the fundamental principle,
were scourged and _hanged_ in Boston by the _pious_ predecessors of
our present churches, until they were forbidden by the unsanctified
monarch, Charles II. Has the old spirit died out? Look at the
hostility to Theodore Parker--to spiritual investigation, even. See
the scornful and hostile attitude of the descendant of Cotton Mather,
Col. Higginson.

It may be a shocking proposition to say that it is dangerous to live
among Christians, but it is a sober reality, to which I invite the
attention of clergymen and moralists who wish to live up to their
profession, and who have enough of the ethical faculty to realize the
central principle of true Christianity.

If our statesmanship, religion, and education cannot protect us
against such horrors, may we not justly say it is a false
statesmanship, a false religion, and a false education? Indeed, our
whole fabric of opinion and morals is fundamentally false, and the
JOURNAL OF MAN goes to record as an indictment at the bar of heaven
against the polished barbarism of modern society, against which we
hear only a feeble and almost inaudible protest.

Boston has a highly respectable and _immensely perfunctory_ Peace
Society, amply endowed with names and numbers, of which our late
postmaster was the president, and whose presidency was vastly more
inefficient than his postmastership.

A peace society might possibly be established in Boston, if its best
people could be roused, but the society that we have is little better
than a piece of ornamental nomenclature. When there is anything to be
done it understands how not to do it. When Mr. Gladstone had performed
the most glorious act of his life in the preservation of the peace of
Europe against the fierce opposition of the turbulent element in
England, an act which will make the brightest jewel in his crown of
honor, there was an opportunity of sustaining him by American
sympathy. The voice of Americans, if they cared aught for peace,
should have been heard in Europe in commanding tones,--the voice of
the people, the voice of Legislatures, the voice of the Federal
government. An effort was made by half a dozen or less of enlightened
gentlemen in Boston to have a fitting response emanate from this city.
Dr. Miner and Hon. Stephen M. Allen realized its importance when I
first suggested it, but on that occasion the Peace Society was a
lifeless corpse. The society might have been waked up if Mr. Lowell,
th