which the beneficence of nature has intersected our country, and which art finds it so little difficult to connect and complete.

A fourth and still more important consideration is, that as almost every State will on one side or other be a frontier, and will thus find, in a regard to its safety, an inducement to make some sacrifices for the sake of general protection, so the States which lie at the greatest distance from the heart of the union, and which of course may partake least of the ordinary circulation of its benefits, will be at the same time immediately contiguous to foreign nations, and will consequently stand, on particular occasions, in greatest need of its strength and resources. It may be inconvenient for Georgia, or the States forming our western or northeastern borders, to send their representatives to the seat of government; but they would find it more so to struggle alone against an invading enemy, or even to support alone the whole expense of those precautions which may be dictated by the neighborhood of continual danger. If they should derive less benefit therefore from the union, in some respects, than the less distant States, they will derive greater benefit from it in other respects; and thus the proper equilibrium will be maintained throughout.

I submit to you, my fellow-citizens, these considerations, in full confidence that the good sense which has so often marked your decisions will allow them their due weight and effect; and that you will never suffer difficulties, however formidable in appearance, or however fashionable the error on which they may be founded, to drive you into the gloomy and perilous scenes into which the advocates for disunion would conduct you. Hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of America, knit together as they are by so many chords of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family; can no longer continue the mutual guardians of their mutual happiness; can no longer be fellow-citizens of one great, respectable, and flourishing empire. Hearken not to the voice which petulantly tells you that the form of government recommended for your adoption is a novelty in the political world; that it has never yet had a place in the theories of the wildest projectors; that it rashly attempts what it is impossible to accomplish. No, my countrymen: shut your ears against this unhallowed language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it conveys. The kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the mingled blood which they have shed in defense of their sa

cred rights, consecrate their union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens, rivals, enemies. And if novelties are to be shunned, believe me, the most alarming of all novelties, the most wild of all projects, the most rash of all attempts, is that of rending us in pieces in order to preserve our liberties and promote our happiness.

But why is the experiment of an extended republic to be rejected, merely because it may comprise what is new? Is it not the glory of the people of America, that whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theater in favor of private rights and public happiness Had no important step been taken by the leaders of the Revolution for which a precedent could not be discovered, no government established of which an exact model did not present itself, the people of the United States might at this moment have been numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided councils; must at best have been laboring under the weight of some of those forms which have crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind. Happily for America, — happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe. They formed the design of a great confederacy, which it is incumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate. If their works betray imperfections, we wonder at the fewness of them. If they erred most in the structure of the union, this was the work most difficult to be executed; this is the work which has been new modeled by the act of your convention, and it is that act on which you are now to deliberate and to decide.

INTERFERENCE TO QUELL DOMESTIC INSURRECTION.

AT first view, it might seem not to square with the republican theory to suppose either that a majority have not the

right, or that a minority will have the force, to subvert a government; and consequently, that the Federal interposition can never be required but when it would be improper. But theoretic reasoning, in this as in most other cases, must be qualified by the lessons of practice. Why may not illicit combinations, for purposes of violence, be formed as well by a majority of a State, especially a small State, as by a majority of a county or a district of the same State; and if the authority of the State ought in the latter case to protect the local magistracy, ought not the Federal authority, in the former, to support the State authority? Besides, there are certain parts of the State constitutions which are so interwoven with the federal Constitution, that a violent blow cannot be given to the one without communicating the wound to the other. Insurrections in a State will rarely induce a Federal interposition, unless the number concerned in them bear some proportion to the friends of government. It will be much better that the violence in such cases should be repressed by the superintending power, than that the majority should be left to maintain their cause by a bloody and obstinate contest. The existence of a right to interpose will generally prevent the necessity of exerting it.

Is it true that force and right are necessarily on the same side in republican governments? May not the minor party possess such a superiority of pecuniary resources, of military talents and experience, or of secret succors from foreign powers, as will render it superior also in an appeal to the sword? May not a more compact and advantageous position turn the scale on the same side, against a superior number so situated as to be less capable of a prompt and collected exertion of its strength? Nothing can be more chimerical than to imagine that in a trial of actual force, victory may be calculated by the rules which prevail in a census of the inhabitants, or which determine the event of an election! May it not happen, in fine, that the minority of citizens may become a majority of persons, by the accession of alien residents, of a casual concourse of adventurers, or of those whom the constitution of the State has not admitted to the rights of suffrage? I take no notice of an unhappy species of population abounding in some of the States, who, during the calm of regular government, are sunk below the level of men; but who, in the tempestuous scenes of civil violence, may merge into the human character, and give a superiority of strength to any party with which they may associate themselves.

In cases where it may be doubtful on which side justice lies, what better umpires could be desired by two violent factions, flying to arms and tearing a State to pieces, than the representatives of confederate States not heated by the local flame? To the impartiality of judges they would unite the affection of friends. Happy would it be if such a remedy for its infirmities could be enjoyed by all free governments; if a project equally effectual could be established for the universal peace of mankind!

Should it be asked, what is to be the redress for an insurrection pervading all the States, and comprising a superiority of the entire force, though not a constitutional right, the answer must be that such a case, as it would be without the compass of human remedies, so it is fortunately not within the compass of human probability; and that it is a sufficient recommendation of the Federal Constitution, that it diminishes the risk of a calamity for which no possible constitution can provide a

cure.

VOL. XIV. — 20

MAURICE MAETERLINCK.

Maurice MAETERLINCK, a Belgian dramatist, born at Ghent in 1864. His studies being completed, he devoted himself exclusively to letters. In 1891, after the appearance of his "Princess Maleine," he was awarded the prize for literary drama, which he refused. "L'Intruse," one of his first pieces, has been played at Paris at the Théâtre d'Art. A representation of "L'Aveugle" was organized in December of the same year. "L'Intruse" was given in Brussels toward the close of March, 1892. These two pieces were reproduced in German at Vienna, and in Danish at Copenhagen. Among his other works are "Les Sept Princesses," "Pelléas and Méllisande," and some verses entitled "Les Serres Chaudes." He also translated "L'Ornement des Noces Spirituelles de Ruysbroeck," "L'Incomparable," "Le Trésor des Humbles," mystical essays, and "Le Barbare." His "Treasure of the Humble,” and “ Aglevaine and Selysette," have been well rendered in English by Alfred Sutro.

66

JEAN VON RUYSBROECK.

(From "Ruysbroeck and the Mystics.")

THE life of Jean von Ruysbroeck, like that of most of the great thinkers of this world, is entirely an inner life. Nearly all his biographers wrote nearly two centuries after his death, and their work seems much intermixed with legend. They show us a holy hermit, silent, ignorant, amazingly humble, amazingly good, who was in the habit of working miracles unawares. The trees beneath which he prayed were illumined by an aureole; the bells of a Dutch convent tolled without hands on the day of his death. His body, when exhumed five years after his death, was found in perfect preservation, and from it rose wonderful perfumes, which cured the sick who were brought from neighboring villages. A few lines will give the positively ascertained facts of his career. He was born in 1274 at Ruysbroeck, a little village between Hal and Brussels. He was first a priest in the Church of Sainte-Gadule; then by the advice of