In other quarters they went on disputing and deciding with mutual anathemas the question of transfiguration and many other mysteries, which, being mysteries, constitute the private dominion of belief; but the doctrine of charity none of them disputes; there they all agree; nay, in the idle times of scholastical subtility, they have been quarrelling about the most extravagant fancies of a scorched imagination.  Mighty folios have been written about the problem, how many angels could dance upon the top of a needle without touching each other?  The folly of subtility went so far as to profane the sacred name of God, by disputing if He, being omnipotent, has the power to sin?  If, in the holy wafer, He be present dressed or undressed?  If the Saviour would have chosen the incarnation in the shape of a gourd, instead of a man, how would he have preached, how acted miracles, and how had been crucified?  And when they went to the theme of investigating if it was a whip or a lash with which the angels have whipped St. Jerome for trying to imitate in his writings the pagan Cicero, it was but after centuries that Abbot Cartaut dared to write that if St. Jerome was whipped at all, he was whipped for having badly imitated Cicero.  Still, the doctrine of Christian charity is so sublime in its simplicity, that not even the subtility of scholasticism dared ever to profane it by any controversy, and still that sublime doctrine is not executed, and the religion of charity not realized yet.  The task of this glorious progress is only to be done by a free and powerful nation, because it is a task of action, and not of teaching.  Individual man can but execute it in the narrow compass of the small relations of private life; it is only the power of a nation which can raise it to become a ruling law on earth; and before this is done, the triumph of Christianity is not arrived—­and without that triumph, the freedom and prosperity even of the mightiest nation is not for a moment safe from internal decay, or from foreign violence.

Which is the nation to achieve that triumph of Christianity by protecting justice out of charity?  Which shall do it, if not yours?  Whom the Lord has blessed above all, from whom He much expects, because He has given her much.

Ye Ministers of the Gospel, who devote your lives to expound the eternal truths of the book of life, remember my humble words, and remind those who, with pious hearts, listen to your sacred words, that half virtue is no virtue at all, and that there is no difference in the duties of charity between public and private life.

Ye Missionaries, who devote your lives to the propagation of Christianity, before you embark for the dangers of far, inhospitable shores, remind those whom you leave, that the example of a nation exercising right and justice on earth by charity, would be the mightiest propagandism of Christian religion.

Ye Patriots, loving your country’s future, and anxious about her security, remember the admonitions of history—­remember that the freedom, the power, and the prosperity in which your country glories, is no new apparition on earth; others also had it, and yet they are gone.  The prudence with which your forefathers have founded this commonwealth, the courage with which you develop it, other nations also have shown, and still they are gone.