Excerpt from Christian Citizenship and Honest Legislation: A Sermon Delivered Before His Excellency Henry J. Gardner, His Honor Henry W. Benchley, the Honorable Council, and the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the Annual Election, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 1858 Libanius, quoted by Montesquieu, says, that at Athens a stranger who intermeddled with the assem blies Of the People was punished with death. If this was summary and cruel, it proved the sanctity attached to political action, - the faith that a distinctive civil education was indispensable to it, - that the popular sources of power should be kept pure, and thus attested the reality of the democratic profession. An illegal vote was usurpation, and ignorance was a milder form of rebellion. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.