s in the development of our great principle, as well as in protecting
it from the inroads of error and corruption. And herein lies the great
secret of all true national life. For no nation was ever yet truly great
that had not constantly before it some lofty and ennobling object to
direct all its strivings, some great central truths at its very core,
continually working outward through all the great arterial ramifications
of society, keeping up a brisk and healthy circulation by the force of
its own eternal energy. Lack of a noble purpose, in nations as well as
individuals, begets a vacillating policy, which is inevitably followed
by degeneration and corruption. The soldier, who has passed many a weary
month in the monotony of the camp, enduring all the hardships of
rigorous winters and scorching summers, of fatigue and privation, and
who has shed his blood upon many a hard-fought field, will learn to
appreciate as he never has before the true value of that Government for
which he has suffered so much, and, with the return of our armies to
their homes, this sentiment will be diffused among the masses, and the
lessons they have learned will be taught to their fellows: and this,
together with the recognition of our true end and aim in existence--of
the part which our country is destined to play in the great drama of
life, will beget a noble, self-relying national pride, the very opposite
pole to that senseless, loud-mouthed self-laudation which has too much
characterized us in the days gone by. The boaster betrays the
consciousness of the very weakness he wishes to conceal; while 'still
waters run deep,' and the man of true courage and strength is the man of
few words and great deeds. So that arrant bragging which has hitherto
been our besetting sin, and which, so long as our real importance in the
affairs of the world was unacknowledged, was somewhat excusable, and
perhaps even necessary to sustain a yet unestablished cause, will be
necessary no longer when we have proved ourselves worthy of the position
we claim, and will, with the newborn consciousness of our power and
strength, pass away forever, and we shall work steadily on in our
appointed course, leaving it to others to recognize and proclaim our
worth, to sound the trumpet which we have so long been industriously
blowing for ourselves, content to let our reputation bide its time and
rest upon sterling deeds rather than upon pompous declamations and empty
oratorical