AN OBJECT-LESSON
that make the experiment interesting, momentous. The United States is a veritable microcosm: it presents in little all the elements which go to make up a world, and which have hitherto kept the world, almost unintermittently, in a state of battle and bloodshed. There are wide differences of climate and of geographical conditions in the United States, with the resulting conflict of material interest between different regions of the country. There are differences of race and even of language to be overcome, extremes of wealth and poverty to be dealt with. As though to make sure that no factor in the problem of civilisation should be omitted, the men of last century were at pains to saddle their descendants with the burden of the negro—a race incapable of assimilation and yet tenacious of life. In brief, a thousand difficulties and temptations to dissension beset the giant Republic: in so far as it overcomes them, and carries on its development by peaceful methods, it presents a unique and invaluable object-lesson to the world. The idea of unity, annealed in the furnace of the Civil War, has as yet been stronger than all the forces of disintegration; and there is no reason to doubt that it will continue to be so. When France falls out with Germany, or Russia with Turkey, there is nothing save a purely material counting of the cost to hinder them from flying at each other's throats. The abstract humanitarianism of a few individuals is as a feather on the torrent. Such sentiment as comes into play is all on the side of
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