Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/199

 affection, having a heart which covetousness had hardened, rejecting alike the offices of kindness and the claims of charity,—a voluntary outcast from his species. These exhibit to us life as in a mirror, and show that to faith is assigned, in the moral world, something like that mighty office and power which are, in the physical world, fulfilled by the law of gravitation. It is faith alone that can hold the thoughts, the passions, and the actions of man in their due relation and concord with himself, his fellows, and the objects of his existence." The foundation of domestic happiness is faith in the virtue of woman. The foundation of pohtical happiness is faith in the integrity of man. The foundation of all happiness, temporal and eternal, is faith in the goodness, the righteousness, the mercy, and the love of God."

In the action of voting, instead of destroying the remnant of belief in the fidelity of man to man, the true reformation would be to restore our faith in pohtical honesty, by extinguishing, as far as human means can effect it, the temptations to selfishness, hypocrisy, and untruth. In that action, the only rule is that prescribed by the apostle for the government of the conscience, "let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind." The full persuasion the elector must entertain that his country has not, like a cruel and careless step-mother, left him surrounded vnth difficulties and obstacles in the performance of his duty; but has, with the maternal solicitude of a loving parent, carefully provided for him every means which she could devise for assisting him to perform that duty: and he must have this further persuasion that, recognising the maternal care and solicitude of his country, he has, on his part, in the same loving spirit, returned her kindness and her attention by performing the duty to the best of his power,—in selecting those whom he believes will best and most honestly serve her.

In insisting upon the absolute necessity of disentangling