Hence it is to be regretted--deeply regretted--that the doctrine of liberty has so often been discussed with so little apparent care, with so little moral earnestness, with so little real energetic searching and longing after truth. Though its transcendent importance demands the best exertion of all our powers, yet has it been, for the most part, a theme for passionate declamation, rather than of severe analysis or of protracted and patient investigation. In the warm praises of the philosopher, no less than in the glowing inspirations of the poet, it often stands before us as a vague and ill-defined _something_ which all men are required to worship, but which no man is bound to understand. It would seem, indeed, as if it were a mighty something not to be clearly seen, but only to be deeply felt. And felt it has been, too, by the ignorant as well as by the learned, by the simple as well as by the wise: felt as a fire in the blood, as a fever in the brain, and as a phantom in the imagination, rather than as a form of light and beauty in the intelligence. How often have the powers of darkness surrounded its throne, and desolation marked its path! How often from the altars of this _unknown idol_ has the blood of human victims streamed! Even here, in this glorious land of ours, how often do the _too-religious_ Americans seem to become deaf to the most appalling lessons of the past, while engaged in the frantic worship of this their tutelary deity! At this very moment, the highly favored land in which we live is convulsed from its centre to its circumference, by the agitations of these pious devotees of freedom; and how long ere scenes like those which called forth the celebrated exclamation of Madame Roland--"O Liberty, what crimes are perpetrated in thy name!" may be enacted among us, it is not possible for human sagacity or foresight to determine.