t to look upon it as an evil which should be given up on account
of its own intrinsic wrong? We would that we could answer these
questions in the affirmative. But there are acts too patent to be
denied, which show that the virus of this great iniquity still rankles
in the body politic; that the system of slavery has been given up by the
people of the South simply as a matter of necessity; that if they had
the power they would re-instate it again though they should rend and
ruin the Republic in their attempt; and hundreds of thousands in the
North would sympathize with them in the movement, and second them in
their efforts. The disease is driven from the surface, but it is not
cured. It may be a source of serious trouble hereafter.

Political corruption is preparing the way for deeper sin. It pervades
all parties. Look at the dishonest means resorted to to obtain office,
the bribery, the deceptions, the ballot-stuffing. Look at the stupendous
revelations of municipal corruption just disclosed in New York city:
millions upon millions stolen directly and barefacedly rom the city
treasury by its corrupt officials. Look at the civil service of this
government. Speaking on this point, _The Nation_ of Nov. 17, 1870,
said:--

"The newspapers are generally believed to exaggerate most of the
abuses they denounce; but we say deliberately, that no denunciation
of the civil service of the United States which has ever appeared
in print has come up as a picture, of selfishness, greed, fraud,
corruption, falsehood, and cruelty, to the accounts which are given
privately by those who have seen the real workings of the machine."

Enumeration is here unnecessary. Enough crops out in every day's history
to show that moral principle, the only guarantee in a government like
ours for justice and honesty, is sadly wanting.

And evil is also threatening from another quarter. Creeping up from the
darkness of the dark ages, a hideous monster is intently watching to
seize the throat of liberty in our land. It thrusts itself up into the
noonday of the ninteenth century, not that it may be benefited by its
light and freedom, but that it may suppress and obscure them. The name
of this monster is Popery; and it has fixed its rapacious and
bloodthirsty eyes on this land, determined to make it its helpless prey.
It already decides the election in some of our largest cities. It
controls the revenues of the most populous St