y
can we possess that true national independence which is the foundation
of all national dignity and worth, and the source of all progress. We
must free ourselves from all the hampering influences of old-time dogmas
and worn-out theories of social life, content to submit to the
aspersions of Old-World malice, confident that time will prove the
correctness of our policy. So only can we throw wide open the doors of
investigation, and give free scope to those truths which will not fail
to follow the earnest strivings of a great people for the purest right
and the highest good.

In estimating any civilization at its true value, the law of God is
obviously the highest standard. Yet in these days of divided opinion and
extended scepticism, when scarcely any two hold exactly the same
religious views, and when all manner of beliefs are professedly founded
on Holy Writ, such a comparison would only result in as many different
estimates as there are reflecting minds, and the investigation would be
in no degree advanced. Even the moral sense of our own community is so
divided upon the distinctions of abstract right, that the application of
such a standard to our civilization would only open endless fields of
useless because interested and bigoted discussions.

There are two other and more feasible methods of conducting such an
investigation; the first of which is that of comparing our own
civilization with that of Europe; marking the differences, and judging
of them according to our knowledge of human nature and the light of past
experience and analogy. Yet such a course presents the serious objection
of preventing an impartial judgment through the strong temptation to
self-laudation, which is in itself the blinding of reason as well as the
counteraction of all aspirations for a still higher good.

The third and last method is that which takes cognizance of the most
obvious and deeply felt evils connected with our own system, and
reasoning from universally conceded principles of abstract right, and
from the highest moral standard of our own society, to study how they
may best be remedied and errors most successfully combated. From such a
course of investigation truth cannot fail to be evolved, and the moral
appreciation of the thinker to be heightened. For such a method presents
less danger of partiality from local prejudices, religious bias, or
national antipathy. And such is the method which we shall endeavor to
pursue.

Ju