are we your neighbours, unto whom you do as you would others in a similar position do unto yourself?  And is every one of my down-trodden people a neighbour to every one of you? but all my people collectively, is it not a neighbour to you?  And is my nation not a neighbour to your nation?  Is my down-trodden land not a neighbour to your down-trodden land?  Oh! my God, men speak of the Christian religion and style themselves Christians, and yet make a distinction between virtue in private life and virtue in public life; as if the divine law of Charity would have been given only for certain small relations, and not for all the relations between men and men.

“There he is again, with his eternal complaints about his country’s wrongs;” may perhaps somebody remark:  “This is an assembly of charity, assembled to ease his private woes of family; and there he is again speaking of his country’s wrongs, and alluding to our foreign policy, about which he knows our views to be divided.”  Thus I may be charged.

My “private family woes!” But all my woes and all the woes of my family, are concentrated in the unwarrantable oppression of my fatherland.  You are an assembly of charity, it is true, and the Almighty may requite you for it; but being a charitable assembly, can you blame me that the filial and fraternal devotion of my heart, in taking with gratitude the balm of consolation which your charity pours into the bleeding wounds of my family, looks around to heal those wounds, the torturing pains of which you ease, but which cannot be cured but by justice and charity done to my fatherland.  Shall this sad heart of mine be contented by leaving to my homeless mother and sisters the means to have their bread by honest labour, their daily bread salted with the bitter tears of exile; and shall I not care to leave them the hope that their misfortune will have an end; that they will see again their beloved home; that they will see it independent and free, and live where their fathers lived, and sleep the tranquil sleep of death in that soil with which the ashes of their fathers mingle?  Shall I not care to give the consolation to my aged mother, that when her soon departing soul, crowned with the garland of martyrdom, looks down from the home of the blessed, the united joy of the heavens will thrill through her immortal spirit, seeing her dear, dear Hungary free?  Your views are divided on the subject, it may be; but can your views be divided upon the subject that it is the command of God to love your neighbours as you love yourselves?  That it is the duty of Christians, that it is the fundamental principle of the Christian religion, to do unto others as you desire others to do unto you?  And if there is, if there can be no difference of opinion in regard to the principle; if no one in this vast assembly—­whatever be the platform of his party—­ever would disclaim this principle, will any one blame me that in the name of Christ I am bold to claim the application of that principle?  I should not speak of politics!  Well, I have spoken of Christianity.  Your politics either agree with the Law of Christ, or they do not agree with it.  If they don’t agree, then your politics are not Christian; and if they agree, then I cause no division among you.