Maurice once said, very truly, "that man is most just, on the whole, to every other nation who has the strongest feeling of attachment to his own." Love of one's country, if it be real and deeply rooted in the heart, is a sacred thing. There are few nobler feelings, if only they are genuine. A boy's patriotism is generally associated with fireworks and brass bands, and it is right enough that he should make merry on his country's great days. But we should guard against thinking that there is nothing more in Patriotism than fireworks and bragging and brass bands. The show, the display, should be only the mark of a real love and respect within the breast. It is natural to be proud of one's country. If a stranger should abuse it in our hearing, we should feel indignant, and a natural feeling of pride would urge us to refute his statements. There are many things to be proud of, even in a country by no means great in arms or in territory. He would be a very small-minded man who refused to acknowledge the right of every country to the devotion of its children. But, as Maurice said, "he is most just to others who has the deepest attachment to his own." It is not boasting to say that we belong to the greatest race that the world has ever seen. The growth of our race, not only in the little mother island, but also in every continent of the world, has not been paralleled by any other people. No other nation in history has retained so long its supremacy among the nations of the earth. When the great nations of Greece and Rome reached the height of their power, they maintained it for a time by means of slaves, and gave themselves up to luxury and vice. But, as soon as they became effeminate through loss of vigour and the idleness of their citizens, their power, and even their national existence, were destroyed. Instead of maintaining its power and wealth by slave armies and slave labour, the English people abolished slavery off the face of the civilized world. England paid Portugal $1,500,000, Spain $2,000,000, to induce them to give up the slave trade. For fifty years England kept a squadron on the west coast of Africa to keep down the slave trade, at a cost of $3,500,000 a year. She paid the West Indies and Mauritius $100,000,000 to free their slaves. The sum which it cost the English-speaking people of America to put down the slave trade cannot be calculated. The ancient nations of Greece and Rome derived immense sums of money from their colonies. They made the colonies pay for the support of all the armies and the general expense of government. England has never taxed a colony with any great burden. It is estimated by Sir John Lubbock that in ten years, from 1859 to 1869, $210,000,000 was spent by the mother country upon her colonies. It is the glory of Canadians to belong to such a race. The old land from which we came is worthy of our deepest love and veneration and pride. As Tennyson patriotically says: