THOUGHTS ON POLITICAL MORALITY.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 6, Issue 337, 25 November 1862, Page 2

THOUGHTS ON POLITICAL MORALITY.

A LKCTUEE DELIVERED AT DttffEDlN BY MAJOB BICHABDSOK 10 THE TOUSe MEN'S CHBIBTIAW ASSOCIATION. (Concluded fr&m our last.) Of all who offend against the code of political morality, there is not one that is with more justice, exposed to severest animadversion than he who panders to the prejudices of the populace, or f awns like the sycophant at the seat of rank and power. It is a species of moral prostitution, deserving the reprehension of every honest mind —a lowering the dignity of man to the most menial and servile position. In this country, and under present circumstances, we are not likely to know much of the last-mentioned class of unmanly, cringing servility ; but we are the more exposed on that account to those influences which are in exercise when the electoral power is almost within the reach of every man. I know not which I most fear and dislike— the despotism of a democracy, or the tyranny of an autocracy. Their end is the same — the silence of the tomb where freedom has expired. Where the despotism of a monarch or of the nobles of the land prevails there still remain the elements of hope in the recognition and assertion by the people of the power which emanates from themselves, but of which they have been despoiled ; but the despotism of a democracy scarcely admits of a cure. Each appears, as by a law. of nature, to terminate in the other. When the wild surgings of democracy have attained their height, and the human family is in the lowest stage of degradation, then there emerges from the wreck some predominant power which assumes the form of a military despotism, and the opposite extreme is reached. On the other hand, when oppression has spurned and crushed the people whom the Monarch was elevated to protect and nourish, an universal uprising vindicates humanity ; and it is fortunate indeed if the power is not transferred from a despot to a mob. It is just and wise that retributive action should overtake the crime of injustice and the madness of folly. When Monarchs forsake the paths of righteousness, they evoke a spirit that is the destined instrument of their punishment. The Magna Charta of England was the result of an uprising of the nobles of the land against the usurpation of a king : and the foundations of the Commonwealth were laid amid the ruins of the aristocratic and wealthy classes, who loyally, but unjustly, supported a traitor king in his base designs against his subjects. That country and kingdom alone are safe which metes out equal justice to all ; through whose remote provinces and districts the life blood flows with unabated vigour, and in every part of which may be seen that verdure and prosperity which are the surest indications of an impartial administration. Let but the opposite course prevail, and the paralysis of the extremities will recoil upon the centre, and the arterial blood will lose all its restorative and invigorating elements. Seek we examples 1 They rise to our view oa every side. The American colonies, once the 'brightest jewel in the British diadem-, were alienated through the tyrannous oppression of the parent state. The United States tells us, in the blood of her citizens, that amid the other causes of the present deplorable fratricidal war a protective tariff, enacted for the advantage of the northern manufacturers, through increasing the cost of foreign productions, cripples the resources of the Southern producer, by decreasing the value of the raw material which he raises. Cross over to the continent of Europe and witness in the discomfiture, bankruptcy, and decrepitude, of Austria, the legitimate offspring of the gross neglect and debasing tyranny exhibited by her towards Hungary and the Italian States, now hers no more. Visit the far North, and amid the incendiary conflagrations of every city and town throughout the length and breadth of Russia, aud the all prevailing disaffection among her nobles and her serfs, you may learn that human endurance has its limits, and though it cannot assert its manhood in the embattled plain against the serried ranks of a despotism, tutored to blind obedience, it has learned from the crawling worm to turn on him who treads on it. In France, the. native soil of the despot and of revolution, we see a high spirited and chivalrous people prostrate in the dust before a gigantic system of military organization, defiling in the hour of a temporary success the garments of liberty, by the intoxication which is ever the certain accompaniment of a sudden triumph ; and then again, writhing in the grip of power only to collapse in the silence of the tomb, or to wear, in moody sullenness, the livery of disgrace, feeding meanwhile on the husks of hope which the remote future may perchance cast before them. Time would fail me, were I illustratively to dwell at any length on the political immorality which preceded and accompanied the rise, progress and termination of that bloody episode in European existence, the French Kevolution— its tale^ of horror is too familiar to every, mind. Well might Burke in reviewing the early history of this sanguinary period exclaim— -"The age of chivalry is gone. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart which kept alive, even- in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nationsj the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which en« I nobled whatever it touched, and under which vice lost half its evil, by loosing all its grossness." It is a fearful crisis in the history of a people, when it may be recorded of it in the language of i the inspired apostle reviewing the darkest. period of heathen degradation — " That as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God^ave i them to a reprobate mind," and who, " knowing the judgment of God, that they who do such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." Drunk with the blood of the saints who perished on the fatal St. Bartholomew's day, no wonder that, later in her history, a cold relentless persecution, after having " snorted away, the fumes of the blood of the sovereign," folio wed with the guillotine all that was lovely and virtuous in theland,

of every age and every sex, in every province and every department, until, satiated with the satanic orgies, if such gluttony of -human life could.be satiated, it- called on the very streams and rivers to aid in the universal and indiscriminate slaughter, and which, less cruel than the ferocious ministers of evil, received them in their cold embraces, and allowed them to find a dwelling place in the depth of their tranquil bosoms, ■where the wicked, cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. Oh ! if there ever was a scene that could make angels weep and devils rejoice, it was pourtrayed when a once gallant nation, renowned equally in the paths of peace, the walks of science, and the deeds of daring, after having exterminated all that was lovely and of good report in the land, impiously reached aloft its gory head to drag from His Throne, the Majesty of Heaven'; when by a solemn decree, if solemnity can accompany such acts of insanity, it deliberately by an express edict, abolished Christianity, and raised an altar for the glorification of all that was vile and all that was contaminating, and when for fear the moral and intellectual poison might, in the succession of ages, lose its virus, it made an academical arrangement for the transmission to posterity of that inheritance of woe, a moral and intellectual atJteism. It may be that, in the merciful dispensations of Him who keepeth not his anger for ever, the generation which participated in these fearful scenes may, by their sufferings, have expiated their crimes : but the reflecting observer will no doubt perceive, in plumbing the depths of French society, that though the volcano is silent it is not extinct ; that tremulous vibrations remind us of an internal activity, which may at any moment clothe the lovely plains in the sable garments of mourning. True it is that, suited to the genius of the nation, her silken chains and gilded manacles do not offend the eye ; that unlike tbe children of Israel in their captivity, she does not hang her harp upon the willows, wheu her memory fondly travels back to the France of other days": but no less true is it, that the liberty only worthy of the name — the liberty of thought — is denied her, and the aspirations of freedom, even though scarce whispered in the ear, are checked, while a military depotism, with the bayonet at her breast, assures her that she is free. It may be that the period of punishment is passed, and the present is the time of probation and tuition, for — God move in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform, He plants his footsteps on the sea, And rides upon the storm. But whatever may bs the ultimate design in the present abject position of France, we cannot but recognise it as an evidence that political immorality is pregnant with the most fearful evils, the influence of which may reach to generations yet unborn. It is not for man to mete out the guilt of his fellows ; to oue who seeth not as man seeth, he will stand or fall, but in the hour when impartial justice will be administered, guided by unerring wisdom, it may be that the sanguinary actors in tbat political Acaldema will receive a milder sentence than they who, by depriving them of their rights drove them, or by an iniidei philosophy beguiled them, into the perpetration of those deeds of darkness. To these will be ascribed, not only the crime of origination, but all the accumulated horrors which followed, in ghastly array, in its train. I know not how adequately to characterize that infringement of the laws of political morality which is manifested in the voluntary abdication, by the educated and wealthy classes, of the power and influence which their position entitles and qualifies them to exercise. When the evils which the tide sweeps in on the opening of the flood gates of democracy overtake them, they will have only themselves to blame for the devastation which envelopes them ; and, not only is the injury great as regards themselves, but they have committed a grievous wrong against humanity, for the recoil of democratic institutions tells most heavily against the very classes which it is their duty by a wise and just legislation to protect. The possession of wealth aud educated intelligence is a power committed to their charge by an overruling Providence, to be used in accordance with the immutable principles of rectitude, and must not be laid -aside because it cannot be made to subserve private interests or peculiar views. It is almost impossible to calculate the result of such a voluntary abdication of power. If we go to a neighbouring colony, where universal suffrage is the rule, we cannot fail to recognise at a glance the baneful influence which such a state of things originates. There the possessors of wealth, by having at one time closed the country against settlement, roused the spirit of the class in whom the electoral power is vested, and, if report speak truly, considerable sums of money have been expended, the produce of some invisible and unknown agency, in order to neutralize the apprehended disasters. Whether this foe true or not, there cannot be a question that political immorality abounds where power is disassociated from intelligence and property, its natural accompaniments. If it were necessary to indicate the individual resulting evils, the task would not be a difficult one. It has been truly said of democracy that it is impatient of taxation, and that it prefers any amount of infamy to the burthen of a tax, however light. It requires no prescience to foretell on whom the tax will fall when the necessity for its imposition arises. During the fearful struggle in which Britain was engaged with France under the first Napoleon, while she used to the utmost the marvellous power of borrowing, which her commercial credit enabled her to exercise, her war taxes were heavj and oppressive. In the struggle now going on among the States of America, a gigantic debt, supposed to be one fourth of that incurred by Great Britain through a long series of years, has been accumulated in a few short months ; and the source whence it was obtained being exhausted, the Northern States have now to have recourse to a system of taxation of which the very enumeration of the articles makes the taxburthened Briton stand aghast. We have yet to see the reception the tax-gatherer will meet in his domiciliary visitations. The hand of a master mind has sketched the character of democracy with such marvellous skill, and (as passing events evidence), with such prophetic foresight, that I cannot do better than place his representation

before you. De Tocqueville, himself a witness of what he describes, asserts, " That among the immense crowd who, in the United States, take to the career of politics, I met with few men who possess that independence of thought, that manly candour which characterized the Americans in their war of independence. You would say, on the contrary, that all their minds are formed on the same model, so exactly do they adopt the same opinions. I have sometimes met with true patriotism among the people, but rarely among the rulers. This is easily explained. Supreme power ever corrupts and depraves its servants before it has irrevocably tainted its possessors. The courtiers in America do not indeed say, " Save your Majesty "—mighty difference — but they speak without intermission of the natural intelligence of their many headed sovereign ; they attribute to him every virtue and capacity under heaven ; they do not give him their wives and daughters to make his mistresses, but, by sacrificing their opinions, they prostitute themselves to his service. What revolts the mind of an European in America, is, not the extreme liberty which prevails, but the slender guarantee which exists against tyranny. When a man or a party suffers in the United States from injustice on the part of the majority, to whom is he to apply for redress? To public opinion? It is formed by the majority: To the Legislative body? It is elected by the majority. To a jury?" It is the judicial committee of a majority. To the Executive power ? It is appointed by the majority, and is the mere executor of its wishes. How cruel or unjust soever may be the stroke which injures you, redress is impossible, and submission unavoidable. I know no country in which there is so little true independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in America. The majority raises such formidable barriers to liberty of opinion that it is impossible to pass them ; within them an author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever steps beyond them. In democratic states, organised on the principle of the American Republic, the authority of the majority is so absolute, so irresistible, that a man must give up his rights as a citizen, and almost abjure his quality as a human being, if he means to stray from the track which it lays down. If ever, therefore, the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event will arise from the unlimited tyranny of this majority ; anarchy will be the result, but it will have been brought about by despotism." I So important do I consider a right apprehension of this branch of our subject, that you will. I am i sure, pardou me for laying before you what has been wisely aud beautifully said by Burke on the same point. "Do not," he says, " imagine that I wish to confine power, authority, and distinction, to blood and names and titles. No, sir. There is no qualification for Government but virtue and wisdom, actual or presumptive. Wherever they are actually found, they have, in whatever state, conditiou, profession, or trade, the passport of heaven to human place and honor. Woe to the country which would madly and impiously reject the service of the talents and virtues, civil, military, or religious, that are given it to grace and serve, and would condemn to obscurity everything formed to diffuse lustre and glory around a slate. Woe to that country that, passing into the opposite extreme, considers a low education, a mean contacted view of things, a sordid mercenary occupation, as a preferable title to command. Ido not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power from obscure condition ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. The temple of honor ought to be set on an eminence, if it be opened through virtue. Let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never to be tried but by- some difficulty and some struggle. Nothiug is a due and adequate representation of a state that does not represent its ability as well as its property." I feel that there is a masculine vigor and a lofty elevation of sentiment in these words that needs no commendation. But let us not in our just aversion to the overflowings of democracy forget that there are rights which it n dangerous to trifle with, and which it is wise and only just to recognise; and that the surest and only way to retain power in the hands of the educated classes is by the exhibition of a justice which will bear the closest scrutiny, and by an administrative action which is beyond suspicion. There is a natural deference to worth and intelligence implanted in man, by One who does all things wisely, and when this is supplanted by another feeling it may be safely said that the fine gold has become dimmed by a contravention of a natural law. But how shall we sufficiently reprobate that recreant spirit which voluntarily abdicates the position which nature has accorded to the educated class, which, because its duties are severe, and may be unpleasant, retires from the conflict and absorbs itself in the more honorable occupation of money making. The element of democracy has been allowed to enter into the electoral and legislative bodies, and it will not so much as handle the polluted thing. I know not what to say of the conduct of such. The language of severity has not edge keen enough for such recreancy, and I feel almost tempted to exclaim, " Thy money perish with thee." If there be any fear of the cultivated intelligence of this country being jostled from its lawful position, it is their duty, like honest men and true, to stand in the gap, and endeavor to arrest the whelming tide ; but if they shrink from the contest, if they refuse to exercise their beneficial influence, then let them remember that in the howlings of the tempest they forsook the helm, and now that the vessel of state tosses helplessly and hopelessly upon the raging waters, that they alone are responsible for the wreck that will ere long be engulphed. There is a principle of political immorality which cannot be too strongly reprobated; it has been expressed thus : " You know the consequences you want, find out a principle to justify them." It is this principle which actuated the religious controversialists of a past generation, who resorted to the Scriptures, not to learn the will of God, but as to an armoury where they would obtain weapons to repel and overthrow their adversaries. Some who have been actuated by nobler principles, have been unjustly aspersed as acting under the influence of this false morality — experience, observation, increased knowledge, and reflection have modified their views, and while honestly acting up to their convictions,

they have been exposed to the suspicion of seeking for principles to justify a foregone conclusion. We might adduce as an illustration, the case of Sir Robert Peel, who, in the language of his bitterest opponent, may be regarded as having been placed in " an age of rapid civilization and rapid transition, and who adapted the practical character of his measures to the condition of the times." I know not what may be the opinion of others, but the character of Sir Robert Peel has ever endeared itself to my affection and esteem. Well might Lord John Russell declare of him — " that Peel always acted from the purest, the noblest, and most honorable principles ; " and the Duke, in his homely language, affirms " that Peel always spoke the truth." He has been justly described as " never having employed hia influence for factious purposes, and never having been stimulated in his exertions by a disordered desire of obtaining office," and " whether in or out of office, of having done his best to make the settlement of the constitution of England, work for the benefit of the present generation. Avoiding violence himself, and disliking its exhibition in his supporters, he never lost the respect of the Whigs, and was invariably treated by them with deferential regard." I cannot refrain from alluding to an incident in his life, -which has been recorded by D'lsraeli himself, as the " Canning episode," but which may more appropriately be designated as the punishment of slander. The Champion of Protection had decided on a fierce attack on the ministry of which Sir Robert Peel was the head, in order to prevent the repeal of the Corn Laws. The Irish Coercion Bill offered Lord Bentinck and D'lsraeli their only chance, and a vilification of Sir Robert Peel was the weapon offence. Lord George commenced the attack by accusing Sir Robert of hsiving hunted Mr. Canning to death, in 1527, on the Catholic Emancipation question, while, as they stated, in 1825. Sir Robert and Mr. Canning were of one mind on the question. This was the charge ; and not only were the vials of wrath poured out on the head of Sir Robert, but those who followed in his wake in advocating the repeal of the Corn Laws — men of renown, were branded as "paid janissaries" and "renegades." This imputation of personal dishonour was at once satisfactorily disposed of, amid the enthusiastic cheers of the House. But the end was not 3-et. On a future night D'lsraeli, who had been brooding over the mischief, returned to the charge, came to the rescue of his leader, and, under the shallow and heartless pretence of vindicating his friend, renewed the assault by the most deliberate and measured approaches, covering his advance by all the enginery of biting sarcasm and malignant invective that a mind capacious of such things could produce — and, to the shame of the manhood of England's country gentlemen, that impassioned and envenomed orator, the self-elected advocate of Protection, was received with frantic applause, and resumed his seat amidst tremendous cheering. Sir Robert, in reply, calmly claimed the indulgence of the House while he rebutted the groundless attack ; and he challenged the production of a document upon which his assailants laid great stress ; but it was not till some days after, with the sympathies of the House in his favour — for the sympathy of the generous hearted is ever ready to encourage a manly repel] ant — he resumed his defence. Step by step he demolished the sophistical cobwebs that malignity had woven around him, amid the silence of the opposite camp, so lately jubilant, while triumphant cheers pealed forth from his own ranks, which never doubted the honor of their chief, as the sun of truthfulness sprung undimmed from behind the frowning clouds that had enveloped it. Demolishing D'lsraeli's main argument, a confident reference to the Times of seventeen years' date, Sip Robert calmly asks, " There were four other papers : as you hunted up the report in the Times, I ask the question, did you see the others? If you did, why did you not, in common honesty, admit the discrepancy they exhibit 1 " There was a pause, but no reply ; the personal honor of the minister was triumphantly vindicated ; the noblest testimony was borne by members high in the estimation of the House to the completeness of the refutation ; and the crest-fallen slanderer retired humiliated from the scene, without sufficient nobility of mind to acknowledge his error, aud to brood in silence over as crushing a defeat as ever calumny had received at the hands of virtue. In March, 1846, on the debate on the Corn Importation Bill, we find Sir Robert, anticipating his political downfall to be at hand, concludes thus: — "I am not surprised to hear honorable members predict that my tenure of power is short. This measure being once passed, you on this side and on that side of the House may adopt what measures you may think proper to terminate my political existence. I assure you I deplore the loss of your confidence much more than I deplore the loss of political power. Every man has within his own bosom and conscience the scales which determine the real weight of reproach - T and if I had acted from any corrupt or unworthy motives, one tenth part of the accusations you have levelled against me would have been fatal to my peace and my existence. When I do fall I shall have the satisfaction of reflecting that_ I do not fall because I have shown any subserviency to a party ; and I shall carry with me the satisfaction of reflecting that during the course of my official career, my object has been to mitigate monopoly, to increase the demand for industry, to. remove restrictions upon commerce, to equalise the burden of taxation, and to ameliorate the condition of those that labor." On the 24th of June, 1846, on finally retiring from office, he concludes with these noble words : — "Within a few hours, probably that power which I have held for a period of five years, will be surrendered into the hands of another — without repining — without complaint on my part — with a more lively recollection of the support and confidence I have received during several years, than of the opposition which, during a recent period, I have encountered. In relinquishing power, I shall leave a name, severely censured I fear, by many, who, on public grounds, deeply lament that severance, not from interested or personal motives, but from the firm conviction that fidelity to party engagements — the existence arid maintenance of a great party— constitutes a powerful instrument of Government; I shall surrender power severely oensured also by others who from interested motives, adhere to the prin-

ciple of protection, considering the maintenance of it to be essential to the welfare and interests of the country. I sliall leave a name execrated by every monopolist, ?vho, from less Iwnourable motives, clamors for protection because it conduces to his own individual benefit ; but, it tnay be tliat 1 shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good will in tlte abodes of tltose w/iose lot it is to labour and to earn tJieir daily bread by tlte sweat of the brow, when they sliall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened by a sense of injustice." Within four years of an honest, impartial opposition — and within forty yeaT3 of his being a distinguished member of the House of Commons, Sir Eobert Peel was laid in the silent grave amid the profoundest admiration, and universal tribute of respect. Men felt when they heard their loss, that they had lost a brother ; and even now, when years have passed over the last days of that noble statesman, the eye dims with the recollection of the unvarying constancy with which, amid the estrangement of friends whom he loved, he paused not on the path of political martyrdom until he had gained bis noble end. And truly may it be said that he has attained his fondest wish, a name not sometimes, but often remembered with expressions of good-will in the übodos of those whose lot it is to labor — for "the paths of the just are blessed". He forsook all to follow truth, and a crown that a monarch might envy is his reward. Well might Lord John ftussell emphatically say of him, " that this country, now, and posterity hereafter, in reckoning the names of eminent Statesmen, who adorned the anna is of our land, and contributed to its lustre, will place amongst the foremost the name of Sir Kobert Peel."

Foremost among the statesmen of England and of Europe, we may, without fear of contradiction, place the name of William Pitt, of whom it has been said by Chateaubriand, "That while other contemporary reputations, even that of Napoleon, are on the decline, the fame of Mr. Pitt alone is continually increasing, and seems to derive fresh lustre from every vicissitude of fortune." At the early age of 22 he took his seat in the British Parliament, and even then assumed a position with Burke, Fox, and Sheridan in the front rank of debaters, and within two years he attained the pre-emiuence of becoming prime minister, the duties of which office he held continuously for 17 years, and with the exception of three years till the hour of his death in 1804. Time does not permit of passing even rapidly in review the stirring events of that momentous period ; the ablest and most eloquent historic writers have deemed its chief actor a fitting theme for their eulogy ; it may suffice us to glance at a few only of the leading features of Pitt's career. Though at first somewhat disinclined to regard the republican movement in France as injurious to the cause of freedom, he was early awakened to a sense of its inevitable tendencies, and stepped forward to arrest the desolating plague, and avert from Europe the impending calamities. In this course ha never faltered for a moment, but summoned to his aid all that the highest intelligence could devise, and the most energetic will could control. He stood as a beacon to warn, and as a general to rally around his standard the isolated and independently resisting forces of Europe, until there might be seen arrayed against the scourge of the world the united forces of the three great continental powers. The momentum of such a force would then, as it subsequently did, have hurled the despot from his throne ; but the errors of generalship neutralised the genius of the statesman, and the battle of Austerlitz broke at once the power of Europe and the heart of Pitt. Originating at an early period the financial system, which enabled Europe to do battle in defence of freedom, he fostered in his native land, amid the excitement of democratic progress, that genuine love of liberty which is our present inheritance ; and though in the course of the necessary deadly struggle for independence, he created a debt of no less than three hundred millions, he raised this country to a pinnacle of prosperity and glory fmm which she has never descended. Her naval victories under his premiership read more like the fictions of romance than the sober realities of actual existence ; and her revenue, commerce, manufactures, and colonies received an extension and obtained a permanency which would have been more in keeping with a time of profound peace, than a period during which her apparently undivided and concentrated energies were devoted to self-preservation, and to rekindling the expiring torch of a wise and well regulated liberty. The poet's impassioned eloquence is the only fitting vehicle for the expression of our admiration : Nor mourn ye less his perished worth, Who bade the conqueror go forth • And launch'd that thuuderbolt of war On Egypt, Hamia, Trafalgar; Who, born to guide such high Emprise For Britain's weal was early wise ; Alas ! to whom the Almighty gave For Britain's sins an early graye — His worth, who in his mightiest hour A bauble held the pride of power ; Spurned at the sordid lust of pelf, And served his Albion for herself— Who, when the frantic crowd amain, Strained at subjection's bursting chain O'er their wild mood full conquest gained The pride he would not orush, restrained ; Showed their fierce zeal a worthier cause, And brought the freeman's arm to aid the free. man's cause. Hadst thou but lived, though stripped of power, A watchman on the lonely tower— Thy thrilling trump had roused the laud. When fraud or danger were at haud ; By thee, as by the beacon light. Our pilots had kept course aright— • As some proud column though alone. Thy strength had propped the tottering throne. Now is tho stately column broke, The beacon-light ia quenched in. smoke. The trumpet's silver sound ia still. The warder silent on the hill. Oh ! think how to bis latest day, When death, just hovering, claimed his prey; With Palinure's unaltered mood. Firm at his dangerous post he stood; Each call for needful rest repell'd, With dying hand the rudder held: Till in his fall, with fateful sway, . The steerage of the realm gave way. When Europe crouch'd to France's yoke, And Austria bent, and Prussia broke, And the firm Russian's purpose brave, . Was bartered by a timorous slave; — E'en then dishonor's peace he spurn'd. The sullied olive branch returned; . Stood for his country's glory fast, And nailed her colors to the mast. We may indeed fear that England will not see his like again. It has been said of him that

while millions flowed through his hands, he himself died poor. His personal disinterestedness was so marked, that even his political enemies found in it the theme of a warm admiration. His noble nature could not draw nurture from the life's blood of his bleeding country. Such was Pitt in his life ; but it is in his death that we may read "the moving principle of his action. Let me then ask you to step aside for a short time longer from the turmoil - and strife of the world, and accompany me to the chamber and couch of the dying patriot statesman. .England had but just wept over the remains of one of her noblest sons, the immortal Nelson, when a shaft from an unerring bow winged its way to the bosom of her Heaven-born minister. Truly has it been said of those who stood in the foreground of England's history, that there were " giants in those days," and of. him whom we speak it may be said, that of all that constitutes indomitable courage, lofty intelligence, and deathless patriotism (as was said in another sense of Saul), " that there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier.person than he : from his shoulder, upwards, he was higher than any of the people." But Death is no respecter of persons ; his impartial scythe alike lays low the tender bud and the perfect flower. He whose very name caused a tyrant to tremble on his throne, and to whom prostrate nations looked as to a last hope, was on the threshold .of eternity — nobles hastened to his door to learn the latest tidings, and royal messengers returned breathless with their tales of woe ; while in the chamber of death itself, affectionate solicitude suppressed its bursting sobs and gazed on in. solemn silence, and in unutterable woe. Draw near and listen to the incoherent utterings of the stricken patient, — note that look of angelic tenderness which even in the throes or death tells of a soul alive to the tenderesfc emotions — mark that radiant smile supplanted by a look of saddened intelligence, as the sunlight is obscured by the flying cloud ; stoop low, and catch the last lingering utterance of the departing hero, as he passes the confines of time and steps into eternity, " Oh, my country, how I love my country." And what is the lesson that I desire we should read from this solemn scene ? It is this : That, with. the elements which equip the statesman for the battle of life, he is still unfitted for the warfare unless his soul is absorbed with the love of his country ; this it is which breathes life into the marble statue — this is " the altar which sanctifies the gift," without which, .as the Christian without charity, he i 3 but "as the tinkling cymbal and the sounding brass. I have now done, and . I know not whether I shall be overstepping the bounds within which those who have the privilege of addressing you should confine their observations, if, in conclusion, I say a few words with reference to the course you should pursue in connection with the subject we have been considering ; but this I know, that you, who are now in the spring- tide of youth, will not take unkindly the suggestions of one over whom the shades of autumn have prevailed, but !who.still looks forward with deep interest and no -considerable anxiety to the future of the home of his adoption. You have already, in the Association you have formed, indicated your earnest desire to Jiold fast to the profession of your faith without wavering ; your solicitude mutually to strengthen each other's hands in the promotion of Gospel truth, and the exhibition of Gospel morality ; and your resolution to combat the infidelity of the day by a more faithful adherence to the truths which have been handed down to us by our forefathers, whose blood was freely shed, and who cheerfully gave their bodie3 to be burnt to leave us as an inheritance, a pure and undefiled Gospel. I need not speak, even had the .subject admitted of my doing- so, of the last exhibition of a soul-destroying heresy, the " Essays and Reviews," the more deadly because presented to us in the golden chalice of a simple and enticing eloquence — deadly, not only because of their glaring and outspoken unbelief, but because of their infusion of the subtlest poison, and their studied. omission of the important and fundamental truths imbedded in every page of inspiration — a libel on Christianity, an outrage on common sense and common honesty, and a burning, brand of shame to the Church, within whose .bosom their . authors are allowed to remain as ministers. of God's truth, as dispensers of His word and. Sacraments. I do not speak of those things, because, as I said, the subject will not admit of my so doing : and because, in course of the present lectures, an abler head than mine will do every justice to the cause of truth ; but I would remind you that beyond the more immediate and direct objects of your Association, there are others which come legitimately within the sphere of your duties, and to which I would earnestly invite your individual attention. There is a tendency in the human mind to contract our vision to objects immediately before us, or extend it so as to rest only on those in the distance. These phases of Christian life are exhibited by some whose devotion is confined simply within the walls of the Church, or the privacy of the family circle; and by others, whose charity overlooking the precincts of home, stretches for- j ward, .to the nations hemmed in by heathen I darkness. . , I plead with you in behalf of that which will be next in your affection to your family circle, the land of your adoption. I ask you to bring the fervor' and open-heartedness which you exhibit elsewhere, and lay them on the altar of your country. ' . ' It is a subject of boasting with some, and of self complacency witn others,, that they do not meddle with politics, but it seems to me like glorying in their, shame. I do. not .oak you to become ; political agitators- 1 -! would , entreat you . to flee from such, but I do ask you to make political subjects your study, to enable you to take your part as good citizens in political life, and to bring your Christian influence to bear upon public morality... , if I know aught of the generous impulses of . youth, i% is not in its nature to. see othem Tearing the heat And burthen of the day ; battling for wiiat, whether rightly or wrongly, they consider to be their country's good, and itself the while to, stand by with listless indifference. Even if it' - were lawful to overlook these obligations, it is expedient, that ..they .should. be f ulfiiled, for it is not possible to over-estimate the baneful influence of a political demoralisation ; it is like the over-

flowing lava ■which leaves desolation in its track — -the shade of the upas tree which carries death in its embrace. We may dwell in fancied security that the circle of its influence will not reach us • but if we neglect our duties, and prove recreants in the day of battle, the whelming wave of national humiliation and sorrow will overtake us. Not Enjoyment and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way ; But to act that each to-morrow, Finds us farther than today. Art is long, and time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and braveStill, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of life ; Be noc like dumb driven cattle, Be a hero in the strife. It may be said that for the statesmen of Britain's outlying domains there may be no prospect of the coroneted brow or the star-decked breast ; but there is a nobility which the humblest may aspire to and the lowliest win. The smile of approving majesty may fade ere it reach these distant provinces, but nothing can rob us of that which monarchs cannot confer, the testimony of a good conscience ; and yet, far from and beyond all this, there is an hour coming when, assembled nations shall stand in solemn silence before a spotless throne, and happy, thrice happy, he — the envy of the proudest monarch who has ever trodden earth's boundless realms, and on whose breath the destiny of millions has depended — to whom it shall then be said, — "Well done thou good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."