disgusting," he affirms, generalizing the theme, "than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a 'Declaration of Independence' or the statute right to vote." But, "Our America has a bad name for superficialness. Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and buffoons, but perceivers of the terrors of life, and have nerved themselves to face it." He will not be deceived by the clamor of blatant reformers. "If an angry bigot assumes the bountiful cause of abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes, why should I not say to him: 'Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper; be good-natured and modest; have that grace, and never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off!'" He does not shrink from questioning the validity of some of our pet institutions, as, for instance, universal suffrage. He reminds us that in old Egypt the vote of a prophet was reckoned equal to one hundred hands, and records his opinion that it was much underestimated. "Shall we, then," he asks, "judge a country by the majority or by the minority? By the minority, surely! 'Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time." The majority are unripe, and do not yet know their own opinion. He would not, however, counsel an organic alteration in this respect, believing that, with the progress of enlightenment, such coarse constructions of human rights will adjust themselves. He concedes the sagacity of the Fultons and Watts of politics, who, noticing that the opinion of the million was the terror of the world, grouped it on a level, instead of piling it into a mountain, and so contrived to make of this terror the most harmless and energetic form of a State. But, again, he would not have us regard the State as a finality, or as relieving any man of his individual responsibility for his actions and purposes. We are to confide in God--and not in our money, and in the State because it is guard of it. The Union itself has no basis but the good pleasure of the majority to be united. The wise and just men impart strength to the State, not receive it; and, if all went down, they and their like would soon combine in a new and better constitution. Yet he will not have us forget that only by the supernatural is a man strong; nothing so weak as an egotist. We are mighty only as vehicles of a truth before which State and individual are alike ephemeral. In this sense we, like other nations, shall have our kings and nobles--the leading and inspiration of the best; and he who would become a member of that nobility must obey his heart.