out
disturbance. If the people continue to act thus, their hopes cannot be
baffled.

The American in Europe would fain encourage the hearts of these
long-oppressed nations, now daring to hope for a new era, by reciting
triumphant testimony from the experience of his own country. But we
must stammer and blush when we speak of many things. I take pride
here, that I may really say the liberty of the press works well, and
that checks and balances naturally evolve from it, which suffice to
its government. I may say, that the minds of our people are alert,
and that talent has a free chance to rise. It is much. But dare I
say, that political ambition is not as darkly sullied as in other
countries? Dare I say, that men of most influence in political life
are those who represent most virtue, or even intellectual power? Can
I say, our social laws are generally better, or show a nobler insight
into the wants of man and woman? I do indeed say what I believe, that
voluntary association for improvement in these particulars will be the
grand means for my nation to grow, and give a nobler harmony to the
coming age. Then there is this cancer of slavery, and this wicked war
that has grown out of it. How dare I speak of these things here? I
listen to the same arguments against the emancipation of Italy, that
are used against the emancipation of our blacks; the same arguments in
favor of the spoliation of Poland, as for the conquest of Mexico.

How it pleases me here to think of the Abolitionists! I could never
endure to be with them at home; they were so tedious, often so narrow,
always so rabid and exaggerated in their tone. But, after all, they
had a high motive, something eternal in their desire and life; and, if
it was not the only thing worth thinking of, it was really something
worth living and dying for, to free a great nation from such a blot,
such a plague. God strengthen them, and make them wise to achieve
their purpose!

I please myself, too, with remembering some ardent souls among the
American youth, who, I trust, will yet expand and help to give soul to
the huge, over-fed, too-hastily-grown-up body. May they be constant!
"Were man but constant, he were perfect." It is to the youth that Hope
addresses itself. But I dare not expect too much of them. I am not
very old; yet of those who, in life's morning, I saw touched by
the light of a high hope, many have seceded. Some have become
voluptuaries; some mere family men, who t