As such cabals have not existed in England, so neither has the
spirit of them had any influence in establishing the original frame of
our constitution or in any one of the several reparations and
improvements it has undergone. The whole has been done under the
auspices, and is confirmed by the sanctions, of religion and piety.
The whole has emanated from the simplicity of our national character
and from a sort of native plainness and directness of understanding,
which for a long time characterized those men who have successively
obtained authority amongst us. This disposition still remains, at
least in the great body of the people.
WE KNOW, AND WHAT IS BETTER, we feel inwardly, that religion is
the basis of civil society and the source of all good and of all
comfort.* In England we are so convinced of this, that there is no
rust of superstition with which the accumulated absurdity of the human
mind might have crusted it over in the course of ages, that
ninety-nine in a hundred of the people of England would not prefer
to impiety. We shall never be such fools as to call in an enemy to the
substance of any system to remove its corruptions, to supply its
defects, or to perfect its construction. If our religious tenets
should ever want a further elucidation, we shall not call on atheism
to explain them. We shall not light up our temple from that unhallowed
fire.
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