Henry James the Social Significance of Our Institutions Boston 1861

8/3/2019 Henry James the Social Significance of Our Institutions Boston 1861

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I :- OUR INSTITUTIONS:

AN ORAfION

D E J . I V E J l E D B Y T I P - Q U E S T O } l 1 'H F . C 1 T I Z R N R A 'r N E W P O R T , n .. T o .\

JULY +TH, 1861.

B y H F . N R Y . T . A . M E S .

BOS'PON:TICKNOR AND

1861.FIE L 1) S.

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THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCEor

OUR INSTITUTIONS:

AN ORATION

D E L I V E R E D B Y H E Q U E S T O F T H E I T I Z E N S A T N E W P O R T , R . I.,

JULY 4TH, 1861.

By HE TRY JAMES .

. . ,, '

BOSTON:'l'ICKNOR AND FIELDS.

1861.


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[The Oration as printed contains several passages omitted in the delivery.)

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U n i \" c r . : o : it y Press I Camhnd{:.(i:Prinfed by \\?('lch) Bigc~ow,and C("lUlp.1ny.


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ORATION.

A FRl&\'D observed to me a few days since, as I ac-cepted the invitation with which your Committee ofArrangements has honored me, to officiate as yourorator on this occasion, that I could hardly expect,under the circumstances, to regale my auditors withthe usual amount of sprcad-engleism. I replied, thatthat depended upon what he meant by spread-eagle-ism. If he meant what was commonly meant by it,namely, so clearly defined a Providential destiny forour Union, that, do what we please, we shall neverfall short of it, I could never, under any circum-stances, the most opposed even to existing ones, con-sent to flatter my hearers with that unscrupulousrubbish. No doubt many men, whose conscienceshave been drugged by our past political prosperity,do fancy some such inevitable destiny as this beforeus, - do fancy that we may become so besotted withthe lust of gain as to permit the greatest rapacityon the part of our public servants, the most undis-gnised and persistent corruption on the part of ourmunicipal and private agents, without forfeiting theProvidential favor. From that sort of spread-eagle-


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4ism I told my friend that I hoped we were now un-dergoing a timely and permanent deliverance, Butif he meant by that uncouth word an undiminished,yea, a heightened confidence in our political sanityand vigor, and in the fresh and glowing manhoodwhich is to be in yet larger measure than ever thelegitimate fruit of our institutions, I could assurehim that my soul was full of it, and it would bewholly my fault if my auditors did not feelingly re-spond to it.Inever felt proud of my country for what

many seem to consider her prime distinction, name-ly, her ability to foster the rapid accumulationof private wealth. It does not seem to me aparticularly creditable thing, that a greater numberof people annually grow richer under our institu-tions than they do anywhere else. It is a fact,no doubt, and like all facts has its proper amiablesignification when exposed to the rectifying lightof Truth. But it is not the fact which in a foreignland, for example, has made my heart to throb andmy cheeks to glow when I remembered the gren,tand happy people beyond the sen, when I thoughtof the vast and fertile land thnt lay blossomingand beckoning to all mankind beyond the settingsun. For there in Europe one sees this same pri-vate weal th, in less diffused form, it is true, con-ccutrated ill greatly fewer hands, but at the sametime associated in many cases with things that goevery way to dignify it or give it a lustre notits own, - associated with traditional family refine-


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ment, with inoffensive unostentatious manners, withthe practice of art and science and literature, andsometimes with the pursuit of toilsome and hon-orable personal adventure. Everyone knows, onthe other hand, how little we exact from our richmen; how meagre and mean and creeping a racewe permit out' rich men to he, if their meannessis only flavored with profusion. Ihave not beenfavored with a great many rich acquain tance, butstill I have known n not inconsiderable number,and I have never found them the persolls to whomone would spontaneously resort in his least personal moments, or communicate with the mostnaturally in his hours of the purest intellectualelation or despondency. Of course I have known'exceptions to this rule, men whose mouey onlyserves to illustrate their superior human sweet-ness, men of whose friendship everybody is proud.But as a general thing, nevertheless, one likes bestto introduce one's foreign acquaintance, not to ourcommercial nabobs, who aggravate the price ofhouse-rent and butcher's meat so awfully to us poorNewportsrs ; not to am fast financiers and hankcashiers, who on a salary of three thousand a yearcontrive to support in luxury, beside their properwife and offspring, a dozen domestic servants andas many horses j but to our, in the main, upright,self-respecting, and, if you please, un tutored, bntat the same time unsophisticated, children of toil,'who are the real fnthers and mothers of our fu-ture distinctive manhood.


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6No; what makes one's pulse to bound when

he remembers his own home under foreign skies,is never the rich man, nor the learned man, northe distinguished man of any sort w ho illustratesits history, for in all these petty products almostevery country may twombly, at all events te-diously, compete with our own; but it is all simplythe abstract manhood itself of the country, mallhimself unqualified by convention, the man towhom all these conventional men have been simplyintl'o


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7No American, who is not immersed in abjectsprend-eagleism, - that is to say, no American

who has had the least glimpse of the rich socialpromise of our institutions, or of the free playthey accord to the spiritual activities of our na-ture, - values the mere political prestige of hisnation, or the repute it enjoys with other nations,as the true ground of its glory. Much less, ofC0111'Se,does he esteem the mere personnel of hisgovernment as conferring any distinction upon him.Loyalty, which is a strictly personal sentiment, baslong given place even in the English bosom whereit was native, to patriotism, which is a much morerational sentiment. Loyalty bears to patriotismthe same relation that superstition bears to relig-ion. The zenlot worships Gael, not as an infiniteSpirit of Love, but as a finite person: not for whatHe is inwardly in himself, but for what He mayoutwardly be to the worshipper. He adores him,not for what alone renders him worthy of adora-tion, namely, his essential humanity, that infinitelytender sympathy with his infirm creature whichleads him forever to humble himself that the lat-ter lOay be exalted, but simply because he iseminent in place and power above all beings, andso is able to do all manner of kindness to thosewho please him, and all manner of unkindness tothose who displease him. Exactly so the loyalistworships his king or his queen, - not for their ra-diant human worth; not for the uses their greatdignity promotes to the common or associated life;


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8in short, not from any rational perception of theirinward adjustment to the place they occupy; butsimply because they do occnpy that eminent place,simply because they happen to be crowned kingand crowned qneen, traditional sources of honorand dishonor to their subjects. In both cases alike,the homage is purely blind or instinctive, and,though befitting children, is unworthy of adultmen. Religion, on the contrary, clothes the Di-vine supremacy with essentially spiritual attributes,makes His perfection the perfection of character, theperfection of love and wisdom, and of power thencealone energized, so that no religions man wor-ships God from choice or voluntarily, but spontane-ously, or because he cannot help himself, so muchdoes the overpowering loveliness constrain him.That is to say, every man truly worships God inthe exact measure of his own unaffected goodness,purity, and truth. And it is thus precisely thatthe patriot loves his king or queen, -not for theirtraditional sanctity, not for their exalted privilege,not for their eouvontional remoteness, in short, fromother men, -.- but for their willing nearness to them,tha,t is, for their positive human use or worth, nndconsequent fitness to lend the great honest heartsthey represent. In one word, what the patriot seesand loves in his king is his country and his countryonly; and he serves him, therefore, as the spir-itually enlightcued man serves Cod, not with ftceremonial or ritual devotion, but with a cordialor living one, with a service which only exults,


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instead of any longer degrading, either of the par-ties to it.No wonder, then, that the sentiment of loyalty

should have utterly died out of our blood, wheneven that higher sentiment of country, to whichalone it ministered in the bosom of our Englishancestry, has in its turn given place in ow ' bosomsto a sentiment still higher, that of humanity. Weare the descendants, not of English loyalists by anymeans, but of EngE h patriots exclusively; that is,of men who valued royalty only so long as it servedthe common life, and when it grew tired of thatservice, and claimed only to be served in its turn,unhesitatingly suspended it by the neck, and sentits descendants skipping. And this English patri-otism, which was itself a regenerate loyalty, or alove of country purified of all personal allegiance,has itself become glorified in our veins into a stillgrander sentiment,- that is, from a love of countryhas become exalted into a love of humanity. It isthe truest glory any nation may boast, that the loveit enkindles in the bo. om of its children is thelove of man himself; that the respect it engendersthere for themselves is identical with the respectwhich is due to all men. As Americans, we loveour country, it is true, but not because it is ow'ssimply; on the contrary, we are proud to belongto it, because it is the country of all mankind,because she opens her teeming lap to the exileof every land, and bares her hospitable breast towhatsoever wears the human form. This is where

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butchered in crowds to maintain his peace, androts in prisons to avouch his purity. Abroad everyAmerican sees, of course and accordingly, anyamount of merely pcliticnl energy and efficiency,sees governments flourishing by the permanentdemoralization of their people. He sees every ap-pliance of luxurious art, all manner of im po ingedifices, of elaborate gardens and pleasure-places,the deadliest arsenals of war, armies innumerable,and navies disciplined with infernal force, all con-secrated to the sole pnrpose o f keeping np thepurely political status of the country, Or aggrandiz-ing its own selfish aims and repute to the eyes ofother nations and its own people. And he criesaloud to his own heart, May America. perish outof all remembrance, before what men blasphemous-ly call public order finds itself promoted there bythis costly human degradation! Disguise it ns youwin in yom own weak, wilful way, in no countryin Europe has the citizen as yet consciously riseninto the man. In no country of Europe does thegovernment consciously represent, or even so muchas affect to represent, the unqualified manhood ofthe country, its lustrous human worth, the honestunadulterate blood of its myriad beautiful and lov-ing bosoms, its fathers and mothers, its brothersand sisters, its sons and dfltlghters, its husbandsand wives, its lovers and friends, every throb ofwhose life is sacred with God's sale inspiration ;but only the adulterate streams which coursethrough the veins of some iusiguificant conven-


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tional aristocracy. Take England itself for an ex-ample of the perfect truth of my allegations. 'Vemay easily do injustice to England j ust now; mayeasily forget the shining and proud pre-eminencewhich belongs to her political development amongall the politics of the earth. Another nation sogreat, so vowed in its political form to freedom, sorenowned for arms, for art, for industry, for theintelligence of its scholars, for its public and pri-va.te morality, does not illustrate human annals;and yet, because she now thinks of herself beforeshe thinks of us, because she listens to the prayerof her starving operatives before she listens tothe demands of our betrayed nationality, we areready to forget her glorious past, and pronounceher a miracle of selfishness. But no truly humanvirtue is compatible with an empty stomach; andEngland, like everybody else, must be allowed firstof all to secure her own subsistence before shebestows a thought upon other people. I will notblame England, then, for her present timidity. Iwill never forget the inappreciable services she hasrendered to the cause of political progress. Butjust as little can I be blind to the immense limita-tions she exhibits when measured by Americanhumanitary ideas. She claims to be the freest ofEuropean nations; and so she is, as I have alreadyadmitted, so far as her public or political life isconcerned. But viewed in tcrnally viewed as toher social condi tion, YOll observe such a destitutionof personal freedom and case and courtesy nmong


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her children as distinguishes no other people, andabsolutely shocks fLU American. Conventional rou-tine, a wholly artificial morality, bas so bitten it-self into the life of the people, into the nationalmanners and countenance even, that the kindlyhuman heart within is never allowed to come tothe surface, and what accordingly is meant amongthem for civility to each other is so coldly andgrudgingly rendered as to strike the stranger likeinsult. The iutensely artificial structure of societyin England renders it inevitable in fact, that herpeople should be simply the worst-mannered peopleill Christendom. Indeed, Iventure to say that noaverage American resides a year in England with-out getting a sense so acute and stifling of its hid-eous class-distinctions, and of the consequent awk-wardness and brusquerie of its upper classes, and theconsequent abject snobbery or inbred and ineradi-cable servility of its lower classes, as makes themanners of Choctaws and Potawatamies sweet andchristian, and gives to a log-cabin in Oregon thecharm of comparative dignity and peace.For, after all, what do we prize in men? Is it

their selfish 01' social worth? Is it their personalor their human significance? Unquestionably, onlythe latter. All the refinement, all the accomplish-ment, all the power, all the genius under henven,is only a unisance to us if it minister to individualvanity, or be associated with a sentiment of aloof-ness to the common life, to the great race whichbears us upon her spotless bosom and nourishes


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14us with the milk of her own immortality. Whatis the joy we feel when we see the gifted man,the man of genius, the man of high conventionalplace of whatever sort, come clown to the recogni-tion of the lowliest social obligations, -_- what is itbut a testimony that the purest personal worth isthen most pure when it denies itself, when it leapsover the privileged interval which separates it fromthe common life, and comes clown to identify itselfwith the commonest? This sentiment of humanunity, of the sale original sacredness of man andthe purely derivative sanctity of persons, no matterwho they are, 8 'w lw t w e are born to, and what wemust not fail to assert with an emphasis and good-will which may, if need be, make the world re-sound. For it is our very life, the absolute breathof our nostrils, which alone qualifies us to exist.Ilived, recently, nearly a year in St. John's Woodin London, and was daily in the habit of ridingdown to the city in the omnibus along with myimmediate neighbors, men of business and profes-sional men, who resided in th n t healthy suburb, andfared forth from it every morning to lay up honest,toilsome bread for the buxom domestic angels whosanctified their homes, and the fair-haired cherubswho sweetened them. Very nice men, to use theirown lingo, they were, for the most part; tidy, un-pretending, irreproachable in dress find deportment jmen in whose truth and honesty you would confident a glance; find yet, after eight months' assiduousbosom solicitation of their hardened stolid VIsages,


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I never was favored with the slightest overture tohuman intercourse from one of them. I never oncecaught the eye of one of them. If ever I came nighdoing so, an instant film would surge up from theirmore vital parts, if such parts there we're, just as aNewport fog suddenly surges lip from the cold re-morseless sea, and wrap the orgfLu in the dullest, fish-iest, most disheartening of stares. They took suchextreme pains never to look it t one another, that Iknew they must be living men, devoutly intent eachon disowning the other's life; otherwise I couldwell have believed them so many sad well-seasonedimmortals, revisiting their old London haunts byway of a nudge to their present less carnal satisfac-tions. I had myselfmany cherished observations tomake upon the weather, upon the lingering greenof the autumn fields, upon the pretty suburban cot-tages we caught a passing glimpse of, upon the end-less growth of Land Oil, and other equally conservativetopics; but I got no chance to ventilate them, andthe poor things died at last of hope deferred. Thehonest truth is what Dr. Johnson told Boswell, thatthe nation is deficient in the human sen timen t."Dr. J011n80n,." says Boswell, "though himself astern,true-born Englishman, and fully prejudiced against allother nations, had yet discernment enongh to see,and candor enough to censure, the cold reserveamong Englishmen toward strangers (of their ownnation). 'Sir,' said he, 'two men of any other uationwho are shown into a 1'00111 together, at a housewhere they are both visitors, will immediately find


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some conversation. But two Englishmen will prob-ably go each to a different window and remain inobstinate silence. Sir, we do not, as yet,' proceededthe Doctor,' understand the common rights ofh it ,,,umnni y.These common rights of humanity of which Dr.

Johnson speaks are all summed up in the truthof man's social equality; that is,' every man's jointand equal dependence with every other man uponthe association of his kind for all that he himselfis or enjoys. These common rights of humanityhave got political ratification in England, as theyhave got it nowhere else in Europe out of Switzer-land j but the private life of England, as Dr. J0110.son charges, is shockingly indifferent to them. 'Themoral sentiment, the sentiment of what is excep"tionally due to this, that, or the other perSOIl , utterlydominates in that sphere the social sentiment, thesentiment of what is habitually due to every mallas man. It is this unchallenged primacy of themom} life over the social life of England, this in-tense sensibility among her scholars to personalclaims over human claims, which so exalts her Phar-isaic pride and abases her true spirituality, whichleaves her outwardly the greatest and inwardlythe poorest of peoples, and makes the homesick be-cause better-nurtured foreigner feel, when exposedto it, how dismal and dingy the very heaven ofheavens would become if once these odiously cor-rect and lifeless white-cravntted and black-coatedrespectabilities should get the run of it.


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You see at a glance that this penury of Eng-land in all spiritual regards is owing to the simplefact that not man, but El1glish-mau, is the key-noteof her aspirations. European thought generallyan d at best is pen insular, - that is, almost insular,-in that it regards European culture as constitutingthe probable limits of the human mind. But Eng-lish thought- is absolutely insular, in that it makesEngland the actual measure of human develop-ment. Every Englishman who lives and dies anEnglishman, that is to say, who has not been madeby God's grace a partaker in heart of the common-wealth of mankind, or a spiritual alien from themother that bore him, believes that not Europe,but England itself, one of the smallest corners ofEurope, as Judsea was one of the smallest corners ofAsia,' furnishes the real Ultima Thule of human pro-gress. This being the key-note of English thought"the pitch to which all its tunes are set, you arenot surprised to see the sentiment dominating thewhole strain of English character, till at last youfind the Englishman not only isolating himself fromthe general European man, but each individualEnglishman becoming a . bristling independent un-approachable little islet to every other Engli::;lunan,ready, as Dr. Johnson describes them, to leap outof the windows rather than hold that safe andsalutary parley with each other which God andnature urge them to; so thut probably a hugeramount of painful plethoric silence becomes an-nually accumulated under English ribs than befalls

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18the whole world beside, and an amount of spirit-ual numbness and imbecility generated which isnot to be paralleled by anything this side of oldJudnm, And it is exactly the rebound of his thoughtfrom all this social obstruction and poverty whichcauses the American wayfarer'S heart to dance withglee when he remembers his own incorrect andexceptionable Nazareth, his own henighted but com-fortable and unsuspecting fellow-sinners, who aresaid to sit sometimes with their tired feet as high/'IS their head, who light their innocent unconsciouspipes Itt everybody's fire, and who occasionally,when the sentiment of human brotherhood is ata white heat in their bosom, ask Y O l l , as n gentle-man from Cape Cod once asked me at the AstorHour e table, the favor of being allowed to puthis superfluous fht upon your plate, provided, thatis , the fht is in no way o ffen s ive to you. Tha tthe forms in which human freedom expre~ses itselfin the re latitudes are ol)e11 to just criticism inmany respects, Icordially admit, and even insist;bnt he who sees the uncouth form alone, and hasno feeling 1 0 1 ' the beautiful human substance withinit , for the soul of fe l lowship that animates and re-deems it of all malignity, would despise the shape-less embryo because it is not the full-formed man,and Durn up the humble acorn because it is notyet the branching oak. But the letter is nothing,the spirit everything. The letter kills, the spiritalone giyes life; rnul it is exclusi vely to this un-deniable spiritual difference hetween Europe and


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America, as organized and expressed in our ownconstitutional polity, that all our formal differencesare owing. Our very Constitution binds us, thatis to say, the very breath of om political nostrilsbinds us, to disown all distinctions among men, todisregard persons, to disallow privilege the mostestablished and sacred, to legislate only for thecommon good, no longer for those accidents ofbirth or wealth or culture which spiritually indi-vidualize man from his kind, but only for thosegreat common fentures of social want and depend-ence which uaturally unite. him with his kind, andinexorably demand the organization of such unity.It is this immense constitutional life and inspira-tion we are under which not only separate usfrom Europe, but also perfectly explain by antag-onism that rabid hostility which the South has al-ways shown towards the admission of the Northto a fair share of government patronage, and whichnow provokes her to the dirty and diabolic struggleshe is making to give human slavery the sanctionof God's appointment.'Vhen I said awhile ago that an American, as such,

felt himself the peer of every man of woman born, Irepresented my hearers as asking me whether thatclaim was a righteous one i whether, in fact, hewhose conscience should practically ratify it in a}1-plication to himself would Dot thereby avouch hisown immodesty, - confess himself devoid of thathumility which is the life of true manhood. To thisquestion I reply promptly, No I for this excellent


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20reason, - that the claim in question is by no meansfL distinctive personal claim, but a claim in behalf ofevery man. Wheu, by virtue of our national gen-esis and genius, I claim before God and man a right-ful equality with every other man, what precisely isit that Ido? Do Iclaim for myself an equality ofwit, of Ieaming, of talent, of benevolence, with this,that, or the other special persall whom you mayname as remarkable for those endowments ? Do Imean to allege my private personal equality withall other persons imy equal claim, for example, tothe admil'illg 01' sympathetic homage of mankind,with Shakespeare, with Washington, with Franklin?No man who is not an ass can believe this; and yetYOLl perpetually hear the paid scribes of old-fogyismrepeating the slander throughout the world, as if itwere the most indisputable of truths. Nothing is "-more common than to bear persolls who arc disaf-fected to the humane temper of our polity affectingto quote the Declaration of Independence as sayingthat all men are born equal, find under covel' ofthat audncious forgery exposing it to ridicule. TheDeclaration is guilty of no such absurdity, Itdocs not say that all men are born equal, for itis notorious thnt they are born under the greatestconceivable inequalities, - incq ualitics of heart andhead and hand, ~ inequalities even of physical formand structure i but it says that, notwithstandingthesc in eq ualiies, ti l eyare all created cqual, - tha tis, are aJI equal before Cod, or can claim no supe~rior merit one to another in his sight, being all


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alike dependent upon his power, and possessinga precisely equal claim, therefore, each with theother, to the blessings of his impartial providence.The inequalities under which men are born, orwhich they inherit from their forefathers, arc theneedful condition of their inc1ivid uality, of theirvarious personal identity. The framers of theDeclaratiou saw this as well as anybody, but theyal 0 saw, and so in effect said, that however muchmen Il1fLY differ among themselves, it was yet notthese personal differences which commend them toeach other's true respect, but rather that commonhuman want which identifies them all in the Divineregurd by making them all equal retainers of Hissovereign bounty. No man not a fool can gainsay /this, and no man not a fool, consequently, canpretend that when I urge this constitutional doc-trine of human equality I have anything whateverto say of myself personally regarded, or a s d iscrim i-nated from other persons, but only as SOCIAT~LY regard-ed, - that is, as united with all other persons. Inshort, it is not a claim urged on my OW11 behalfalone, but in behalf of every other man who istoo ignorant or too debased by convention to assertit for himself.Our political Constitution, like every other great

providential stride in human affairs, was intention-ally educative; was designed to gather us togetherunder the discipline of well-disposed but often sore-ly tried and disheartened political gllides, in orderfinally to draw us fully forth out of the land of dark-


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ness and the house of bondage. The sole great aimof our political Constitution has been gradually toinduct us out of errors and evils, which no PaganJew was ever more slow and relnctant to suspectthan we are, into a new and far more grandlyhuman consciousness, into a land of everlastingrighteousness and peace. Not 011e of its literalframers ever bad the faintest foresight of its ulti-mate scientific destination, any more than Moses hadof the Messiah whom he prefigured j any more thanIsaiah or Jeremiah had of the tremendous spiritualscope of the prophecies which uttered themselvesthrough their rapt and dizzy imaginations. Thoscientific promise of our polity is only to be under-stood by watching its practical unfolding, by observ-ing the expansive influence it has hitherto exerted,and is now more than ever exerting, upon the pop~ular mind nnd upon the popular heart. View iteither positively or negatively, its influence is thesame. In its negative aspect, ~- its aspect towardEgypt, which is the European conception of man'strue state on carth,---it denies all absoluteness bothto persons and institutions, 'by boldly resolving whatis the highest of personalities, namely, the king,and what is the most sacred of institutions, namely,the Church, both alike from a power into theservant of a power, from n righteousness into thesymbol of a righteousness, from a substance intothe shadow of a substance; this substance itselfbeing those gl'cn,t disregarded instincts of humanunity or fraternity which a n along the course of


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history have been patiently soliciting scientific roc-ognition, in order to put on organic form and coverthe earth with holiness and peace. In its positiveaspect, - the aspect it bears toward Camla11,-which means the supremacy of man's associatedlife over his individual one, it makes my privaterighteousness, or that which inwardly relates n~to God, utterly posterior to, and dependent upon,my public righteousness, or that which relates meto my fellow-man. How is it possible, therefore,that its practical effect should be otherwise thaneducative, - educative, too, in the very profoundestmanner, that is, out of all evil into all good? I tsdirect influence is to modify or enlarge my privateconscience, the consciousness I have of myself as amoral being, a being independent of my kind andcapable of all manner of arrogant presumptuousprivate hope toward God, into a public conscience,into a consciousness of myself as above all thingsa social being most intimately and indissolubly onewith my kind, and incapable therefore of anyblessing which they do not legitimately share. Itlaughs at the pretensions of any person howeverreputable, and of any institution however vener-able, to claim an absolute divine sanctity, - thatis, a sanctity irrespective of his or its unaffectedhuman worth; and it gradually so inflames the mindwith its OWll august spiritual meaning, so quickensit with its own vivid and palpitating divine sub-stance, that the conscience which is governed by itof necessity finds itself regenerating, finds itself


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24expanding from a petty drivelling a D C I squeakingwitness of one's own righteousness, into the clearand ringing: and melodious testimony of God's salerighteousness in universal man.The European priest and king were at best only

theoretically perfect, both alike having always beenactually below the spirit of their great office. Theiroffice was purely ministerial and typical, while theythemselves had always the stupidity to regard itas magisterial and final, as constituting in fact itsown end. The office of the Christian priesthoodhas always been to typify the spotless inward pu-rity, the office of the Christian royalty to typifythe boundless outward power, which, by virtue ofthe Incarnation, or of Goel's personal indwelling inlrumnn nature, shall one day characterize universalman. Every man's heart and mind, by reason oftheir infinite source, insatiably crave, the one thatperfect righteousness which is pence towards God,the other that perfect knowledge which is com-mand over Nature. And the priest and the kinghnve existed only to authenticate this insatiatelonging, and formally prefigure its eventual exactfulfilment, European culture accordingly was cstab-lished upon this typical and transitory basis ofChurch and State, the one representing the infi-nite Divine righteousness which is incnrnnted inuniversal man; the other the infinite Divine powerwhich is engendered of such righteousness." Butno actual churchman and 110 actual statesman ever

'" See Appendix B.


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grasped the grand humanitary prophecy of hisoffice. Each supposed his office to be absolutely,not representatively, sacrcd ; supposed it to be validin itself, and not solely for its uses to the socialdevelopment of the race. The priest chimed forthe Church an absolute divine sanctity, n sanctityirrespective of the education it ministered to thepopular heart; and the king claimed for the Statean absolute divine authority, an authority uncle-rived from the elevation it afforded to the popularthought: so that the SUIll of European culture in areligious way has scarcely amounted to anythingmore than a practical desecration of the priestlyoffice, or a secularizing of the Church by a diffu-sion of the priestly prerogative llmong the laity ,as the sum of its political progre. s has consistedin limiting the royal prerogative, or democratizingthe government, by diffusing it mnong the people.In short, Protestantism and constitutional libertyare the topmost waves of European progress, thebound beyond which European thought cannot le-gitimately go,-thc one denying the Church as anabsolute Divine substance, the other denying theState as an absolute Divine form. No overt aim isthere practised towards a positive realization of theidea embodied in our institutions, which is that of Itperfect human society or fellowship, in which ever),member shall be alike sacred before God and alikepri vileged before man. 'I'he ingrained in veteru tePharisaism of the English mind is so frankly obtuseto the conception of a Divine 01' universal righteous-

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ness on the earth, and the complacent Sadduceeismof Continental thought begets such an indifferenceto that great expectation, that one can see no hopefor Europe socially but ill the absorption of hereffete nationalities by a new Northern invasion, andthe consequent infusion of a ruddier blood into theveins of her languid populations.But however this 111ftY be, we in this hemi-sphere, at all events, have no European problems

to solve, and are not called upon in any manner torepeat the European experience. 'Ve inherit the so-lution which Europe has already given to her ownpeculiar problems, and start npon our distinctivecareer from the basis of her DiOSt approved expe-rience. Europe has made religion an affair of thelaity as much as of the clergy; government, anaffair of the people as much as of the aristocracy .

. W e inheri: her 1 ' ( p C S t eullure h l b otl: of th ese pa rticu la rs.We inherit Protestantism and constitutional liber-ty; but there is this vast difference between liS andthem, w e ocgin uhere t l l C ! ! leore ~If. Like all heirs, we.enter upon [t full fruition of the estate which itcost them their best blood to found and mature.Thus Protestantism is not to us the bright expan-sive heaven to which all their religious aspirationascends. Itis rather the solid, compact, somewhatclingy and disagreeable earth npon which ourfect are planted, only in order to survey entirelyncw and infinitely more inviting heavens, Andconstitutional liberty is not the welcome haven tous it has ever been to them, is not to us the same


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27broad protective anchorage to which, over wearywastes of ocean and through alternate sickeningcalm and driving tempest, their political bark hnsbeen always steering. It is, on the contrary, ourport of departure, whence with swelling sails weconfidently voyage forth to tempt unknown seas,and lay open lands as yet untrodden by humanfeet. Protestantism vacates the priestly pretension,by turning religion into an affair of the congrega-tion. V{e applaud this, but go further, in mak-ing religion an affair of the individual conscienceexclusively, with which neither priest nor congre-gation has the least right to intermeddle. So con-stitutional liberty, which is the European ideal ofliberty, vacates the divine right of kings, by com-plicating the royal power with numerous cunningconstitutional checks and balances. But the liber-ty we assert, or which constitutes our ideal, doesnot flow from any man-made constitution underheaven, but is one on the contrary which fLUsnchconstitutions are bound under fatal penalties sim-ply and servilely to reflect, being the liberty whichis identical with the God-made constitution of thehuman mind itself, and which consists in the in-alienable right of every man to believe accordingto the unbribed inspiration of his own heart, andto act according to the unperverted dictates of hisown understanding. In short, they affirm the in-alienable sanctity and freedom of the nation asagainst other nations; we, the inalienable sanctityand freedom of the subject as against the nation.


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'I'hey say that every nation is sacred by virtue ofits nationality, or has an inviolable title to therespect and homage of all other nations. 'Ve saythat every man is similarly sacred by virtue of hishumanity, and has an inviolable title to the loveand respect of all other men. Thus they trulyassert the Divine Incarnation in humanity; butthey limit it to the public sphere of life, to thenational will and the national intelligence. 'Vedo this, but we do much more also, for we prac-tically ratify the Incarnation as a private no lessthan a public truth, as sanctifying the individuallife indeed far more profoundly than the commonone. They laugh at us because we set the pulpitto the tune of the streets, and expect our gover-nors to reflect the wisdom of the farm-yard andthe factory. But this is because they do not knowthat we, unlike themselves, are without ecclesias-tical and political conscience, om very Church andState being themselves exclusively human and so-cial Weare no mere civil polity, designed, likethose of the Old World, to lead men O u t . of bar-barism into civilization, On the contrary, we findthem citizens, and out of citizens aspire to makethem men, '" o are at bottom nothing more andnothing less than a broad human society or broth-erhood, of which every man is in full membershipby right of mnnliood alone; and what we seek todo is to turn our nominal Church and State intothe unlimited service of this society. III fact, wedeclare the childhood of the race forever fairly past,


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and its manhood n.t least entered upon. 'We denythe ability of any church, Catholic or Protestant,to sanctify a,ny human being, or even enhance thesanctity he derives from his creative source. Wedeny the ability of any government, arbitrary 01'constitutional, to enfranchise the human mind, oreven enhance the freedom which inheres in itsGod-given constitution. We maintain, on the con-trary, that the Church can only and at best de-uelop the righteousness which every man derivesin infinite measure from God; and that the Statecan only and at best promote the freedom whichDivinely inheres in his very form as man: soleaving every man's religion to the sale' inspirationof the Divine Good in his own heal', every man'sfreedom to the sale arbitrament of the DivineTruth in his own understanding. In short, wepractically affirm the literal verity of the DivineIncarnation in every form of human nature, theunlimited indwelling of the infinite Godhead inevery man of woman born ; so turning every manby tbe sheer pith of his manhood into mitredpriest and crowned king, or avouching ourselvesfinally to our own consciousness and the world'swilling recognition as a faultless human society,instinct with God's unspeakable delight and appro-bation.*Such, my friends, I conceive to be our undeniable

inward significance as a nation. Such the brightconsummate flower of mnnhood, which is spiritually

* See Appendix C.


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disengaging itself from the coarse obscuring husksof our literal Democracy, consisting in the gradualbut complete subjugntion of the selfish instinct inom bosoms to the service of the social instinct.Such is the great and righteous temper of mindto 'which we are Divinely begotten j . such the pa~ternal animating spirit that shapes our constitu-tiona] polity, that originally gave us birth as a na-tion, and that even now, in this day of seemingadversity, gives us [), conscience of rectitude andinvincible might 'which is itself incomparably richerthan all prosperity. It is idle to talk, - as sillypeople, however, will talk, as all people will talkwhose gross grovelling hearts go back to th e flc sk .potsof LUypt , when they cat bread to the full, - it is idle totalk of our political troubles as springing up outof the ground, as having no graver origin thanparty fanaticism o r folly. These troubles, on thecontrary, are the inevitable fruit of our very bestgrowth, the sure harbingers, I am persuaded, oftb~t rising Sun of Righteousness whose beams shallnever again know eclipse. They are merely anevidence, 011 a larger scale and in n public sphere,of the discord which every righteous man perceivesat some time or other to exist between his essen-tial huiuan spirit and his perishable animal flesh.1 " 0 1 ' every nntiou is ill human form, is in fhct but annggregate or composite form of manhood, greatlygrander and more complex than the simple formsof which it is made up, but h:wing precisely thesame intense unity within itself, and claiming, like


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each of them, a quickening controlling spirit, andan obedient servile body. This animating control-ling spirit of our national polity, like that of ourown private souls, is Divine, comes from God ex-clusively, and is ouly revealed never exhausted,only embodied or empowered never belittled 01'enfeebled, by the literal symbols in which humanwisdom contrives to house it. That part of theletter of our Constitution which best reveals themajestic human spirit that animates our polity isof course its preamble. But the real divinity ofthe nation, its vital imperishable holiness, residesnot in any dead parchment, but only in the right-eous unselfish lives of those who see in any con-stitution but the luminous letter of their inwardspiritual faith, but the visible altar of their invisiblewor 'hip, and rally around it therefore with thejoyous unshrinking devotion not of slaves but ofmen.Now, such being the undoubted spirit of our

polity, what taint was there in its material consti-tution, in our literal maternal inheritance, to affrontthis righteous paternal spirit and balk its rich prom-ise, by turning us its children from an erect sincerehopeful and loving brotherhood of men intent uponuniversal aims, into a herd of greedy luxuriousswine, into a band of unscrupulous political adven-turers and sharpers, the stink o f whose corruptionpervades the blue spaces of ocean, penetrates Eu-rope, and sickens every struggling nascent humanhope with despair?


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32The answer leaps at the ears ; it is Slavery, and

Slavery only. This is the poison which lurked al-most harmless at first in our body politic, and towhich its righteous soul is an utter stranger; thisis the curse we inherited from the maternal Eng-lish Eve out of whose somewhat loose lasciviouslap we sprung. But of late years the poison hasgrown so rank and pervasive, making its citadel,indeed, the very heart of the commonwealth, orthose judicial and legislative chambers whence allthe tides of its activity proceed, that each succes-sive political administration of the .couutry provesmore recreant to humanity than its predecessor,until at last we find shameless God-forsaken men,holding high place in the government, become sorabid with its virus as to mistake its slimy purulentooze for the ruddy tide of life, and commend itsfoul and fetid miasm to ns as the fragrant breathof assured health. It is easy enough to falsify thedivinity which is shaping our constitutional action,wherever {1 will exists to do so. Men whose mostcherished treasure can be buttoned up in theirbreeches pocket, and whose heart, of course, is withtheir treasure, are doubtless panting to convincethe country that we have already done enoughfor honor, and the sooner a sham peace is hurriedup the better. It only needs rt wily wolf of thissort to endue himself here and there in sheep'sclothing, and bleat forth fI, cunning pathetic lamontover the causeless misfortunes which have befallenour brcnd-and-butter interests, to see dozens of


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33stupid sheep taking up in their turn the sneakinghypocritical bleat, and prepariug their innocentfleece for his dishonest remorseless shears. Thefriends of Mammon are numerous in every commu-nity; but, blessed be God, they nowhere rule ill thelong run. They are numerous enough to give anodious flavor to the broth; but they never consti-tute its body. It is impossible that we should errin this great crisis of our destiny, a crisis to whichthat of our national birth or independence yieldsin dignity and importance, as much as body yieldsto soul, flesh to spirit, childhood to manhood. Forthis is the exact crisis we are in; the transitionfrom youth to manhood, from appearance to reality,from passing shadow to deathless substance. Everyman and every nation of men encounters some-where in its progress a critical hour, big with allits future fate , and woe be to the man, woe beto the nation, who believes that this sacred re-sponsibility can be trifled with. To every man'and to every nation it means eternal life or eter-nal death ; eternal liberty or eternal law ; theheaven of free spontaneous order, or the hell ofenforced prudential obedience. 'Ihere is no manwho hears me who does not know something ofthis bitter sweat and agony; whose petty trivialcares have not been dignified and exalted by someglimpse of this hidden inward fight; who has notat times heard the still small voice of truth onthe one hand counselling him to do the rightthing though rum yawn upon his hopes, - COUl1-

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34selling him to force himself to do the honest thingthough it cost him tears of blood,- and the earth-quake voice of hell on the other, or the fierybreath of passion iufuriated by long starvation,doing its best to drown and devour it, Our na-tional life, believe me, is at that exact pnss inthis awful moment, and nowhere else, It is thehour of our endless rise into all beautiful humanproportions, into all celestinl vigor and beatitude,or of our endless decline into all infernality anduncleanness, and into the inevitable torments whichalone discipline such un cleanness. And we mustnot hesitate for a moment to fight it manfullyout to its smiling blissful end, feeling that it isnot all}' own battle alone, that we are not fight-ing for our own country only, for our own altarsand firesides as men have fought hitherto, but forthe altars and firesides of universal mall, for theineradicable rights of human nature itself Letbloated European aristocracies rejoice in our calam-iies; let the 111utton-hended hereditary legislatorso f England raise a shant of insult and exultationave)' our anticipated dow ufall , the honest, unso-phisticated masses everywhere will do us justice,for they will soon see, spite of all efforts to blindthem, that we occupy in this supreme moment nopetty Thermopylro gurtl'ding some paltry Greece,but the broad majestic pass that commands thedeathless wealth fmel worth of human nature itselfthe 'I'hennopylm of the human mind; they willSOOB see, in [act, that ~our flags arc wavmg, our


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35trumpets sounding, our cannon showering theirdeathful hail, not merely to avenge men's out-raged political faith and honor, hut to vindicatethe inviolable sanctity of the human form itself,which for the first time in history is Divinelybound up with that faith and honor.This is the exact truth of the case. The political

tumble-down we have met with is no accident,as unprincipled politicians would represent it. Itis the fruit of an inevitable expansion of the humanmind itself, of an advancing social consciousnessin the race, an ever-widening sense of human unity,'which will no longer be content with the old chan-nels of thought, the old used-up clothes of themind, but irresistibly demands larger fields of spec-ulation, freer bonds of intercourse and fellowship.We have only frankly to acknowledge this greattruth in order to find the perturbation and anxi-ety which now invade our unbelieving bosoms dis-pelled; in order to hear henceforth, in every toneof the swelling turbulence that fills our borders,no longer forebodings of disease, despair, and death,but prophecies of the highest health, of kindlinghope, of exuberant righteousness, and endless feli-city for every man of woman born. "I was once,"says en old writer, "I was once in a numerouscrowd of spirits, il l which everything appeared atsixes and sevens: they complained, saying thatnow a total destruction was at hand, for in thatcrowd nothing appeared in eousociation, but every-thing loose and confused, and this made them fear


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destruction, which they supposed also would betotal. But in the midst of their confusion anddisquiet, Iperceived a soft sound, angelically sweet,in which was nothing but what was orderly. Theangelic choirs thus present were within or at thecentre, and the crowd of persons to whom ap~pertained what was disorderly were without or atthe circumference. This flowing angelic melodycontinued a long time, and it was told me thatbereby was signified how the Lord rules confusedand disorderly things which are upon the surface,namely, by uirtue o f a pacific principlc til tile deptkJor at tho centre; w hercby the disOI'tlcrl;j tlliu[!s u pon tilesurface arc reducel to order, each being restored fromth e erro r o f t 8 nature" The pacific and restorativeprinciple which in the same way underlies all ourpolitical confusion and disorder, and which will, irresistibly shape our national life to its own right-eous and orderly issues, is the rising sentiment ofhuman society or fellowship, the grand, invinciblefaith of man's essential unity and brotherhood.The social conscience, the conscience of what isdue to evcry man as man, having the same divinoorigin and the same divine destiny with all othermen, is becoming preternaturally quickened in ourbosoms, and woe betide the church, woe betidethe state, that ventures to say to that conscience,Thds far shalt thou go, and 110 further lShvery has this incredible audacity. Slavery,

which is the only institution of om European in-heritance 'w e have left unmodified, confronts and


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spits upon this rising tide of God's righteousnessin the soul of man. Slavery boldly denies whnt0,11our specific culture affirms, namely, the invio-Iable sanctity of human affection in every form,the inviolable freedom of human thought in everydirection. The cultivated intelligence of the raceabhors the claim of any human being to possessan absolute property in any other being, that is, aproperty unvivified by the other's unforced, spon-taneous gift. Slavery affirms this diabolic preten-sion, - affirms the ul1qualified title of the master tooutrage, if need be, the sacredest instincts of nat-ural affection in the slave, and to stifle at needhis feeblest intellectual expansion. Accordingly, theheart. of man, inspired by God and undepraved byIammon, pronounces slavery with no misgiving anunmitigated infamy j and the intelligence of man,thence enlightencd, declares that its empire shallnot be extended. 'Ve have no right to say thatevil shall not exist where it already does existwithout our privity; but we have Dot only allmanner of right, both human and divine, to saythat its existence shall not be promoted by ouractive connivance j it is our paramount wisdom asmen, and our paramount obligation as citizens, tosay so. Such, at all events, is our exact socialattitude with respect to slavery. Every unsophis-ticated soul of man feels it to bo what. it actuallyis, namely, the ultimate or most general form anrlhence the king of all the evil pent up in humannature j so that when it once disappears by the


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38clear indignant refusal of the human mind anylonger actively to co-operate with it, all those inte-rior and subtler shapes of evil which now infestus, and are held together by it as the viscera ofthe body are held together by the skin, will bedissipated along with it, 'Vo know not when thehour of this grent salvation shall strike, 'Ve onlyknow that as God is just and sovereign it muststrike erelong, and that when it does strike themorning stars of a richer creation than has yetbeen seen on earth w in sing together, and all thesons of God in every subtlest ineffable realm of hisdominion shout for joy. Our government itself iswaking up from. its long trance; is beginning toperceive that there is something sacreder than com-merce on earth, - that the interests of this verycommerce, ill fact) will best be promoted by firstof all recognizing that there arc depths in the hu-man soul, demands of immaculate righteousness andassured peaco, which all the pecuniary prosperity.of the world can never satisfy, In short, the gov-ernment is fast coming, let us hope, to a conscious-ness of its distinctively social or human function,by practically confessing that its supl'eme respon-sibility is due only to man, and no longer to per-sons, or infuriated sectional exactions, Of course,in pursuing this career, it will become gm.duallyconverted from the mere tool it hns hitherto beenfor adroitpolitie::tl knaves to do what they pleasewitli, into a grandly social force, reflecting everyhonest humnn want, fulfilling every upright human


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aspiration. 'Vha, t matters it, then, if we forfeit theempty political prestige we have hitherto enjoyedwith European statesmen? Let us only go on overt-ly to inaugurate that promised perfect society onearth, all whose officers shal! be peace, and its soleexactors 1'1'gldeollslless, by practically acknowledgingon all occasions the infinite Divine Good enshrinedin man's heart, the infinite Divine Truth enthronedin his understanding, and we shall fal'lt attain toa social standing in the eyes of European peopleswhich shall grandly compensate our mere politicaldisasters, and do more to modify the practice ofEuropean statesmen themselves than anything elsewe could possibly do.In this state of things, how jealously should wewatch the Congress to-clay assembling at Washing-

ton! How clear should be the watchword wetelegraph to guide their deliberations! Have weindeed no higher monition for our legislature thanold heathen Rome supplied to hers, namely, to seethat the Republic S l ! t J e 1 ' no damapc? The body ismuch, but it is not the soul. The Republic ismuch, but it is not all. It is much as a means,but nothing as an end, It is much as n , meansto human advancement, but nothing us its con-summation. It is much as an onward march ofthe race, it is nothing whatever as its final victoryand rest. Let us be sure that, so far [ttl we arcconcerned, OUl' Iegislatcrs understand this. Letthem know that we value the Hopublic so much,only because we value man more; that we value


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40peace, prosperity, and wealth not as ends, but asmeans to an end, which is justice, truth, and mer-cy, il l which alone man's real peace, his true pros-perity, and his abiding "wealth reside, and 'whichwill be oms only so long as we are faithful to thegospel of human freedom and equality. For mypart, if I thought that our rulers were going tobetray in this agonizing hour the deathless interestconfided to them, - if I thought that Mr. Lincolnand 1 \ 1 1 ' . Seward were going at last to palter withthe sublime instincts of peace and righteousnessthnt elevated them to power and give them all theirpersonal prestige, by making the least conceivablefurther concession to the obscene demon of Slavery,- then I could joyfully see 1 \ 1 1 ' . Lincoln and Mr.Seward scourged from the sacred eminence theydefile, yea more, could joyfully see our boastedpolitical house itself Inid low in the Just forever,because in that ,case its stainless stars and stripeswould have sunk from a, banner of freemen into adishonored badge of the most contemptible peopleon earth; a people that bartered a,way the fairestspiritual birthright any people ever yet were bornto, for the foulest mess of material pottage everconcocted of shameless lust and triumphant fraud.


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APPENDIX.

A.-PAGE 10.Tms able but unscrupulous paper is an involuntary and therefore

most reliable witness of the utter worthlessness, for all social purposes, ofthe extremcst culture of the head, which is moral culture, when weighedagainst the slenderest culture of the heart, which alone is spiritual culture.Itseems to have had no more gcnuine mission tban '1,0 show the rank andfestering selfishness which has eaten out thc vitals of the old Europeandecency, coming now at last to the surface to corrode and consume everytraditional usagc of humane and sympathetic literary art which bas hith-erto masked its presence and limited its activity. Ifthe Saturday Reviewfairly represent the scholarly animu.s of England, - if its flippant, trans-parent Pharisaism, its puerile self-complacency, its wanton insolence, itstruculent arrogance, exhibited toward every form of intellectual indepen-dence, - except, as in the case of John Mill, where a great reputation sanc-tifies it, - and toward every the most honest suggestion of social advance,fitly represent th e academical consciousness of that conntry,- one canonly exclaim, Alas! how changed from its former self! A land (in an intel-lectual sense) of deserts and pits, a land of (lrou!Jht a lia the shadow of dea th,a land no man passes t'!Tough, and where no man dwells. Certainly honestJohn Bull was never before so scphisticated.c=degraded from a fat savorysucculent juicy becf, to a lean stringy sinewy tendinous veal, - from thesuperb contented disdainful monarch of broad meadows and glitteringstreams, to the blatant and menacing and butting challenger of every in-nocent scarlet rag that flutters along private lane or public highway. Itis English middle-class manners made conscious of their own inmost snob-bery, and trying to cover it up under an affectation of coarse and vulgareffrontery towards superior people.

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B.-PAGE 24.TIm State as a c;\'il polity is wholly contingent upon the Church as

all ecclesiasticism. Thus, throughout European history you see the Chris.tian priest uniformly consecrating the Christian killg. In tile earlier in.fantilc or Catholic centuries this beautiful ritual bad some tender humansignificance; but it is !lOW 11 senseless ceremonial. 10 modern Europe,just as in old Jntlren, the Church no longer preserves its spiritual priorityto the State, but lias fallen contentedly behind it ; the pure feminineheart of the world succumbing everywhere to the needs of its corruptlordly head. The great Napoleon, animated with the spirit and armedwith the prestige of the Revolution, felt so sheer a contempt for this friv-olous European priesthood and its lapsed prerogative, that he did not hes-itate at his coronation to snatch the coronet of the Empress Josephine fromthe hands of the officiating priest ami place it himself on her brow; thusdearly proclaiming, by a great symbolic act infinitely beyond his OWII be-sottcd thought, two things : - 1. That the veil of the temple, which hadhitherto shut out the people from the holy of holies, was now actually aswell as typically rent j thus, (bat the age of types and shadows had ex-pired by its own limitation, and that man stood henceforth face to facewith spiritual substance, with eternal realities; 2. That upon whomsoeverthe people sbould uonfur sovereignty, they conferred sanctity as well, orthat in the elect of the people, as he cl aimed to be, priest and king, good-ness and truth, right and might, should beindissolllbly bleat, AmIyou now see the present Napoleoll diligently finishing np what his prede-CCSSOl' began, tbat is to say, depl'il'ing the first clergyman in Europe ofall right to his slenderest remaining foot hold upon her soil; so that thoPapacy win erelong come as ncar as possible to jllsti(ring the theologicfiction of disembodied existences, and sink, like those, curious remains ofthe early flora and fauna of the earth which we treasure in mUSCUUlS,into a more fossil memorial to future ages of the giant size to which, iothe infancy of society, men's imbecility and presumption ill respect toDivino things I m , 1 attained.The Church with us is of course exposed to no such coarse imperial

insult, as the State is exposed to no such brutal revolutionary invasion.Why? Simply because our Church and St.1te 1H'C both of them purelysocial institutions, or ha vo no proper Iife apart from the uses they promoteto the great society which maintains them, Our Church admits of allmanner of sectarian di vel'Sity; ou r Stale is the fusion of all manner of na-tional oppugnancics : because the only altar of God we recognize are the


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Henry James the Social Significance of Our Institutions Boston 1861

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