As to becoming propagandists of republicanism in Europe, we think the attempt, in this century at least, would be both injudicious and useless. The impious atrocities and dark designs of the secret societies there, who profane the word _liberty_ and blaspheme against all religion, have put so far back the cause of true freedom in the old countries that they who sincerely desire a more liberal system of laws are glad to seek under the shadow of despotism protection and security even at the sacrifice of their political liberties. If we truly wish for the spread of free institutions, let us use example rather than precept, and prove, by the honest administration of our own concerns, respect for the doctrines of Christianity, and, by proper regard for the rules laid down by the church, that republicanism has ceased to be an experiment, and has become a practical and glorious reality. Such a result would be an argument so cogent that no sophistry could refute it and no force could combat its logic. We must remember, also, that the greatest enemies of free government are not, after all, kings and nobles, but those deluded men who have banded themselves in every part of Europe, ostensibly as republicans, but secretly as the destroyers of all law and order. These men, it is well known, mock the inspired word of God and deny his very existence, contemn truth, ignore the first principles of justice, and scoff at the beautiful domestic virtues which bind the wife in affectionate duty to the husband, and the child in love and gratitude to the parent. Empires are governed mainly by force, republics through obedience, and yet those pretended apostles of freedom acknowledge no law except their own and that of their passions. Human laws, no matter by whom made, or how just they may be in letter 95 and spirit, are mere pieces of paper or parchment if the people are not disposed to obey them, and this disposition can only come through religion. For, as man is constituted, he becomes amenable to the operation of the divine law of obedience before he comes under the edicts of human legislation; in other words, he is a Christian or the reverse before he is a lawyer or responsible to the temporal law. “The characteristics of a democracy,” says Blackstone, “are public virtue and goodness as to its intentions;” and Napoleon I., though by no means as good a Christian as he was a far-seeing statesman, when about to reduce chaotic France to order and decency, found it necessary first to restore religion and recall her exiled priesthood.