In your private character, if you would build securely, you must build on the natural law of God, inherent in your nature and in his; if the nation would build securely, it must build so. Out of their caprice, their selfishness, and their sin, may men make statutes, to last for a day, built up with joyous huzzas, and the chiming of a hundred guns, to come down with the curses of the multitude, and smitten by the thunder of God; but to build secure, you must build on the Justice of the Almighty. The beatitudes of Jesus will outlast the codes of all the tyrants of the old world and the new. So I have seen gamblers hurry and huddle up their booths at a country muster, on the unsmoothed surface of a stubble-field, foundation good enough for such a structure, not a post plumb, to endure a single day of riot, drunkenness, and sin; but to build a pyramid which shall outlast empires, men lay bare the bosom of the primeval rock, and out of primeval rock they build thereon their well-joined work, outlasting Syria, Greece, Carthage, Rome, venerable to Time, and underneath its steadfast foot the earthquakes pass all harmlessly away. All things conspire to overturn a wrong. Every advance of man is hostile to it. Reason is hostile; religion is its deadly foe; the new-born generation will assail it, and it must fall. Of old it was written, "Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not prosper," and the world's wide walls, from the remotest bounds of peopled space, laugh out their loud and long "Amen!" Let Iniquity be never so old and respectable, get all the most eminent votes, have the newspapers on her side, guns fired at her success, it all avails nothing; for this is God's world, not a devil's, and His eternal word has gone forth that Right alone shall last forever and forever. * * * * * Oh, young man, now in the period of the passions, reverence your Conscience. Defer that to no appetite, to no passion, to no foolish compliance with other men's ways, to no ungodly custom, even if become a law. Ask always "Is it right for me?" Be brave and self-denying for conscience' sake. Fear not to differ from men; keeping your modesty, keep your integrity also. Let not even your discretion consume your valor. Fear not to be scrupulously upright and pure; be afraid neither of men's hate, nor even of their laugh and haughty scorn, but shudder at the thought of tampering with your sense of right, even in the smallest matters. The Flesh will come up with deceitful counsels--the Spirit teaching the commandments of God; give both their due. Be not the senses' slave, but the soul's free man.