We possess, then, certain information, supplied by these and various other distinguished writers, as to the two facts—the progress of a secret undermining of the influence of Christianity now going forward in the middle and higher classes of society; and in the lower, of an organized system of open and violent aggression, not merely upon the principles of religion, but the decencies of life. Surely this should fill with alarm and rouse to exertion all who fear God and love their country; for the preservation of the national faith is essential to the continuance of national and individual happiness and prosperity. Before, however, examining further into these frightful evils, and offering some suggestions as to the course believers should adopt, let an enquiry be made as to their probable influence upon the moral state of the great bulk of the people. Degeneracy of public morals must always necessarily follow corruption of public principles. As soon might you expect to draw pure water from a polluted fountain, as virtuous actions from unsound principles. Remove the restraint of conscience, and what does man become? a fickle and wicked being, of wild passions, selfish feelings, and ungovernable appetites: he has lost the ruling principle which regulated and directed his actions; and thus resembles a boat without rudder or oars, tost upon a stormy sea, which, impelled in different directions as the winds, tides, or currents happen to prevail, possesses neither certainty of direction nor steadiness of course. It is true, when the law of God ceases to be the rule of right, men profess to substitute for it the law of honour and the law of the land. But to ascertain the value of the law of honour as the guide of life, let some of the cases of daily occurrence be observed, in which the rights of hospitality have been abused with shameless unconcern, the confidence of friendship repaid with base ingratitude, and the dearest ties of life broken with base and heartless exultation, by men of honour. Words cannot express the load of deep, of agonizing woe, which the partial substitution of the law of honour for the law of God has inflicted upon this Christian land. Families, through it, have had to suffer privations from the extravagance, and poverty from the gambling of parents; to weep for the untimely death of a father by the hand of the duellist; to mourn and blush for the indelible stain of a mother’s shame. Such are some of the terrible effects of the law of honour, as the guide of life, which, if it sanction not, tolerates the betrayal of innocence, the ruin of a family, and the murder of a fellow-creature.