sacrifices. To this cimeter they
offered sacrifices of horses and cattle, the main wealth of the country,
and more costly sacrifices than to all the rest of their gods. I often
ask myself whether we are at all advanced in one respect beyond those
Scythians. What are our contributions to charity, to education, to
morality, to religion, to justice, and to civil government, when
compared with the wealth we expend in sacrifices to the old cimeter? Two
nights ago I addressed in this hall a vast assembly composed to a great
extent of your countrymen who have no political power, who are at work
from the dawn of the day to the evening, and who have therefore limited
means of informing themselves on these great subjects. Now I am
privileged to speak to a somewhat different audience. You represent
those of your great community who have a more complete education, who
have on some points greater intelligence, and in whose hands reside the
power and influence of the district. I am speaking, too, within the
hearing of those whose gentle nature, whose finer instincts, whose purer
minds, have not suffered as some of us have suffered in the turmoil
and strife of life. You can mould opinion, you can create political
power,--you cannot think a good thought on this subject and communicate
it to your neighbours,--you cannot make these points topics of
discussion in your social circles and more general meetings, without
affecting sensibly and speedily the course which the Government of your
country will pursue. May I ask you, then, to believe, as I do most
devoutly believe, that the moral law was not written for men alone in
their individual character, but that it was written as well for nations,
and for nations great as this of which we are citizens. If nations
reject and deride that moral law, there is a penalty which will
inevitably follow. It may not come at once, it may not come in our
lifetime; but, rely upon it, the great Italian is not a poet only, but a
prophet, when he says--

"The sword of heaven is not in haste to smite,
Nor yet doth linger."

We have experience, we have beacons, we have landmarks enough. We
know what the past has cost us, we know how much and how far we have
wandered, but we are not left without a guide. It is true, we have not,
as an ancient people had, Urim and Thummim--those oraculous gems on
Aaron's breast--from which to take counsel, but we have the unchangeable
and eternal principl