States are governed by abuses. _Maximus ille est qui minimis urgetur._ It might be said to the Chinese, to the Japanese, to the English--your government swarms with abuses, which you do not correct! The Chinese will reply: We have existed as a people for five thousand years, and at this day are perhaps the most fortunate nation on earth, because we are the most tranquil. The Japanese will say nearly the same. The English will answer: We are powerful at sea, and prosperous on land; perhaps in ten thousand years we shall bring our usages to perfection. The grand secret is, to be in a better condition than others, even with enormous _abuses_. ABUSE OF WORDS. Books, like conversation, rarely give us any precise ideas: nothing is so common as to read and converse unprofitably. We must here repeat what Locke has so strongly urged--_Define your terms._ A jurisconsult, in his criminal institute, announces that the non-observance of Sundays and holidays is treason against the Divine Majesty. _Treason against the Divine Majesty_ gives an idea of the most enormous of crimes, and the most dreadful of chastisements. But what constitutes the offence? To have missed vespers?--a thing which may happen to the best man in the world. In all disputes on _liberty_, one reasoner generally understands one thing, and his adversary another. A third comes in who understands neither the one nor the other, nor is himself understood. In these disputes, one has in his head the power of acting; a second, the power of willing; a third, the desire of executing; each revolves in his own circle, and they never meet. It is the same with quarrels about _grace_. Who can understand its nature, its operations, the _sufficiency_ which is not sufficient, and the _efficacy_ which is ineffectual. The words _substantial form_ were pronounced for two thousand years without suggesting the least notion. For these, _plastic natures_ have been substituted, but still without anything being gained. A traveller, stopped on his way by a torrent, asks a villager on the opposite bank to show him the ford: "Go to the right!" shouts the countryman. He takes the right and is drowned. The other runs up crying: "Oh! how unfortunate! I did not tell him to go to _his_ right, but to _mine_!" The world is full of these misunderstandings. How will a Norwegian, when reading this formula: _Servant of the servants of God_; discover that it is the _Bishop of Bishops, and King of Kings_ who speaks?