e
in maintaining it.

There is a destiny now possible to us--the highest ever set before a
nation to be accepted or refused. We are still undegenerate in race; a
race mingled of the best northern blood. We are not yet dissolute in
temper, but still have the firmness to govern, and the grace to obey.
We have been taught a religion of pure mercy, which we must either now
betray, or learn to defend by fulfilling. And we are rich in an
inheritance of honour, bequeathed to us through a thousand years of
noble history, which it should be our daily thirst to increase with
splendid avarice, so that Englishmen, if it be a sin to covet honour,
should be the most offending souls alive.[175] Within the last few years
we have had the laws of natural science opened to us with a rapidity
which has been blinding by its brightness; and means of transit and
communication given to us, which have made but one kingdom of the
habitable globe. One kingdom;--but who is to be its king? Is there to
be no king in it, think you, and every man to do that which is right in
his own eyes? Or only kings of terror, and the obscene empires of
Mammon and Belial? Or will you, youths of England, make your country
again a royal throne of kings; a sceptred isle, for all the world a
source of light, a centre of peace; mistress of Learning and of the
Arts;--faithful guardian of great memories in the midst of irreverent
and ephemeral visions;--faithful servant of time-tried principles,
under temptation from fond experiments and licentious desires; and
amidst the cruel and clamorous jealousies of the nations, worshipped in
her strange valour of goodwill toward men?[176]

"Vexilla regis prodeunt."[177] Yes, but of which king? There are the
two oriflammes; which shall we plant on the farthest islands--the one
that floats in heavenly fire, or that hangs heavy with foul tissue of
terrestrial gold? There is indeed a course of beneficent glory open to
us, such as never was yet offered to any poor group of mortal souls.
But it must be--it _is_ with us, now. "Reign or Die." And if it shall
be said of this country, "Fece per viltate, il gran rifiuto,"[178]
that refusal of the crown will be, of all yet recorded in history,
the shamefullest and most untimely.

And this is what she must either do, or perish: she must found
colonies as fast and as far as she is able, formed of her most
energetic and worthiest men;--seizing every piece of fruitful waste
ground she can set