[Footnote 13: "Je ne crains pas les conspirateurs qui se lèvent à dix heures du matin, et qui ont besoin de mettre une chemise blanche."] There is no question of conspirators here, and for the soul to be vigorous it is not essential that the care of the person should be neglected. What concerns those who would be free, whether individuals or nations, is that they should not have their attention essentially absorbed by considerations affecting merely their material prosperity, or their petty personal comforts; they have especially to guard themselves against selfishness and Epicureanism. Whether his tastes be refined or gross, the Epicurean does not readily resign himself to make either effort or sacrifice; but he is not difficult to content if he is permitted to enjoy his pleasures and his repose. {21} Selfishness, even where it is sober and gentle, is a cold and sterile passion, it owes its empire to its success in enervating and lowering a man's nature. Liberty calls for a character of more strength, higher aspirations, greater power of resistance; a state of soul offering freer action to moral sympathy and disinterested motives. It is precisely here that Christianity can supply modern society with that of which it stands in need. Christianity teaches all men, the great and the small, the rich and the poor, not to devote all their lives to material things; she summons them to more elevated regions, and whilst she inspires them with a purer ambition, she opens to them a fairer hope even of happiness. The Christian, whether his station be powerful or humble, and his aspirations ambitious or modest, can never find an exclusive object of attention, or an exclusive motive to action, even in that principle of interest which politicians, using the word in its best sense, vainly imagine to be a panacea. {22} Man, whether towards his fellow-creatures, or on his own account, has another object to pursue, other laws to accomplish, other sentiments to display and to satisfy: he can neither be an Epicurean nor an Egotist. This is the first and the greatest of the services which Christianity can and does render in our days to every society which aspires to Liberty. I proceed to mention a second service.