and blood of their subjects?
In the palace the king entertained his lords; in private houses there was dancing and revelling. Wine was freely drunk; passion Was excited; and the day, it must be feared, too often terminated in wild orgies, wherein the sanctions of religion were claimed for the free indulgence of the worst sensual appetites.
All sound reasoning prescribes a training with the given purpose of bringing the instincts of the individual into harmony with the interests of the whole social organism. Theology trying to lay down an absolute law sometimes encourages the extremes of asceticism, sometimes it inclines to antinomianism; and sometimes sanctions the condonation of sin in consideration of acts of humiliation.
It combines, with a great singleness of purpose, so diverse a variety of details that it touches the minutiae of every trade and places at the disposal of the humblest craftsman or laborer the tremendous powers of its national influence. While highly centralized in organization, it is nevertheless democratic in operation, depending generally upon the referendum for its sanctions.
The authority of appointment and removal is not a perquisite, which may be used to aid a friend or reward a partisan, but is a trust, to be exercised in the public interest under all the sanctions which attend the obligation to apply the public funds only for public purposes. Every citizen has an equal right to the honor and profit of entering the public service of his country.
The man who, undefiled with plural marriage, is surrounded in his single home with his wife and children has a stake in the country which inspires him with respect for its laws and courage for its defense. These are not the fathers of polygamous families. There is no feature of this practice or the system which sanctions it which is not opposed to all that is of value in our institutions.
Besides, I can say that I have just arrived from Persia with important dispatches for the king, and that I must be admitted immediately into his presence. If a falsehood must be told, so let it be. The urgency of the crisis demands and sanctions it."
The ceremonies, therefore, of her consecration were duly performed; she took the vows, and bound herself by the most awful sanctions unconscious, however, perhaps, herself of what she was doing to lead thenceforth a life of absolute celibacy and seclusion.
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