is the method dear to the Anglo-Saxon mind. The English writers
acknowledge this; they call it the "practical system," and make an
especial boast that it is the method of their theology, their
philosophy, their physical science, their manufactures, and their trade.
In the language of philosophy, it directs us "to do the duty that comes
next us"; in a figure drawn from the card-table, it bids us "follow our
hand." The only branch of the Keltic race which adopts it expresses it
in the warlike direction, "When you see a head, hit it."

We have no objection to make to this so-called practical system in the
present case, if it only be broadly and generously adopted. If it reduce
us to a war of posts, to hand-to-mouth finance, and to that wretched
bureau-administration which thinks the day's work is done when the day's
letters have been opened, docketed, and answered, it becomes, it is
true, a very unpractical system, and soon reduces a great state to be a
very little one. But if the men who direct any country will, in good
faith, enlarge their view every day, from their impressions of yesterday
to the new realities of to-day,--if they will rise at once to the new
demands of to-day, and meet those demands under the new light of
to-day,--all the better is it, undoubtedly, if they are not hampered by
traditionary theories, if they are even indifferent as to the
consistency of their record, and are, thus, as able as they are willing
to work out God's present will with all their power. For it must be that
the present light of noonday will guide us better at noonday than any
prophecies which we could make at midnight or at dawn.

The country, at this moment, demands this broad and generous use of its
great present advantages. In three years of sacrifice we have won
extraordinary victories. We have driven back the beach-line of rebellion
so that its territory is now two islands, both together of not half the
size of the continent which it boasted when it began. We have seen such
demonstrations of loyalty and the love of liberty that we dare say that
this is to be one free nation, as we never dared say it before the war
began. We are on the edge, as we firmly believe, of yet greater
victories, both in the field and in the conscience of the nation. The
especial demand, then, made on our statesmen, and on that intelligent
people which, as it appears, leads the statesmen, instead of being led
by them, is, "How shall we use our victorie