with her
with their wealth, the very notion of public love would long ere now
have vanished from among us. But however general custom may hurry us
away in the stream of a common error, there is no evil, no crime, so
great as that of being cold in matters which relate to the common good.
This is in nothing more conspicuous than in a certain willingness to
receive anything that tends to the diminution of such as have been
conspicuous instruments in our service. Such inclinations proceed from
the most low and vile corruption of which the soul of man is capable.
This effaces not only the practice, but the very approbation of honour
and virtue; and has had such an effect that, to speak freely, the very
sense of public good has no longer a part even in our conversations.
Can then the most generous motive of life, the good of others, be so
easily banished from the breast of man? Is it possible to draw all our
passions inward? Shall the boiling heat of youth be sunk in pleasures,
the ambition of manhood in selfish intrigues? Shall all that is
glorious, all that is worth the pursuit of great minds, be so easily
rooted out? When the universal bent of a people seems diverted from the
sense of their common good and common glory, it looks like a fatality,
and crisis of impending misfortune.

The generous nations we just now mentioned understood this so very well,
that there was hardly an oration ever made which did not turn upon this
general sense, that the love of their country was the first and most
essential quality in an honest mind. Demosthenes, in a cause wherein his
fame, reputation, and fortune were embarked, puts his all upon this
issue: "Let the Athenians," says he, "be benevolent to me, as they think
I have been zealous for them." This great and discerning orator knew
there was nothing else in nature could bear him up against his
adversaries, but this one quality of having shown himself willing or
able to serve his country. This certainly is the test of merit; and the
first foundation for deserving goodwill, is having it yourself. The
adversary of this orator at that time was AEschines, a man of wily arts
and skill in the world, who could, as occasion served, fall in with a
national start of passion, or sullenness of humour (which a whole nation
is sometimes taken with as well as a private man), and by that means
divert them from their common sense, into an aversion for receiving
anything in its true light. But when Demo