certainty and near advent, of a universal Millennium, or reign of
Freedom, Equality, Fraternity, wherein man should be the brother of man,
and sorrow and sin flee away? Not bread to eat, nor soap to wish with;
and the reign of perfect Felicity ready to arrive, due always since
the Bastille fell! How did our hearts burn within us, at that Feast
of Pikes, when brother flung himself on brother's bosom; and in sunny
jubilee, Twenty-five millions burst forth into sound and cannon-smoke!
Bright was our Hope then, as sunlight; red-angry is our Hope grown now,
as consuming fire. But, O Heavens, what enchantment is it, or devilish
legerdemain, of such effect, that Perfect Felicity, always within arm's
length, could never be laid hold of, but only in her stead Controversy
and Scarcity? This set of traitors after that set! Tremble, ye traitors;
dread a People which calls itself patient, long-suffering; but which
cannot always submit to have its pocket picked, in this way,--of a
Millennium!

Yes, Reader, here is a miracle. Out of that putrescent rubbish of
Scepticism, Sensualism, Sentimentalism, hollow Machiavelism, such
a Faith has verily risen; flaming in the heart of a People. A whole
People, awakening as it were to consciousness in deep misery, believes
that it is within reach of a Fraternal Heaven-on-Earth. With longing
arms, it struggles to embrace the Unspeakable; cannot embrace it, owing
to certain causes.--Seldom do we find that a whole People can be said
to have any Faith at all; except in things which it can eat and handle.
Whensoever it gets any Faith, its history becomes spirit-stirring,
note-worthy. But since the time when steel Europe shook itself
simultaneously, at the word of Hermit Peter, and rushed towards the
Sepulchre where God had lain, there was no universal impulse of Faith
that one could note. Since Protestantism went silent, no Luther's voice,
no Zisca's drum any longer proclaiming that God's Truth was not the
Devil's Lie; and the last of the Cameronians (Renwick was the name of
him; honour to the name of the brave!) sank, shot, on the Castle Hill
of Edinburgh, there was no partial impulse of Faith among Nations. Till
now, behold, once more this French Nation believes! Herein, we say,
in that astonishing Faith of theirs, lies the miracle. It is a Faith
undoubtedly of the more prodigious sort, even among Faiths; and will
embody itself in prodigies. It is the soul of that world-prodigy named
French Revolut