which was not a council, or he mistakes the real question decided, or the actual purport of the decision, in consequence of his general ignorance of Catholic theology and history.

But, as we have intimated, we have no intention of following the Observer through his attack on the Church. If he concedes his inability to maintain his own thesis, we will then meet him, or any one else, on the merits of Catholicity. But, till then, we will not consent to be diverted from the main issue we have raised.

In conclusion, we will say, our argument has run out to a greater length than we intended, and to a greater length than the feeble arguments, if arguments they can be called, of the Observer really warranted; but we make no apology to our readers, for we have aimed to give to our remarks a general character, and a fair, full, and final discussion of that branch of the subject to which we have in the main confined ourselves, rather than to effect the comparatively insignificant purpose of refuting the editor of the Episcopal Observer.

ART. II. National Greatness.

NATIONAL greatness is at all times and in all countries a subject of very deep interest, and one on which it is highly dangerous to entertain false or erroneous views. It is especially so for the American people; because we have founded a government which rests on popular opinion, and must follow its direction; and because we entertain very lofty notions of the greatness to which we have already attained, and are disposed to indulge in no little patriotic pride when contemplating what we have done since we became an independent nation, and looking forward to what we are likely to do hereafter.

It is true, that now and then is heard a discordant note in the general harmony of self-glorification; it is true, that here and there a disappointed, discontented, perhaps ascetic voice, is heard intimating that all is not gold that glisters, that the sparkling eye and blooming cheek do not always indicate sound health and promise long life, and that beneath the festive robes and wreaths of flowers may often, as at Egyptian feasts, be detected the ghastly and grinning features of death; but, in

general, the great mass of us, from New England's loftiest statesman down to the pettiest Fourth of July orator, loudly applaud ourselves for what we have done, are sure that we have chosen the right path, that we surpass in true wisdom all the nations which have been or now are, and that nothing remains for us but to keep on in the way we have thus far followed, and indulge the most glorious and thrilling anticipations of future greatness and renown.

And have we not the right to do so? We are merely of yesterday; and yet, what have we not done! We have felled the primitive forests, and planted the rose in the wilderness; we have erected the thronged city, the populous town, the thriving village, where within the memory of the middle-aged man prowled the beast of prey, or curled the smoke of the wigwam. We have intersected a continent with our canals and railways; we have whitened every ocean with our sails, and filled every port with our ships; and are rivalling, in the quality, variety, and extent of our manufactures, the more renowned industrial nations of the globe. Our whole population is employed. The hammer of industry rings from morning till night, till far into the night, and we seem to have the Midas gift of turning whatever we touch into gold. Nor have we stopped here. We have dotted the land all over with meetinghouses, schoolhouses, academies, colleges, and universities, and our whole population goes to school. We have an active press, throwing off daily its million of sheets for our instruction or amusement. We have hospitals, asylums, retreats for the insane, the blind, the deaf, the dumb; poor-houses for vagrants and paupers; gaols and penitentiaries for the vicious and criminal. Over all we have a free, pure, economical, and effective government, admirably reconciling the authority of the state with the freedom of the subject; and withal the priceless blessings of religious liberty, permitting sects the most opposed one to the other to meet as brothers, leaving every man free to worship God, or not to worship him, according to the dictates of his own. conscience. Have we not a right, then, to applaud ourselves? Are we not, in fact, a great people? And is not this a great country?

So most of us think, feel, say; and woe to him who should dare think, feel, or say otherwise. And yet, it may be worth our while to subject this estimate which we form of ourselves to a more rigid examination than we seem to have done. If it be well founded, the examination will confirm it; if not well founded,

the examination will do no harm,- for few of us are prepared to adopt a conclusion unfavorable to national pride and vanity.

That this is a great country, if we speak of the territory, is very true, though not much greater than China, and far less than Russia, and withal a great part of it as yet uncultivated, and no little of it even untrodden by civilized man. But whether we are a great people or not, or whether we have any special ground of self-adulation, is another and a different question; and a question which will be variously answered, according to the views which are taken of what constitutes true national greatness. Our judgments of the comparative greatness of different nations depend entirely on the standard of greatness we adopt, and by which we judge them. We call a people great or small in proportion as they do or do not conform to our standard of greatness. Vary the standard, and we vary our judgment. The people we called great, when judged by one standard, we may call not great, if judged by a different standard. All, therefore, depends on the standard we adopt. Consequently, in order to determine whether we are really a great people or not, we must first determine what is the true standard of national greatness.

What, then, is true national greatness? We answer, that nation is greatest in which man may most easily and effectually fulfil the true and proper end of man. The nation, under the point of view we here consider the subject, is in the people. Its greatness must, then, be in the greatness of the people. The people are a collection or aggregation of individuals, and their greatness taken collectively is simply their greatness taken individually. Consequently, the greatness of a nation is the greatness of the individuals that compose it. The question of national greatness resolves itself, therefore, into the question of individual greatness. The greatness of the individual consists in his fulfilling the great ends of his existence, the ends for which Almighty God made him and placed him here. No man is truly great who neglects life's great ends, nor can one be said in truth to approach greatness any farther than he fulfils them.

In order, then, to determine in what true national greatness consists, we must determine in what consists true individual greatness; and in order to determine in what true individual greatness consists, we must determine what is the true end of man; that is, what is the end to which Almighty God has appointed man, and which he is while here to labor to secure. What, then, is the end of man? For what has our Maker

placed us here? To what has he bidden us aspire? Were we placed here merely to be born and to die, to live for a moment, continue our species, toil, suffer, drop into the grave to rot, and be no more for ever? If this be our end, true greatness will consist in living for this life only, and in being great in that which pertains to this life. The greatest man will be he who succeeds best in amassing the goods of this world, in securing its honors and luxuries, or simply in multiplying for himself the means of sensual enjoyment. In a word, the greatest man will be he who most abounds in wealth and luxury.

We mean not to say, that, in point of fact, wealth and luxury, worldly honors and sensual gratifications, are the chief goods of even this life; but simply that they would be, if this were our only life, if our destiny were a destiny to be accomplished in this world. It is because this world is not our home, because we are merely travellers through it, and our destination is a world beyond it, that the life of justice and sanctity yields us even here our truest and most substantial pleasure. But confine man to this life, let it be true that he has no destiny beyond it, and nothing could, relatively to him, be called great or good, not included under the heads of wealth and luxury. Nothing could be counted or conceived of as of the least value to him that does not directly or indirectly minister to his sensual enjoyment. No infidel moralist has ever been able, without going out of his own system, or want of system, to conceive of any thing higher, nobler, more valuable, than sensual pleasure.

But this life is not our only life, and our destiny is not accomplished here. The grave is not our final doom; this world is not our home; we were not created for this world alone; and there is for us a life beyond this life. But even this, if we stop with it, does not answer our question. We may conceive of a future life as the simple continuation of our present natural life, and such the future life is conceived to be by not a few among us, who nevertheless flatter themselves that they are firm believers in the life and immortality brought to light through the Gospel. Every being may be said to have a natural destiny or end, which its nature is fitted and intended to gain. The Creator, in creating a being with a given nature, has given that being a pledge of the means and conditions of fulfilling it, of attaining to its natural end. Man has evidently been created with a nature that does not and cannot find its complete fulfilment in this life. He has a natural capacity for more than is

actually attainable here. In this capacity he has the promise or pledge of his Maker that he shall live again. The promises of God cannot fail. Man therefore must and will live again. But this is only the pledge, so to speak, of a natural immortality, and reveals to us only a natural destiny. It is only a continuation of our natural life in another world. The end we are to labor for, and the means we are to adopt to gain it, must be precisely what they would be in case our life were to terminate at the grave. Our future life being still a natural life, what is wisest and best for that portion we are now living would be wisest and best for that portion we are hereafter to live. Hence, what is wisest and best for time would be wisest and best for eternity.

Hence it is that we find so many who, though professing belief in a future life, judge all things as if this life were our only life. They look to the future life only as the continuation of the present, and expect from it only the completion of their natural destiny. They agree in all their moral judgments, in all their estimates of the worth of things or of actions, with those who believe in no future life at all. They profess to hope for a future life, but live only for time; because their future life is to be only a continuation of time. Hence they say, as we ourselves were for years accustomed to say, He who lives wisely for time lives wisely for eternity; create a heaven here, and you will have done your best to secure your title to a heaven hereafter.

Hence it is that the morality of many who profess to be Christians is the same which is adopted and defended by infidels. This is so obviously the case, that we not unfrequently find men who call themselves Christians commending downright unbelievers in Christianity as good moral men, and who see no reason why the morality of the infidel should not be the same in kind as the morality of the Christian. Hence it is supposed that morality may be taught in our schools, without teaching any peculiar or distinctive doctrine of Christianity. Morality, we are told, is independent of religion, and not a few regard it as sufficient without religion. So common has this mode of thinking and speaking become amongst us, that we heard the other day a tolerably intelligent Catholic, who would by no means admit himself to be deficient in the understanding or practice of his Catholic duties, say, that, if a man were only a good moral man, he did not care what was his distinctive religious belief. Many who go farther, and contend that