about her form; but the priest has drawn the shining folds about his own human shoulders, and made it a sin to criticise him. Confession, which I proclaim to be, in its essence, one of the most comforting and saving institutions that ever existed, they can and do use to learn the secret workings of society and obtain power over individuals. I need not detain you to go over the list, for all are the same. It is St. Michael’s sword in the hands of Satan.
“No, gentlemen, it is not because their theology is bad that I say, Down with the church! It is because its fair niches and shrines harbor thieves, and robbers, and tyrants—because, though the pope can sit there enthroned, with his lofty tiara, and the bishops stand with mitres, and the priests lift their haughty foreheads, the people cannot walk erect as God made them to walk, but must crawl on the pavement like worms. And therefore, though the walls of the temple were of jasper, its pillars of malachite, its ceiling of sapphires, its pavements of beaten gold, and its gates like the gates of the New Jerusalem, I still would cry, Down with the temple!
“From the time when peoples first began to crystallize upon the face of the earth, God has looked out from heaven, and asked each in turn, ‘Where shall my children find peace, and freedom, and room to grow?’ and each in turn has answered, ‘Here, Lord!’ lying to his face. And in his own time, after patient waiting, the Almighty has stretched forth his hand, and has effaced the boundaries of that perjured nation, and touched her people with blight. The kingdoms of old lied to the Lord, and they have perished; and in our own day there is a wavering and tottering in the battlements that wall the nations in.
“One hundred years ago, America rose up and made the covenant: Here, Lord, shall thy children find peace and freedom, and here shall they grow to the stature of the perfect man and woman! It is for us, brethren, to see that the pact is kept. It is for us to watch that the oppressor gains no foothold here, lest we perish for ever. For there is no Phœnix among the kingdoms of earth, from whatever cause they die. When a nation lies in the dust, it rises no more, save to walk, a ghost, in the dreams of its orphaned children. Ireland, Poland, Hungary,—they sleep the sleep that knows no waking. They are in the past, with Greece and Rome, with Babylon and Nineveh:
‘Youthful nation of the West,
Rise, with truer greatness blest!
Sainted bands from realms of rest,
Watch thy bright’ning fame!’
“Brethren, when we in turn shall join that company of silent watchers, God forbid that we should hear rising from our beloved land such a lamentation as went up for that ruined city of the East: ‘Nineveh is laid waste! who will bemoan her? She is empty, and void, and waste; her nobles dwell in the dust; her people are scattered upon the mountains, and no man gathereth them.’ For the sake of humanity, may God forbid!
“There is now but one name written in living characters on the future, and that name is America. It was writ in blood by our fathers, and accepted in fire by the God of nations. Palsied be the hand that would quench one letter of that sacred legend!”
During the loud applause that followed, Mr. Yorke mounted the platform.
Had they not known that he was soon to leave them, and had not his
manner been quite unlike what he had shown on former occasions of this sort, they might have refused to hear him. As it was, a reluctant and impatient silence was accorded. Some listened, doubtless because they wished to be exasperated, and hoped for another pretext for outbreak. But he looked like one who fully appreciates the strength of his opponent, and does not hope for a speedy victory.