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peoples' ships in the Gulf of Mexico or elsewhere. Their seamen protect themselves by good habits, and are, therefore, not unlike ladies, everywhere respected. Their history is, indeed, a beautiful little chapter in the book of civil liberty. But this picture would fade like flowers when touched by winter frost, if they should lose their sweet liberty by annexation or subjection. Their blessed neutrality induces to the hope, that the towns where the Atlantic telegraph taps the land, may be, in the course of time, declared neutral, and become something like Hanse towns.

It is good that there are some republics left in Europe, to serve as precedents.

LETTER XXIII.

Morals. Virtues and Vices. - Material of History, Arts, Novels, Dramas, Tragedies. - Washington. Citizen Government. - Military Govern ment. Priest Government. - Mexico. The Canadas. - British Northwest Territory. - The Lord's Prayer. Conclusion.

I AM afraid I have often dwelled too long in the preceding letters upon the social moral influence of state institutions, and, indeed, all my aim has been to induce people and their public men to realize by them exclusively, justice, the first of all virtues ; but left it to you and my readers to find out exactly what it is. Every unselfish, sensible man may learn this first by his own experience, reason, and conscience; and secondly, from the precepts of religion, the narratives of history, and the example and history of good and bad men. What is right the law tells. Being but men, and not angels, we are not destined to absolute moral perception; and to this state it must be attributed that in conformity with a dualism pervading the whole known creation, two kinds of forces are eternally at work in our life, which influence our actions and mould our destiny. To facilitate the memory of them I have put them down in parallel. Those of a more plastic nature have been beautifully personified by the ancients. It is perhaps superfluous to add that the virtues are promotive of content and happiness, and the vices, of disappointment and misery in individuals and states. This is our inexorable fate. Good

and bad deeds are recorded in the book of time with indelible ink. From the judgment of conscience there is no appeal, no pardon. The remorse of a bad deed remains for ever. Read then :

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The just man combines within himself all virtues. He, according to St. Paul,* needs no law, no state. Such a man was George Washington. He was just to mankind and to himself. thought that in our age society may derive from the citizen government what neither military nor priest government have brought, viz., justice. He had a firm faith in his cause and a just God.

Let me now conclude these letters. If they should only convince those who take a sincere interest in our public affairs, that in our time the good management of the municipal affairs is infinitely more important for the true welfare of society than diplomacy, with her eternal wily intrigues for power and conquest, I should feel satisfied.

*The passage in question reads thus: "But we know that the law [state] is good, if a man use it lawfully; knowing this that the law [state] is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for the sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for those that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine."

Reform of public corruption must begin near home. Great events are ripening before our doors. Mexico is fast collapsing. The Canadas and British Northwest provinces are daily gaining in importance. They will form free states, either separate or united with us. But will they desire a union under present aspects? Time will answer this question, not I.

"It is righteousness which exalteth a nation." We are free to choose the roads to order, peace, and happiness, or to anarchy, war, and misery.

Before you lay the book aside, please peruse once more its preface. I there maintain that a state institution is either the most powerful agent to promote the sense of honesty and justice, the mother of public virtue, or the most effective machinery to sow the seeds of vice, from which public corruption springs up, broadcast over the land. I have tried in this book to show how the latter may be prevented, that this institution may not be furthermore abused anywhere for fraud, peculation, and corrupting contrivances of all kinds, counteracting and neutralizing the influence of the church, school, and home education.

I must confess that one of my leading ideas was derived from a petition in the Lord's prayer, "Lead us not into temptation," applied to statesmen, politicians, and their parties generally. People nowhere should tempt them with other business than the realization of justice; because this, and nothing else, will prevent public corruption, as much as it can be done. Sapienti sat.

Contribute, then, your mite to the honor of our great and beautiful country. ADIEU.

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