cases, as to threaten great men,—and ancient houses, and aristocracies. But how sickening to read the memoirs of Prime Ministers and State Secretaries in times past,—ah! and, alas! to read them in our own day, at times, with our own open eyes!
How proud a thing for this young nation, if, from the start, she sends out the reputation that eschews all this; that the simple instincts of morality, the plain dictates of honesty and honor, should be the rule of our governmental polity at home and abroad, and God our Governor!
For this the people are chiefly responsible; for, in a representative government, the moral purity of the masses produces its reflex in their rulers; and, therefore, parents and guardians, and teachers and ministers, should endeavor to train the popular mind to right habits of thought, to just notions of government, and of citizenship, to high principles of self-respect, and to prompt instincts of obedience and subjection to rule. If, in the quiet walks of life, in the family, the workshop, and the school, we can but secure the true sentiments of honesty, sobriety, self-control, and manly dignity, conjoined with legal obedience, then we are safe; for the influence thereof will ascend to the higher spheres of life with a controlling power, and we shall have a government here, the reflex of a pure, honest, healthful public sentiment, manifesting, in the arena of political life, the rigid honesty and the simple purity which characterize the dealings of plain, honest men. As a consequence, intrigue, corruption, subornation, could never find here sanction, vantage-ground, or undisturbed and settled rule.
