The unity of our spiritual and temporal interests makes it necessary that every government act shall be a religious one. The spirit of kindness, and charity to all which is the only deserving part of your religions, we have taken as the foundation of all our public acts, and have made it the cornerstone of government itself. Our legislation, if the mere assent to measures recommended can be called by that name, considers first the welfare of persons comprising the whole, subservient to which every possible interest must take its place. And the welfare of persons, in our politico-religious point of view, is dependent upon the proper and equitable rewards of industry; their equal opportunities of acquiring knowledge; an encouragement of their morality by a recognition of their virtues, making it the necessary stepping-stone to their advancement; and the sweeping away of every social form which establishes a sense of inferiority, destroys the pride of self, and institutes that feeling of degradation which is the most prolific source of evil in society. It is easy to note your tendency in these directions. The barbaric institution of force and its concomitant of fear, as agencies in the management and control of men, is gradually being eliminated from all your progressive governments, and the better methods of assent and co-operation are getting in their salutary work of emancipation. Knowledge is spreading itself among you--no longer a dessert only upon a few favored tables, but a chief dish under the newly acquired appetites of the many. The glamour of your wealth and the impressiveness of your religion are losing their reverential respect, with the focused light directed upon their doubtful origins. You have inaugurated the beginning of a new faith, with better spiritual foundations, not condemning the world and its society, but loving it, following in the footsteps of the divine presence within its limits, taking a hand in its affairs, and directing them towards the better possibilities in view. Ah, my brother, the coming of your Messiah was both more and less than you have imagined. The era of new and better things in social development is preceded by the gradual decay of old convictions, which have served their time and are no longer useful, except in their place within the catalogue of traditions to mark the progress of thought.