Do not entertain so weak an imagination as that your registers and your bonds, your affidavits and your sufferances, are what form the great securities of your commerce. Do not dream that your letters of office and your instructions, and your suspending clauses, are the things that hold together the great contexture of this mysterious whole. These things do not make your government. It is the spirit of the English Constitution, which, infused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the Empire, even down to the minutest member.

Is it not the same virtue which does everything for us here in England? Do you imagine, then, that it is the Land Tax Act which raises your revenue? that it is the annual vote in the Committee of Supply which gives you your army? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with bravery and discipline? No! surely no! It is the love of the people, it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience without which your

army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber.

All this, I know well enough, will sound wild and chimerical to the profane herd of vulgar and mechanical politicians who have no place among us, a sort of people who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material and who, therefore, far from being qualified to be directors of the great movement of empire, are not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to men truly initiated and rightly taught, these ruling and master principles, which in the opinion of such men as I have mentioned have no substantial existence, are in truth everything and all in all.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. If we are conscious of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our place as becomes our station and ourselves, we ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire, and have made the most extensive and the only honorable conquests not by destroying, but by promoting

the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have got an American empire. English privileges have made it all that it is; English privileges alone will make it all that it can be. Burke.

AMERICAN INTEGRITY

The typical American does not seek idleness but work. He wants to justify himself by proved capacity in useful effort. Under different conditions he still has the spirit of those who faced the wilderness, advanced the outposts of civilization, and settled a continent of matchless resources, where has been laid the basis for a wider diffusion of prosperity among a greater population than the world has ever known.

To whatever department of activity we may turn, after making all necessary allowances for ignorance, shiftlessness and vice, we still find throughout the country, dominant and persuasive, the note of energy and resistless ambition. The vitality of the people has not been sapped by prosperity. The increase of comfort has not impaired their virility. We are still a hardy people, equal to our task, and pressing forward vigorous and determined in every direction to enlarge the record of achievement.

It is easy, looking at phases of our life. in an absolute way, for one who is pessimistically inclined to gather statistics which superficially considered are discouraging. Congestion in our great cities, the widened opportunity for the play of selfishness, and the increase of temptations following in the wake of prosperity, give rise to an appalling number and variety of private and public wrongs whose thousands of victims voice an undying appeal to humanity and patriotism.

But one would form a very inaccurate judgment of our moral condition by considering these wrongs alone. They must be considered in their relation to other phases of our life. We must not fail to take note of the increasing intensity of the desire to find remedies and the earnestness with which all forms of evil and oppression are attacked.

Considering the tremendous increase in the opportunities for wrong-doing, the seductive and refined temptations, and the materialistic appeals that are incident to our present mode of life, and the material comforts which invention and commerce have made possible, I believe that the manner in which the ethical development of the people has kept pace with

their progress in other directions may fairly be called extraordinary.

In saying this, I am not at all unmindful of how far short we come of an ideal state of society. On the contrary, existing evils are the more noticeable, because they stand out in strong contrast to the desires and aspirations of the people. We have had disclosures of shocking infidelity to trust and to public obligation, but more important than the evil disclosed was the attitude of the people toward it. Individuals' shortcomings are many, but the moral judgment of the community is keen and severe.

To-day the American people are more alive to the importance of impartial and honorable administration than ever before. They do not simply discuss it; they demand it. While in many communities administration is controlled in the selfish interest of a few to the detriment of the people, that which is more characteristic of our present political life is the determination that selfish abuse of governmental machinery shall stop.

Let there be no vague fears about the outcome. I place full confidence in the sobriety and integrity of motive of the American