It is one of the greatest of all truths, and of the highest advantage
to cultivate. By considering man in this light, and by instructing
him to consider himself in this light, it places him in a close
connection with all his duties, whether to his Creator or to the
creation, of which he is a part; and it is only when he forgets his
origin, or, to use a more fashionable phrase, his birth and family,
that he becomes dissolute. It is not among the least of the evils of
the present existing governments in all parts of Europe that man,
considered as man, is thrown back to a vast distance from his Maker,
and the artificial chasm filled up with a succession of barriers, or
sort of turnpike gates, through which he has to pass. I will quote
Mr. Burke's catalogue of barriers that he has set up between man and
his Maker. Putting himself in the character of a herald, he says: "We
fear God- we look with awe to kings- with affection to Parliaments
with duty to magistrates- with reverence to priests, and with respect
to nobility." Mr. Burke has forgotten to put in "'chivalry." He has
also forgotten to put in Peter.

The duty of man is not a wilderness of turnpike gates, through which
he is to pass by tickets from one to the other. It is plain and
simple, and consists but of two points. His duty to God, which every
man must feel; and with respect to his neighbor, to do as he would be
done by. If those to whom power is delegated do well, they will be
respected: if not, they will be despised; and with regard to those to
whom no power is delegated, but who assume it, the rational world can
know nothing of them.

Hitherto we have spoken only (and that but in part) of the natural
rights of man. We have now to consider the civil rights of man, and