Yet there remains that good part which cannot be taken away. If nations go astray, the narrow path may always be found and followed by the individual man. It is hard, hard indeed, when politics and trade are mixed up with evils so mighty that he scarcely dares touch them for fear of being defiled. He finds his activity checked in great natural outlets by the scruples of conscience. He cannot enjoy the free use of his limbs, glowing upon a favorable tide; but struggling, panting, must fix his eyes upon his aim, and fight against the current to reach it. It is not easy, it is very hard just now, to realize the blessings of independence. For what _is_ independence if it do not lead to freedom?--freedom from fraud and meanness, from selfishness, from public opinion so far as it does not agree with the still, small voice of one's better self? Yet there remains a great and worthy part to play. This country presents great temptations to ill, but also great inducements to good. Her health and strength are so remarkable, her youth so full of life, that disease cannot yet have taken deep hold of her. It has bewildered her brain, made her steps totter, fevered, but not yet tainted, her blood. Things are still in that state when ten just men may save the city. A few men are wanted, able to think and act upon principles of an eternal value. The safety of the country must lie in a few such men; men who have achieved the genuine independence, independence of wrong, of violence, of falsehood. We want individuals to whom all eyes may turn as examples of the practicability of virtue. We want shining examples. We want deeply-rooted characters, who cannot be moved by flattery, by fear, even by hope, for they work in faith. The opportunity for such men is great; they will not be burned at the stake in their prime for bearing witness to the truth, yet they will be tested most severely in their adherence to it. There is nothing to hinder them from learning what is true and best; no physical tortures will be inflicted on them for expressing it. Let men feel that in private lives, more than in public measures, must the salvation of the country lie. If that country has so widely veered from the course she prescribed to herself, and that the hope of the world prescribed to her, it must be because she had not men ripened and confirmed for better things. They leaned too carelessly on one another; they had not deepened and purified the private lives from which the public vitality must spring, as the verdure of the plain from the fountains of the hills.