The whole conduct of the resistance in which we are now engaged to this immoral and arbitrary law will depend upon the sincerity and depth of the religious principle of this country. A moral and spiritual conviction must be the heart and soul of our present movement. Already it is proved to be so, and will be more fully proved ere the struggle be ended. Already that revival of moral faith, the simultaneousness of which with the rapid advances of a materialistic creed rests upon the promise of God himself, is beginning to prove its force as the most potent agency for political reform. Already it is gathering into a compact company the grave, the virtuous, the religious throughout the land. It would be unseasonable at the close of this Essay for me to approach that difficult question which must needs, at times, trouble the minds of thoughtful persons who try to read the tendencies of the age; I mean the subtle connection between democracy and despotism—the tendency of democratic nations to combine the idea of a strongly centralized, ubiquitous, and omnipotent government with that of the sovereignty of the people, a combination which, when fully realized, makes every man willing to put himself in leading-strings, because it is not a person, nor a class of persons, but the people at large that holds the end of his chain; but before closing these remarks I venture to address a word of caution to my readers among the working classes who are electors. There are persons of birth, of station, spoiled, it may be, by the long inheritance of privilege, who hate the Constitution because of the barriers which it places between themselves and the accomplishment from time to time of certain arbitrary designs, and because in general, in a noble degree, it is no “respecter of persons.” On the other hand, there are men—and among them are some who loudly profess to be the people’s friends—who _despise_ the Constitution, and who see without a regret the invasion of its fundamental principles,—principles which they affect to believe are obsolete. When, therefore, the time comes, once and again, for you to look around you to select men to represent you in Parliament, and when gentlemen come forward professing the Radical principles which the majority of you uphold, pause for a moment! for among these professors there are some such as those to whom I allude, who despise the Constitution. Myself a Liberal, and an admirer of republican[102] institutions, I venture to advise you to regard this class of political aspirants with extreme suspicion. Withhold from them your confidence until you have thoroughly sounded their principles. Those to whom I allude are for the most part young men, or men at least characterized by that immaturity of judgment which is not the exclusive attribute of youth. They talk loudly of a future Republic, while they are at heart, though it may be unconsciously so, the prophets and devotees of the