And I shall not speak of my people’s wrongs!  Oh! my people—­thou heart of my heart, thou life of my life—­to thee are bent the thoughts of my mind, and they will remain bent to thee, though all the world may frown.  To thee are pledged all the affections of my heart, and they will be pledged to thee as long as one drop of blood throbs within this heart.  Thine are the cares of my waking hours; thine are the dreams of my restless sleep.  Shall I forget thee, but for a moment!  Never!  Never!  Cursed be the moment, and cursed be I in that moment, in which thou wouldst be forgotten by me!

Thou art oppressed, O my fatherland! because the principles of Christianity have not been executed in practice; because the duties of Christianity have not been fulfilled; because the precepts of Christianity have not been obeyed; because the law of Christianity did not control the policy of nations; because there are many impious governments to offend the law of Christ, but there was none to do the duties commanded by Christ.

Thou art fallen, O my country, because Christianity has yet to come; but it is not yet come—­nowhere!  Nowhere on earth!  And with the sharp eye of misfortune piercing the dark veil of the future, and with the tongue of Cassandria relating what I see, I cry it out to high Heaven, and shout it out to the Earth—­“Nations, proud of your momentary power; proud of your freedom; proud of your prosperity—­your power is vain, your freedom is vain, your industry, your wealth, your prosperity are vain; all these will not save you from sharing the mournful fate of those old nations, not less powerful than you, not less free, not less prosperous than you—­and still fallen, as you yourself will fall—­all vanished as you will vanish, like a bubble thrown up from the deep!  There is only the law of Christ, there are only the duties of Christianity, which can secure your future, by securing at the same time humanity.”

Duties must be fulfilled, else they are an idle word.  And who would dispute that there is a positive duty in that law, “Love thy neighbour as thou lovest thyself.  Do unto others as thou wouldst that others do unto thee.”  Now, if there are duties in that law comprised, who shall execute them, if free and powerful nations do not execute them?  No government can meddle with the private relations of its millions of citizens so much as to enforce the positive virtue of Christian charity, in the thousand-fold complications of private life.  That will be impossible; and our Saviour did not teach impossibilities.  By commanding charity toward fellow-men in human relations, He commanded it also to governments.  It is in their laws toward their own citizens; it is in their policy toward other nations, that governments and nations can fulfil those duties of Christianity; and what they can, that they should.  How could governments hope to see their own citizens and other nations observing toward them the positive duties of Christian morality, when they themselves do not observe them against others; when oppressed nations, the victims, not of their own faults, but of the grossest violation of the law of Christ, look in vain around to find out a nation among Christian nations, and a government among Christian governments, doing unto them, in the hour of their supreme need, as the Saviour said that it is duty to do unto others in every case?