was successor to the Babylonian or Assyrian kingdom; but the stone kingdom had no previous connection with this corporate image of monarchy; did not grow up under its shadow, precincts, or presence, but comes from a distance, and strikes the image from without, and, at one dreadful stroke of external violence, breaks the colossal image to fragments; and its atoms, ground to infinitesimal dust, fly like chaff before "the winds of the summer threshing-floors." But Christianity arose within the dominions of Rome: Judea was a Roman province where Christianity was born. 3. The stone kingdom could not have arisen at all at the time that Christianity arose, or it would have arisen in the Roman empire also; for Rome at that time embraced the known world. At the birth of Christ, "There went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." But ther was a land, my countrymen, where the Roma cohorts were never marshaled-a land that Heaver had concealed from the cupidity and ambition o her conquering armies. That land is our owr beloved America, the only portion of the globe, beyond the limits of ancient Rome, where a great nationality, in its constitution, character, and mission, could possibly answer the true meaning of the fifth symbolic kingdom that the God of heaven would set up. As the political governments of monarchy were severally represented by a symbol taken from the mineralkingdom in one corporate connection, showing the uniformity of the genius that pervaded the whole, so the fifth government, being political also, is symbolized by a mineral type (a stone) likewise. But being entirely distinct from and unconnected with the image of monarchy, it is very clear that the fifth government is not only a political organization, but an anti-monarchical government; consequently, a political republican government, arising under the supervision of Almighty God-"a stone cut out of the mountain without hands:" brought into being and glorious nationality by a wonderful chain of Divine providences. The violent destruction of the monarchical image by the stone, necessarily implies political organization and military power. The mild and tranquil genius of Christianity offers no violence to any man, or any nation; but it wins its gradual conquests by moral suasion. But here is a power dreadful as the enginery of battle, swift and destructive as the bolt of heaven. And did Christianity indeed break down and annihilate the Roman empire? What a failure! Was it not the barbarian hordes of Goths and Vandals from the North that overran imperial Rome? But how are we to account for the stone smiting the image “on the feet?" Why was the attack not made upon the head, or upon some vital part? Let it be remembered, the feet was the point of the union of Church and State; consequently, the mission of this great fifth nationality was the destruction of State and Church union, as well as the utter and ultimate extermination of ecclesiastical and political despotism from the face of the earth. Now, we appeal to the assembled wisdom before us, to profound statesmen, and venerable ministers of God, if the antagonism of the stone to the iron and clay is not fully answered in the genius of the American people? Are not the sentiment and feeling of this great nation more harmonious and universal in their hostility to Church and State union than on any other subject? Has not the Constitution of the United States, in devoting a whole chapter to the subject, raised an eternal barrier against it? And is not our nation the only enlightened government among the nations of the earth, where the illegitimate union of Church and State is most solemnly interdicted? thus leading our free people to "Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's.” While it is, therefore, conclusive that the stone kingdom is a providential political government, "cut out of the mountain without hands," incompatible with, hostile to, and destined in its great mission to annihilate the last vestige of monarchy from the nations of the earth, it is equally evident that "the mountain" out of which the stone is cut is Christianity. So our great government is founded upon the Bible. Remove this indestructible basis that supports the fair fabric of our political institutions, and we have no government. The Declaration of American Independence evidently recognizes the obligations of the first, and fully embraces the principles of the second great commandment. The smiles of a Christian Sabbath inspire the devotion, and call from labor to rest our toiling millions; while the obligation of every officer of state, from the chief magistrate of the nation down to the humblest minister of justice, is rendered inviolate by a solemn averment upon Divine revelation. The history of the world confirms the fact, that a nation's religion moulds the character of its civic government. A despotic, superstitious, and bloodthirsty system of religion will form and fashion its political economy after the same model. So a pure, enlightened, and divinely authorized religion has ever been the maternal source of a pure, liberal, and happy civil government. As, therefore, the four great empires were to be succeeded by a fifth great government, altogether differing in its principles and character, and as the United States of America is the only great nation that ever has or ever can arise to answer the description and fill the mission of that fifth empire, the conclusion is inevitable, that our glorious republic is the stone kingdom that the God of heaven was to "set up." A glimpse of this sublime reality inspired the good Bishop Berkeley, more than a hundred years ago, to declare what even now seems a wonderful consummation : "Westward the star of empire makes its way; The United States of America is symbolized by the man-child of the winged woman of the wilderness. "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. |
