It is right—absolutely right. St. Paul tells us what gives law this authority: “There is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God.” And he tells us also why this authority is given to the law. “Rulers,” he says, “are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of those who administer the law? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise from them, for they are God’s ministers to thee for good.” For good, you see. For the good of mankind it was, that God put into their hearts and reasons, that notion of making laws, and appointing kings and magistrates to see that those laws are obeyed. For our good. For without law no man’s life, or family, or property would be safe. Every man’s private selfishness, and greediness, and anger, would struggle without check to have its way, and there would be no bar or curb to keep each and every man from injuring each and every man else; so the strong would devour the weak, and then tear each other in pieces afterwards. So it is among the savages. They have little or no property, for they have no laws to protect property; and therefore every man expects his neighbour to steal from him, and finds it his shortest plan to steal from his neighbour, instead of settling down to sow corn which he will have no chance of eating, or build houses which may be taken from him at night by some more strong and cunning savage. There is no law among savages to protect women and children against the men, and therefore the women are treated worse than beasts, and the children murdered to save the trouble of rearing them. Every man’s hand is against his neighbour. No one feels himself safe, and therefore no one thinks it worth while to lay up for the morrow. No one expects justice and mercy to be done to him, and therefore no one thinks it worth while to do justice and mercy to others. And thus they live in continual fear and quarrelling, feeding like wild animals on game or roots, often, when they have bad luck in their hunting, on offal which our dogs would refuse, and dwindle away and become fewer and wretcheder year by year; in this way do the savages in New South Wales live to this day, for want of law. It is for our good, then, that God has put into the heart of man to make laws, and to obey them as sacred and divine things. For our good, in order to save us from sinking down into the same state of poverty and misery in which the savages are. For our good, because we are fallen creatures, with selfish and corrupt wills, continually apt to break loose, and please ourselves at the expense of our neighbours. For our good, because, however fallen we are, we are still brothers, members of God’s family, bound to each other by duty and relationship, if not by love.