walks the city is as much alone as the hermit in his cell. It is over the thoughts of man, his affections, his passions, his purposes, which mock at human control, that the government of God claims dominion; it is with reference to these, and not to the artificial index of appearances which we set to catch the eye of the world, that the register of Heaven is kept. On the other hand, how very few of the moral actions of man can human government reach, how imperfectly can it reach even these! It is only of overt acts, those which it can define, and which can be proved before a human tribunal, that it can take cognizance; and its treatment even of these can never be adjusted to the varying shades of guilt. It has no eye to reach the springs of action. It may see the movements of the machinery above, perplexed, and apparently contradictory; but it cannot uncover the great wheel, and look in upon the simple principle which makes character, and sets the whole in motion. But I observe again, that human governments are not only thus limited, but are also chiefly negative in their influence upon the formation of individual character. There is, indeed, a positive and widely pervading moral influence connected with the character, and station, and acts, of those who are in authority. This cannot be too prominently stated, the responsibility connected with it cannot be too carefully regarded; still this influence is entirely incidental, and is the same in kind with that exerted by any distinguished private individual. Human governments have also positive power to furnish _facilities_, as distinguished from _inducements_. They can authorise and guard the issue of paper money, to give facilities to men of business; they can lay down rail-roads, thus opening facilities to the spirit of enterprise, and calling out the neglected resources of the State; they can too, and our fathers did it, construct and keep in repair the _rail-roads of the mind_, thus giving facilities to the poorest boy in the glens of the mountains to come out and be an honor to his country. Still, human government is chiefly a system of restraint for the purpose of protection. Its object is to give equal protection to all in using their faculties as they please, provided they do not interfere with the rights of others. It does not propose to furnish inducements, but to enable men to live quiet and peaceable lives, while they act in view of the great inducements furnished by the government of God.