politician where you expected to find a priest. They will tell you
that '* all the American Republics are collectively involved with each
other ; if the republics of the West were to fall into anarchy, or to
be mastered by a despot, the republican institutions which now flourish
upon the shores of the Atlantic Ocean would be in great peril. It is
therefore our interest that the new States should be religious^ in order
to maintain our liberties.''

Such are the opinions of the Americans : and if any hold that the
religious spirit which I admire is the very thing most amiss in Ameri-
ca, and that the only element wanting to the freedom and happiness of
the human race is to believe in some blind cosmogony, or to assert with
Cabanis the secretion of thought by the brain, I can only reply, that
those who hold this language have never been in America, and that
they have never seen a religious or a free nation. When they return
from their expedition, we shall hear what they have to say.
There are persons in France who look upon republican institutions as
a temporary means of power, of wealth, and distinction ; men who are
the condottieri of liberty, and who fight for their own advantage, what-
ever be the colors they wear : it is not to these that I address myself.
