daughters no religious tenets till they were eighteen?  What would become of their morals, their character, their purity of heart and life, their hope for time and eternity?  What would become of all those thousand ties of sweetness, benevolence, love, and Christian feeling, that now render our young men and young maidens like comely plants growing up by a streamlet’s side,—­the graces and the grace of opening manhood, of blossoming womanhood?  What would become of all that now renders the social circle lovely and beloved?  What would become of society itself?  How could it exist?  And is that to be considered a charity which strikes at the root of all this; which subverts all the excellence and the charms of social life; which tends to destroy the very foundation and frame-work of society, both in its practices and in its opinions; which subverts the whole decency, the whole morality, as well as the whole Christianity and government, of society?  No, Sir! no, Sir!

And here let me turn to the consideration of the question, What is an oath?  I do not mean in the variety of definitions that may be given to it as it existed and was practised in the time of the Romans, but an oath as it exists at present in our courts of law; as it is founded on a degree of consciousness that there is a Power above us that will reward our virtues and punish our vices.  We all know that the doctrine of the English law is, that in the case of every person who enters court as a witness, be he Christian or Hindoo, there must be a firm conviction on his mind that falsehood or perjury will be punished, either in this world or the next, or he cannot be admitted as a witness.  If he has not this belief, he is disfranchised.  In proof of this, I refer your honors to the great case of Ormichund against Barker, in Lord Chief Justice Willes’s report.  There this doctrine is clearly laid down.  But in no case is a man allowed to be a witness that has no belief in future rewards and punishments for virtues or vices, nor ought he to be.  We hold life, liberty, and property in this country upon a system of oaths; oaths founded on a religious belief of some sort.  And that system which would strike away the great substratum, destroy the safe possession of life, liberty, and property, destroy all the institutions of civil society, cannot and will not be considered as entitled to the protection of a court of equity.  It has been said, on the other side, that there was no teaching against religion or Christianity in this system.  I deny it.  The whole testament is one bold proclamation against Christianity and religion of every creed.  The children are to be brought up in the principles declared in that testament.  They are to learn to be suspicious of Christianity and religion; to keep clear of it, that their youthful heart may not become susceptible of the influences of Christianity or religion in the slightest degree.  They are to be told and taught that religion is not a matter