Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/304

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EMINENT LIBERALS OUT OF PARLIAMENT.

need not myth and fable to add aught to the fresh and gladdening feeling with which we for the first time tread the soil and drink in the air of the immemorial democracy of Uri. It is one of the opening days of May; it is the morning of Sunday, for men there deem that the better day the better deed. They deem that the Creator cannot be more truly honored than in using in his fear and in his presence the highest of the gifts which he has bestowed on man. But deem not, that, because the day of Christian worship is chosen for the great yearly assembly of a Christian commonwealth, the more direct sacred duties of the day are forgotten. Before we in our luxurious island have lifted ourselves from our beds, the men of the mountains—Catholic and Protestant alike—have already paid the morning worship in God's temple. They have heard the mass of the priest, or they have listened to the sermon of the pastor, before some of us have awakened to the fact that the morn of the holy day has come. And when I saw men thronging the crowded church, or kneeling, for want of space within, on the bare ground beside the open door; and, when I saw them marching thence to do the highest duties of men and citizens, I could hardly forbear thinking of the saying of Holy Writ, that 'where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.'

"From the market-place of Altdorf, the little capital of the canton, the procession makes its way to the place of meeting at Bozlingen. First marches the little army of the canton, an army whose weapons never can be used save to drive back an invader from their land. Over their heads floats the banner, the bull's head of Uri, the ensign which led the men to victory on the fields of Sempach and Morgarten; and before them all,