depravity could do, to hinder the promise of Heaven from its
fulfilment. The cross, here as elsewhere, has been planted only to be
blasphemed by cruelty and fraud. The name of the Prince of Peace has
been profaned by all kinds of injustice toward the Gentile whom he
said he came to save. But I need not speak of what has been done
towards the Red Man, the Black Man. Those deeds are the scoff of the
world; and they have been accompanied by such pious words that the
gentlest would not dare to intercede with "Father, forgive them, for
they know not what they do."

Here, as elsewhere, the gain of creation consists always in the growth
of individual minds, which live and aspire, as flowers bloom and birds
sing, in the midst of morasses; and in the continual development of
that thought, the thought of human destiny, which is given to eternity
adequately to express, and which ages of failure only seemingly
impede. Only seemingly; and whatever seems to the contrary, this
country is as surely destined to elucidate a great moral law, as
Europe was to promote the mental culture of Man.

Though the national independence be blurred by the servility of
individuals; though freedom and equality have been proclaimed only to
leave room for a monstrous display of slave-dealing and slave-keeping;
though the free American so often feels himself free, like the Roman,
only to pamper his appetites end his indolence through the misery of
his fellow-beings; still it is not in vain that the verbal statement
has been made, "All men are born free and equal." There it stands, a
golden certainty wherewith to encourage the good, to shame the bad.
The New World may be called clearly to perceive that it incurs the
utmost penalty if it reject or oppress the sorrowful brother. And, if
men are deaf, the angels hear. But men cannot be deaf. It is