and serious importance, and it seems necessary for me to be present, so that if he tried to work off any statement that required correction, reduction, refutation, or exposure, there would be a tried friend of the public to protect the house.  He has not made one statement whose veracity fails to tally exactly with my own standard.  I have never seen a person improve so.  This makes me thankful and proud of a country that can produce such men—­two such men.  And all in the same country.  We can’t be with you always; we are passing away, and then—­well, everything will have to stop, I reckon.  It is a sad thought.  But in spirit I shall still be with you.  Choate, too—­if he can.

Every born American among the eighty millions, let his creed or destitution of creed be what it may, is indisputably a Christian—­to this degree that his moral constitution is Christian.

There are two kinds of Christian morals, one private and the other public.  These two are so distinct, so unrelated, that they are no more akin to each other than are archangels and politicians.  During three hundred and sixty-three days in the year the American citizen is true to his Christian private morals, and keeps undefiled the nation’s character at its best and highest; then in the other two days of the year he leaves his Christian private morals at home and carries his Christian public morals to the tax office and the polls, and does the best he can to damage and undo his whole year’s faithful and righteous work.  Without a blush he will vote for an unclean boss if that boss is his party’s Moses, without compunction he will vote against the best man in the whole land if he is on the other ticket.  Every year in a number of cities and States he helps put corrupt men in office, whereas if he would but throw away his Christian public morals, and carry his Christian private morals to the polls, he could promptly purify the public service and make the possession of office a high and honorable distinction.

Once a year he lays aside his Christian private morals and hires a ferry-boat and piles up his bonds in a warehouse in New Jersey for three days, and gets out his Christian public morals and goes to the tax office and holds up his hands and swears he wishes he may never—­never if he’s got a cent in the world, so help him.  The next day the list appears in the papers—­a column and a quarter of names, in fine print, and every man in the list a billionaire and member of a couple of churches.  I know all those people.  I have friendly, social, and criminal relations with the whole lot of them.  They never miss a sermon when they are so’s to be around, and they never miss swearing-off day, whether they are so’s to be around or not.