Thanks to the increase of general reason, to the light of philosophy, to the inspiration of Christianity, to the progress of the idea of justice, of charity, and of fraternity, in laws, manners, and religion, society in America, in Europe, and in France, especially since the Revolution, has broken down all these barriers, all these denominations of caste, all these injurious distinctions among men. Society is composed only of various conditions, professions, functions, and ways of life, among those who form what we call a Nation; of proprietors of the soil, and proprietors of houses; of investments, of handicrafts, of merchants, of manufacturers, of farmers; of day-laborers becoming farmers, manufacturers, merchants, or possessors of houses or capital, in their turn; of the rich, of those in easy circumstances, of the poor, of workmen with their hands, workmen with their minds; of day-laborers, of those in need, of a small number of men enjoying considerable acquired or inherited wealth, of others of a smaller fortune painfully increased and improved, of others with property only sufficient for their needs; there are some, finally, without any personal possession but their hands, and gleaning for themselves and for their families, in the workshop, or the field, and at the threshold of the homes of others on the earth, the asylum, the wages, the bread, the instruction, the tools, the daily pay, all those means of existence which they have neither inherited, saved, nor acquired. These last are what have been improperly called _the People_. This name is extended now; it embraces really all the People; but still it is used as the name of the indigent and suffering part of the People. It is more especially of this class that I intend to speak, in saying to you, "To love the People, it is necessary to believe in God." VI. The love of the People, the conscience of the citizen, the sentiment which induces the individual to lose himself in the mass, to submit himself to the community, to sacrifice himself to its needs,--his interest, his individuality, his egotism, his ambition, his pride, his fortune, his blood, his life, his reputation even, sometimes, to the safety of his country, to the happiness of the People, to the good of humanity, of which he is a member in the sight of God,--in one word, all these virtues, necessary under every form of government,--useful under a monarchy, indispensable under a republic,--never have been derived, and never can be derived, from any thing but that single sentence, pronounced with religious faith, at the commencement, in the middle, at the end of all our patriotic acts:--"I believe in God!" The People who do not believe strongly, efficaciously in this first principle, in this supreme original, in this last end of all existence, cannot have a faith superior to their individual selfishness.