Public Morals: Or the True Glory of a State

PUBLIC MORALS: OR THE TRUE GLORY OF A STATE. A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BEFORE THE Executive and Legislative Departments OF THE GOVERNMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS, AT THE ANNUAL ELECTION, WEDNESDAY, Jan. 1, 1862. BY REV. WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER. BOSTON: WILLIAM WHITE, PRINTER TO THE STATE. 1862. Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Rev. WILLIAM R. ALGER. BOSTON, January 3, 1862. Dear Sir:-Agreeably to the Order of the House of Representatives, this day passed, I have great pleasure in communicating to you the thanks of the House, for the able and eloquent discourse delivered by you, on the 1st inst., before the Executive and Legislative Departments of the Government, and to respectfully request a copy of the same for the press. With sentiments of highest regard, I am, very truly, yours, &c., CHARLES C. SEWALL, For the Committee. BOSTON, January 6th, 1862. Hon. CHARLES C. SEWALL, Chairman of Committee, &c. DEAR SIR:-Gratefully acknowledging the compliment paid me by the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and the kind terms in which your note conveys it, I herewith, in accordance with your request, submit a copy of my discourse for the press. I have only to add that several passages of the discourse, which, when it was pronounced, were omitted, on account of its length and the lateness of the hour, are retained in it now. Very respectfully, yours, WILLIAM R. ALGER. Relation of National Virtue to National Glory. PROVERBS, xiv. 34. RIGHTEOUSNESS EXALTETH A NATION, BUT SIN IS A REPROACH TO ANY PEOPLE. Were man capable of only one mode or degree of action in each power of his nature and relation to his environment, he would no longer be moral man but an irresponsible creature, his life a simple uniformity of mechanical habits. He would be incapacitated for blame or praise, remorse or complacency, aspiration or loathing. But as he is made capable of numerous kinds and degrees of activity in every faculty, endowed with a discriminating perception of the different directions of behavior and ranks of motives, accompanied with a feeling of approval or condemnation accordingly as he chooses the higher or the lower of proffered alternatives a sense of free-will is born in him and the brilliant phenomena of morality break into consciousness. If a machine works in accordance with the design of its maker, moving smoothly and turning out the desired products, all is well: but if by some perversion its operation does violence NATIONAL VIRTUE AND NATIONAL GLORY. to its arrangements, a jarring, an alarming wear and tear, and finally a fatal impediment or crash, result. When the action of man is adjusted to his nature and conditions, the design of his Creator in him is fulfilled in harmony, and the result is joy and content; but when his action, in manner or degree, is different from the intention stamped in his structure, wretchedness ensues as a discordant friction, and the natural crash comes in expedited death. The truths of morality are the commands of the Creator impressed on our mental organization, the rules for a blessed existence. The sentiments of morality, or the feelings of worthiness and shame, reverence and scorn, admiration and contempt, are divine indexes to those commands, reflex tests affixed to them, furnishing motives for their observance. Such is a brief hint at the conscious mechanism whereby we are prepared to fulfil our destiny as moral beings. The final end of an oak or a sparrow is to furnish a perfect specimen after the type of its kind. A sunflower, a lion, fulfils the end of its being, when it is a perfect sunflower, a perfect lion. So the total business of a man is to be a perfect man, consummating the drift of nature in his production; in other words, carrying into full realization the purposes of God indicated in the scheme of his faculties. But the power of various choice inherent in man, the startling phenomenon of freedom, inNATIONAL VIRTUE AND NATIONAL GLORY. troduces into the problem of his destiny a portentous factor, unknown in the vegetable or brute kingdom, bringing him into subjection to the law of duty, opening to him the horrors of sin, pouring on him the splendors of virtue. It is the peculiar office and obligation of man as a moral being, out of all the varieties of action possible to him, to select those most truly fitted to his nature and situation, most accurately attuned to the courses of the world and the pitch of his soul; that is, loyally to do what is right and refrain from what is wrong; cleaving to the best, shrinking from the worse. The destiny of a creature without choice is the simple and immediate fruition of the functions of its nature. The destiny of man is the overseen and harmonized fruition of the functions of his nature in their proper order of rank, each in its due place and degree, the mystic multitude of propensities consciously governed by moral intelligence, every thing below obeying every thing above. In every faculty of man is implanted a natural tendency or craving to perform its designated functions. Whenever the conditions meet, this tendency must pass into fruition, unless restrained by some extrinsic force. But each primitive instinct seeking its own gratification seeks it exclusively, oblivious of every thing beyond. For instance, hunger cares for nothing save the appeasal of its own appetite; and thirst strives only after the pleasure of quenching NATIONAL VIRTUE AND NATIONAL GLORY. itself. Thus deeply placed in the primordial forces of human nature are the vital germs of human selfishness. …