ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES 23 tion is otherwise engaged, to commit his country to the old course of folly; or until some colonial Cleon may, to effect his own mean purposes, succeed in inducing the colonists to sever themselves from their ancestral heritage. Fervent aspirations are felt in the colonies as well as in England for a happy continuance of union. It should be easy to maintain what so many millions desire. But man is more potent for evil than for good. Eepresentative assemblies tolerate any conduct of their leader until they have, for their own purposes, determined to be rid of him ; and mischief is often done, of which few at the time approve, and which not many have thought about at all. We ought to be wiser than our forefathers by reason of their experience, but it is to be questioned whether we are. Nay, to the extent to which material science makes men proud, some of them are so much less wise than their fore- fathers, that they would plunge back into the moral chaos which preceded Christianity. A people which builds its hopes only on material progress may prosper for a time, but the severest punishment which can be dealt to it is to allow it to obtain its end. Without patriotism, without honour, and without real friends, it will sink into a state which will enable the strong man to take away the goods to obtain which it devoted its energies. Evertere domos totas, optantibus ipsis, Difaciles. Englishmen, at home or abroad, who love their country, cannot but tremble for her future, if they see patriotism discarded in favour of sordid calculations of gain. If to be cosmopolitan be to have no ties of natural affection, and if nationality is to be cast off as a worn-out garment unfitted for the nineteenth century, the creature which will be left will be but the dregs of an Englishman, and the citizen of the world will be of a lower order than one whose joys "imprint the patriot passion on the heart." While the German race, our kindred of the past, have yearned so intensely for a United Germany, and have wreaked their yearning into deeds ; while our immediate kindred at Washington have freely cast upon the national altar the wealth which their decriers taunted them for worshipping; while other nations give signs of similar fervour, — England has been openly counselled to throw off
