Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Clergy -- England -- Biography; Smith, Sydney, 1771-1845
"The whole tone and tenor of public morals is affected by the state of
supreme Justice; it extinguishes revenge, it communicates a spirit of
purity and uprightness to inferior magistrates; it makes the great
good, by taking away impunity; it banishes fraud, obliquity, and
solicitation, and teaches men that the law is their right. Truth is
its handmaid, freedom is its child, peace is its companion; safety
walks in its steps, victory follows in its train; it is the brightest
emanation of the Gospel, it is the greatest attribute of God: it is
that centre round which human motives and passions turn: and Justice,
sitting on high, sees Genius and Power, and Wealth and Birth,
revolving round her throne; and teaches their paths and marks out
their orbits, and warns with a loud voice, and rules with a strong
arm, and carries order and discipline into a world, which but for her
would only be a wild waste of passions. Look what we are, and what
just laws have done for us:--a land of piety and charity;--a land of
churches, and hospitals, and altars;--a nation of good Samaritans;--a
people of universal compassion. All lands, all seas, have heard we are
brave. We have just sheathed that sword which defended the world; we
have just laid down that buckler which covered the nations of the
earth. God blesses the soil with fertility; English looms labour for
every climate. All the waters of the globe are covered with English
ships. We are softened by fine arts, civilized by humane literature,
instructed by deep science; and every people, as they break their
feudal chains, look to the founders and fathers of freedom for
examples which may animate, and rules which may guide. If ever a
nation was happy, if ever a nation was visibly blessed by God--if ever
a nation was honoured abroad, and left at home under a government
(which we can now conscientiously call a liberal government) to the
full career of talent, industry, and vigour, we are at this moment
that people--and this is our happy lot.--First the Gospel has done it,
and then Justice has done it; and he who thinks it his duty to labour
that this happy condition of existence may remain, must guard the
piety of these times, and he must watch over the spirit of Justice
which exists in these times. First, he must take care that the altars
of God are not polluted, that the Christian faith is retained in
purity and in perfection: and then turning to human affairs, let him
strive for spotless, incorruptible Justice;--praising, honouring, and
loving the just Judge, and abhorring, as the worst enemy of mankind,
him who is placed there to 'judge after the law, and who smites
contrary to the law.'"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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