short of this dignity; questions that concern public convenience
only, and do not wear any moral aspect, such as the bullion question,
never _do_ become subjects of public opinion. It cannot be
said in which direction lies the bias of public opinion. In the
very possibility of interesting the public judgment, is involved
the certainty of wearing some relation to moral principles. Hence
the ardor of our public disputes; for no man views, without concern,
a great moral principle darkened by party motives, or placed in risk
by accident: hence the dignity and benefit of our public disputes;
hence, also, their ultimate relation to the Christian faith. We
do not, indeed, in these days, as did our homely ancestors in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, cite texts of Scripture as
themes for senatorial commentary or _exegesis_; but the virtual
reference to scriptural principles is now a thousand times more
frequent. The great principles of Christian morality are now so
interwoven with our habits of thinking, that we appeal to them no
longer as scriptural authorities, but as the natural suggestions
of a sound judgment. For instance, in the case of any wrong offered
to the Hindoo races, now so entirely dependent upon our wisdom
and justice, we British [Footnote: It may be thought that, in the
prosecution of Verres, the people of Rome acknowledged something
of the same high responsibility. Not at all. The case came before
Rome, not as a case of injury to a colonial child, whom the general
mother was bound to protect and avenge; but as an appeal, by way of
special petition, from Sicilian clients. It was no grand political
movement, but simply judicial. Verres was an ill-used man and the
victim of private intrigues. Or, whatever _he_ might be, Rome
certainly sate upon the cause, not in any character of maternal
protectress, taking up voluntarily the support of the weak, but
as a sheriff assessing damages in a case forced upon his court by