Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/195

Rh of the Deity, and with erecting temples in his honor, where all can bow down with reverence, the pride and vanity of human reason enter into and pollute our worship, and the houses that should be of God and for God, alone, where he is to be honored with submissive faith, are too often merely schools of metaphysical and useless distinctions. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian.

Religion's first lesson is humility; its fruit, charity. In the great and sublime ends of Providence, little things are lost, and least of all is he imbued with a right spirit who believes that insignificant observances, subtleties of doctrine, and minor distinctions, enter into the great essentials of the Christian character. The wisest thing for him who is disposed to cavil at the immaterial habits of his neighbor, to split straws on doctrine, to fancy trifles of importance, and to place the man before principles, would be to distrust himself. The spirit of peace is not with him.

The institutions of the country, by wisely breaking down all artificial and unnecessary distinctions, while they have preserved the ordinances necessary to civilized society, have removed the factitious barriers from one particular vice, which, while it belongs to the nature of man, may be termed a besetting sin of this country. We shall conclude this article, therefore, by simply quoting the stern mandate of the tenth commandment: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife; nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's."