of your Constitution can shine there, unless the
beauty of your legislation and the excellence of your statesmanship
are impressed there on the feelings and condition of the people, rely
upon it, you have yet to learn the duties of government.

2. I have not pleaded, as you have observed, that this country should
remain without adequate and scientific means of defence. I acknowledge
it to be the duty of your statesmen, acting upon the known opinions
and principles of ninety-nine out of every one hundred persons in the
country, at all times, with all possible moderation, but with all
possible efficiency, to take steps which shall preserve order within
and on the confines of your kingdom. But I shall repudiate and
denounce the expenditure of every shilling, the engagement of every
man, the employment of every ship which has no object but
intermeddling in the affairs of other countries and endeavouring to
extend the boundaries of an Empire which is already large enough to
satisfy the greatest ambition, and I fear is much too large for the
highest statesmanship to which any man has yet attained.

3. The most ancient of profane historians has told us that the
Scythians of his time were a very warlike people, and that they
elevated an old scimitar upon a platform as a symbol of Mars, for to
Mars alone, I believe, they built altars and offered sacrifices. To
this scimitar they offered sacrifices of horses and cattle, the main
wealth of the country, and more costly sacrifices than to all the rest
of their gods. I often ask myself whether we are at all advanced in
one respect beyond those Scythians. What are our contributions to
charity, to education, to morality, to religion, to justice, and to
civil government, when compared with the wealth we expend in
sacrifices to the old scimitar?

4. Two nights ago I addressed in this hall a vast assembly composed to
a great extent of your countrymen, who have no political power, who
are at work from the dawn of the day to the evening, and who have
therefore limited means of informing themselves on these great
subjects. Now I am privileged to speak to a somewhat different
audience. You represent those of your great community who have a more
complete education, who have on some points greater intelligence, and
in whose hands reside the power and influence of the district. I am
speaking, too, within the hearing of those whose gentle nature, whose
finer instincts, whose purer minds, have