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weak, it sometimes devours tliose who flee to its
sanctuaries.
Compared with man’ s other achievements, it
assumes the first place. What so venerable, so
profound, so all pervading, so potent? Among
all the helps that man has created, this has most
aided him in his pilgrimage of progress. From
its bosom sprang what we call civilization—that
elder and shadowy sister of Christianity—if it
was not one of the main instrumentalities em
ployed to render that possible.
In the absence of order, no possession can be
secure. In the absence of law, order is impossible.
That nation or people which has been fortunate
in the elements of its law, and which has had the
sagacity to enforce and the wisdom to modify and
improve it, as its condition changed and its wants
increased, has gone forward to the first place
among the nations; while others, unable to
mould and enforce the original elements into
consistent law, have remained barbarians; or
who have permitted their laws to become fixed,
have never been able to advance beyond the con
dition in which they were when their code was
hardened and ossified into changeless forms.