But for one fatal stain upon our institutions,—­a stain of which we were constantly reminded, as the one thing that shamed all our pretensions,—­it seemed as if the peaceful and prosperous development of the great nation sprung from the loins of England were accepted as a gain to universal civilization.  In the fulness of time the heir of Great Britain’s world-shadowing empire came among us to receive the wide and cordial welcome which we could afford to give without compromising our republicanism, and he to receive without lessening his dignity.  It was the seal upon the entente cordiale which seemed to have at last established itself between the thinkers as well as the authorities of the two countries.

A few months afterwards came the great explosion which threatened the eternal rending asunder of the Union.  That the British people had but an imperfect understanding of the quarrel, we are ready to believe.  That they were easily misled as to some of the motives and intentions of the North is plain enough.  But this one fact remains:  Every one of them knew, by public, official statements, that what the South meant to do was to build a new social and political order on Slavery,—­recognized, proclaimed, boasted of, theoretically justified, and practically incorporated with its very principle of existence.  They might have their doubts about the character of the North, but they could have none about the principles or intentions of the South.  That ought to have settled the question for civilized Europe.  It would have done so, but that jealousy of the great self-governing state swallowed up every other consideration.

We will not be unjust nor ungrateful.  We have as true friends, as brave and generous advocates of our sacred cause, in Great Britain as our fathers found in their long struggle for liberty.  We have the intelligent cooeperation of a few leading thinkers, and the instinctive sympathy of a large portion of the people,—­may God be merciful to them and to their children in the day of reckoning, which, sooner or later, awaits a nation that is false to advancing civilization!

But, with all our gratitude to the noble few who have pleaded our cause, we are obliged to own that we have looked in vain for sympathy in many quarters where we should assuredly have expected it.  Where is the English Church in this momentous struggle?  Has it blasted with its anathema the rising barbarism, threatening, or rather promising, to nationalize itself, which, as a cardinal principle, denies the Word of God and the sanctities of the marriage relation to millions of its subjects? or does it save its indignation for the authors of “Essays and Reviews” and the over-curious Bishop of Natal?  Where are the men whose voices ought to ring like clarions among the hosts of their brethren in the Free States of the North?  Where is Lord Brougham, ex-apostle of the Diffusion of Knowledge, while the question is of enforced perpetual ignorance as the cement of