"Kossuth appears nowhere greater than in this able discourse. His
comprehensive politics, his beautiful sympathies, his power over
language, his poetic imagination, his magnetic and melting earnestness
of purpose, are blended with that depth of religious feeling which gives
to his character as a patriot the sanctity and unction of the prophet.
His moral and intellectual faculties are shown in harmony, working out
the great and beneficent purposes of his commanding will.
"It would be difficult to select any portion of this speech as better
than another, and we therefore commend the whole to the reader's careful
examination."
Ladies and gentlemen,--During six months I appeared many times before
the tribunal of public opinion in America. This evening I appear before
you in the capacity of a working man. My aged mother, tried by more
sufferings than any living being on earth, and my three sisters, one of
them a widow with two fatherless orphans, together a homeless family of
fourteen unfortunate souls, have been driven by the Austrian tyrant from
their home, that Golgotha of murdered right, that land of the oppressed,
but also of undesponding braves, and the land of approaching revenge.
When Russian violence, aided by domestic treason, succeeded to
accomplish what Austrian perjury could not achieve, and I with bleeding
heart went into exile, my mother and all my sisters were imprisoned by
Austria; but it having been my constant maxim not to allow to whatever
member of my family any influence in public affairs, except that I
intrusted to the charitable superintending of my youngest sister the
hospitals of the wounded heroes, as also to my wife the cares of
providing for the furniture of these hospitals, not even the foulest
intrigues could contrive any pretext for the continuation of their
imprisonment. And thus when diplomacy succeeded to fetter my patriotic
activity by the internation to far Asia, after some months of unjust
imprisonment, my mother and sisters and their family have been released;
and though surrounded by a thousand spies, tortured by continual
interference with their private life, and harassed by insulting police
measures, they had at least the consolation to breathe the native air,
to see their tears falling upon native soil, and to rejoice at the
majestic spirit of our people, which no adversities could bend and no
tyranny could break.
But at last by the humanity of the Sultan, backed by American
generosity, seconded by England, I once more was restored to personal
freedom, and by freedom to activity. Having succeeded to escape the
different snares and traps which I unexpectedly met, I considered it my
duty publicly to declare that the war between Austrian tyranny and the
freedom of Hungary is not ended yet, and swore eternal resistance to the
oppressors of my country, and declared that, faithful to the oath sworn
solemnly to my people, I will devote my life to the liberation of my
fatherland. Scarcely reached the tidings of this my after resolution the
bloody Court of Vienna, than two of my sisters were again imprisoned; my
poor old mother escaping the same cruelty only on account that bristling
bayonets of the bloodhounds of despotism, breaking in the dead of night
upon the tranquil house, and the persecution of my sisters, hurried away
out of Hungary to the prisons of Vienna, threw her in a half-dying
condition upon a sick bed. Again no charge could be brought against the
poor prisoners, because, knowing them in the tiger's den, and surrounded
by spies, I not only did not communicate any thing to them about my
foreign preparations and my dispositions at home, but have expressly
forbidden them to mix in any way with the doings of patriotism.
But tyrants are suspicious. You know the tale about Marcius. He dreamt
that he cut the throat of Dionysius the tyrant, and Dionysius condemned
him to death, saying that he would not have dreamt such things in the
night if he had not thought of it by day. Thus the Austrian tyrant
imprisoned my sisters, because he suspected that, being my sisters, they
must be initiated in my plans. At last, after five months of
imprisonment, they were released, but upon the condition that they, as
well as my mother and all my family, shall leave our native land. Thus
they became exiles, homeless, helpless, poor. I advised them to come to
your free country--the asylum of the oppressed, where labour is
honoured, and where they must try to live by their honest work.
They followed my advice, and are on their way; but my poor aged mother
and my youngest sister, the widow with the two orphans, being stopped by
dangerous sickness at Brussels, another sister stopped with them to
nurse them. The rest of the family is already on the way--in a sailing
ship of course, I believe, and not in a steamer. We are poor. My mother
and sisters will follow so soon as their health permits.
I felt the duty to help them in their first establishment here. For this
I had to work, having no means of my own.
Some generous friends advised me to try a lecture for this purpose, and
I did it. I will not act the part of crying complainants about our
misfortunes; we will bear them. Let me at once go to my task.
* * * * *
There is a stirring vitality of busy life about this your city of New
York, striking with astonishment the stranger's mind. How great is the
progress of Humanity! Its steps are counted by centuries, and yet while
countless millions stand almost at the same point where they stood, and
some even have declined since America first emerged out of an unexplored
darkness which had covered her for thousands of years, like the gem in
the sea; while it is but yesterday a few pilgrims landed on the wild
coast of Plymouth, flying from causeless oppression, seeking but for a
place of refuge and of rest, and for a free spot in the wilderness to
adore the Almighty in their own way; still, in such a brief time,
shorter than the recorded genealogy of the noble horse of the wandering
Arab; yes, almost within the turn of the hand, out of the unknown
wilderness a mighty empire arose, broad as an ocean, solid as a
mountain-rock, and upon the scarcely rotted roots of the primitive
forest, proud cities stand, teeming with boundless life, growing like
the prairie's grass in spring, advancing like the steam-engine, baffling
time and distance like the telegraph, and spreading the pulsation of
their life-tide to the remotest parts of the world; and in those cities
and on that broad land a nation, free as the mountain air, independent
as the soaring eagle, active as nature, and powerful as the giant
strength of millions of freemen.
How wonderful! What a present--and what a future yet!
Future?--then let me stop at this mysterious word--the veil of
unrevealed eternity!
The shadow of that dark word passed across my mind, and amid the bustle
of this gigantic bee-hive, there I stood with meditation alone.
And the spirit of the immovable Past rose before my eyes, unfolding the
misty picture-rolls of vanished greatness, and of the fragility of human
things.
And among their dissolving views, there I saw the scorched soil of
Africa, and upon that soil Thebes with its hundred gates, more splendid
than the most splendid of all the existing cities of the world; Thebes,
the pride of old Egypt, the first metropolis of arts and sciences, and
the mysterious cradle of so many doctrines which still rule mankind in
different shapes, though it has long forgotten their source. There I saw
Syria with its hundred cities, every city a nation, and every nation
with an empire's might. Baalbec, with its gigantic temples, the very
ruins of which baffle the imagination of man, as they stand like
mountains of carved rocks in the desert where for hundreds of miles not
a stone is to be found, and no river flows, offering its tolerant back
to carry a mountain's weight upon, and yet there they stand, those
gigantic ruins; and as we glance at them with astonishment, though we
have mastered the mysterious elements of nature, and know the
combination of levers, and how to catch the lightning, and to command
the power of steam and of compressed air, and how to write with the
burning fluid out of which the thunderbolt is forged, and how to drive
the current of streams up the mountain's top, and how to make the air
shine in the night like the light of the sun, and how to dive to the
bottom of the deep ocean, and how to rise up to the sky--though we know
all this, and many things else, still, looking at the temples of
Baalbec, we cannot forbear to ask what people of giants was that, which
could do what neither the efforts of our skill nor the ravaging hand of
unrelenting time can undo, through thousands of years. And then I saw
the dissolving picture of Nineveh, with its ramparts now covered with
mountains of sand, where Layard is digging up colossal winged bulls,
huge as a mountain, and yet carved with the nicety of a cameo; and then
Babylon, with its wonderful walls; and Jerusalem, with its unequalled
temple; Tyrus, with its countless fleets; Arad, with its wharves; and
Sidon, with its labyrinth of work-shops and factories; and Ascalon, and
Gaza, and Beyrout, and farther off Persepolis, with its world of
palaces.
All these passed before my eyes as they have been, and again they passed
as they now are, with no trace of their ancient greatness, but here and
there a ruin, and everywhere the desolation of tombs. With all their
splendour, power, and might, they vanished like a bubble, or like the
dream of a child, leaving but for a moment a drop of cold sweat upon the
sleeper's brow, or a quivering smile upon his lips; then, this wiped
away, dream, sweat, smile--all is nothingness.
So the powerful cities of the ancient greatness of a giant age; their
very memory but a sad monument of the fragility of human things.
And yet, proud of the passing hour's bliss, men speak of the future, and
believe themselves insured against its vicissitudes!
And the spirit of history rolled on the misty shapes of the past before
the eyes of my soul. After those cities of old came the nations of old.
The Assyrians, the Chaldeans, the war-like Philistines, the commercial
republics of Phoenicia and the Persians, ruling from the Indus to the
Mediterranean, and Egypt becoming the centre of the universe, after
having been thousands of years ago the cradle of its civilization.
Where is the power, the splendour, and the glory of all those mighty
nations? All has vanished without other trace than such as the foot of
the wanderer leaves upon the dust.
And still men speak of the future with proud security!
And yet they know that Carthage is no more, though it ruled Spain, and
ruled Africa beyond the pillars of Hercules down to Cerne, an immense
territory, blessed with all the blessings of nature, which Hannon filled
with flourishing cities, of which now no trace remains.
And men speak of the future, though they know that such things as heroic
Greece once did exist, glorious in its very ruins, and a source of
everlasting inspiration in its immortal memory.
Men speak of the future, and still they can rehearse the powerful
colonies issued from Greece, and the empires their heroic sons have
founded. And they can mark out with a finger on the map, the
unparalleled conquests of Alexander; how he crossed victoriously that
desert whence Semiramis, out of a countless host, brought home but
twenty men; and Cyrus, out of a still larger number, only seven men. But
he (Alexander) went on in triumph, and conquered India up to the
Hydaspes as he conquered before Tyrus and Egypt, and secured with
prudence what he had conquered with indomitable energy.
And men speak of the future, though they know that such a thing did
exist as Rome, the Mistress of the World--Rome rising from atomic
smallness to immortal greatness, and to a grandeur absorbing the
world--Rome, now having all her citizens without, and now again having
all the world within her walls; and passing through all the vicissitudes
of gigantic rise, wavering decline, and mournful fall. And men speak of
the future still with these awful monuments of fragility before their
eyes!
But it is the sad fate of Humanity that, encompassing its hopes, fears,
contentment, and wishes, within the narrow scope of momentary
satisfaction, the great lesson of history is taught almost in vain.
Whatever be its warnings, we rely on our good fortune; and we are
ingenious in finding out some soothing pretext to lull down the dreadful
admonitions of history. Man, in his private capacity, consoles the
instinctive apprehension of his heart with the idea that his condition
is different from what warningly strikes his mind. The patriot feels
well, that not only the present, but also the future of his beloved
country, has a claim to his cares; but he lulls himself into
carelessness by the ingenious consolation that the condition of his
country is different--that it is not obnoxious to those faults which
made other countries decline and fall; that the time is different; the
character and spirit of the nation are different, its power not so
precarious, and its prosperity more solid; and that, therefore, it will
not share the same fate of those which vanished like a dream. And the
philanthropist, also, whose heart throbs for the lasting welfare of all
humanity, cheers his mind with the idea that, after all, mankind at
large is happier than it was of yore, and that this happiness ensures
the future against the reverses of olden times.
That fallacy, natural as it may be, is a curse which weighs heavily on
us. Let us see in what respect our age is different from those olden
times. Is mankind more virtuous than it has been of yore? Why, in this
enlightened age, are we not looking for virtuous inspirations to the
god-like characters of these olden times? If we take virtue to be love
of the laws, and of the Fatherland, dare we say that our age is more
virtuous? If that man is to be called virtuous, who, in all his acts,
is but animated by a regard to the common good, and who, in every case,
feels ready to subordinate his own selfish interest to public
exigencies--if that be virtue (as indeed it is), I may well appeal to
the conscience of mankind to give an impartial verdict upon the
question, if our age be more virtuous than the age of Codrus or of
Regulus, of Decius and of Scaevola. Look to the school of Zeno, the
stoics of immortal memory; and when you see them contemning alike the
vanity of riches and the ambition of personal glory, impenetrable to the
considerations of pleasure and of pain, occupied only to promote public
welfare and to fulfil their duties toward the community; when you see
them inspired in all their acts by the doctrine that, born in a society,
it is their duty to live for the benefit of society; and when you see
them placing their own happiness only upon the happiness of their
fellow-men--then say if our too selfish, too material age can stand a
comparison with that olden period. When you remember the politicians of
ancient Greece, acknowledging no other basis for the security of the
commonwealth than virtue, and see the political system of our days
turning only upon manufactures, commerce, and finances, will you say
that our age is more virtuous? When, looking to your own country--the
best and happiest, because the freest of all--you will not dissimulate
in your own mind what considerations influence the platforms of your
political parties; and then in contra-position will reflect upon those
times when Timon of Athens, chosen to take part in his country's
government, assembled his friends and renounced their friendship, in
order that he might not be tempted by party considerations or by
affections of amity, in his important duties toward the commonwealth.
Then, having thus reflected, say, "Take you our own age to be more
virtuous, and therefore more ensured against the reverses of fortune,
than those older times?"
But perhaps there is a greater amount of private happiness, and by the
broad diffusion of private welfare, the security of the commonwealth is
more lasting and more sure?
Caraccioli, having been ambassador in England, when returned to Italy,
said, "that England is the most detestable country in the world, because
there are to be found twenty different sorts of religion, but only two
kinds of sauces with which to season meat."
There is a point in that questionable jest. Materialism! curse of our
age! Who can seriously speak about the broad diffusion of happiness in a
country where contentment is measured according to how many kinds of
sauces we can taste? My people is by far not the most material. We are
not much given to the cupidity of becoming rich. We know the word
"enough." The simplicity of our manners makes us easily contented in our
material relations; we like rather to be free than to be rich; we look
for an honourable profit, that we may have upon what to live; but we
don't like to live for the sake of profit; augmentation of property and
of wealth with us is not the aim of our life--we prefer tranquil,
independent mediocrity to the incessant excitement and incessant toil of
cupidity and gain. Such is the character of my nation; and yet I have
known a countryman of mine who blew out his brains because he had no
means more to eat daily _patés de foi gras_ and drink champagne.
Well, that was no Hungarian character, but, though somewhat
eccentrically, he characterized the leading feature of our century.
Indeed, are your richest money-kings happier than Fabricius was, when he
preferred his seven acres of land, worked by his own hands, to the
treasures of an empire? Are the ladies of to-day, adorned with all the
gorgeous splendour of wealth, of jewels, and of art, happier than those
ladies of ancient Rome have been, to whom it was forbidden to wear silk
and jewelry, or drive in a carriage through the streets of Rome? Are the
ladies of to-day happier in their splendid parlours, than the Portias
and the Cornelias have been in the homely retirement of their modest
nurseries? Nay; all that boundless thirst of wealth, which is the ruling
spirit of our age, and the moving power of enterprising energy, all this
hunting after treasures, and all its happiest results, have they made
men nobler, better, and happier? Have they improved their soul, or even
their body and their health, at least so much that the richest of men
could eat and digest two dinners instead of one? Or has the insatiable
thirst of material gain originated a purer patriotism? has it made
mankind more devoted to their country, more ready to sacrifice for
public interest? If that were the case, then I would gladly confess the
error of my doubts, and take the pretended larger amount of happiness
for a guarantee of the future of the commonwealth. But, ladies and
gentlemen! a single word--the manner in which we use it, distorting its
original meaning, often characterizes a whole century. You all know the
word "_idiot_;" almost every living language has adopted it, and
all languages attach to it the idea that an "idiot" is a poor, ignorant,
useless wretch, nearly insane. Well, "idiot" is a word of Greek
extraction, and meant with the Greek a man who cared nothing for the
public interest, but was all devoted to the selfish pursuit of private
profit, whatever might have been its results to the community. Oh! what
an immense, what a deplorable change must have occurred in the character
of Humanity, till unconsciously we came to the point, that by what name
the ancient Greeks would have styled those European money-kings, who,
for a miserable profit, administer to the unrelenting despots their
eternal loans, to oppress nations with, we now apply that very name to
the wretched creatures incapable to do any thing for themselves. We bear
compassion for the idiots of to-day, but the modern editions of Greek
idiotism, though loaded with the bloody scars of a hundred thousand
orphans, and with the curse of millions, stand high in honour, and go
on, proudly glorying in their criminal idiotism, heaping up the gold of
the world.
But I may be answered, after all, though our age be not so virtuous, and
though the large accumulation in wealth has in reality not made mankind
happier; still, it cannot be denied, you are in a prosperous condition,
and prosperity is a solid basis of your country's future. Industry,
navigation, commerce, have so much developed, they have formed so many
ties by which every citizen is linked to his country's fate, that your
own material interest is a security to your country's future.
In loving your own selves you love your country, and in loving your
country you love your own selves. This community of public and private
interest will make you avoid the stumbling-block over which others fell.
Prosperity is, of course, a great benefit; it is one of the aims of
human society; but when prosperity becomes too material, it does not
always guarantee the future. Paradoxical as it may appear, too much
prosperity is often dangerous, and some national misfortune is now and
then a good preservative of prosperity. For great prosperity makes
nations careless of their future; seeing no immediate danger, they
believe no danger possible; and then when a danger comes, either by
sudden chance or by the slow accumulation of noxious elements, then,
frightened by the idea that in meeting the danger their private property
might be injured or lost, selfishness often prevails over patriotism,
and men become ready to submit to arrogant pretensions, and compromise
with exigencies at the price of principles, and republics flatter
despots, and freemen covet the friendship and indulgence of tyrants,
only that things may go on just as they go, though millions weep and
nations groan; but still, things should go on just as they go, because
every change may claim a sacrifice, or affect our thriving private
interest. Such is often the effect of too great, of too secure
prosperity. Therefore, prosperity alone affords yet no security.
You remember the tale of Polycrates. He was the happiest of men; good
luck attended every one of his steps; success crowned all he undertook,
and a friend thus spoke to him: "Thou art too happy for thy happiness to
last. Appease the anger of the Eumenides by a voluntary sacrifice, or
deprive thyself of what thou most valuest among all that thou
possessest." Polycrates obeyed, and drew from his finger a precious
jewel, of immense value, dear to his heart, and threw it into the sea.
Soon after a fish was brought to his house, and his cook found the
precious ring in the belly of the fish; but the friend who advised him
hastened to flee from the house, and shook the dust of its threshold
from his shoes, because he feared a great mischief must fall upon that
too prosperous house. There is a deep meaning in that tale of
Polycrates.
Machiavel says, that it is now and then necessary to recall the
constituting essential principles to the memory of nations. And who is
charged by Providence with this task? Misfortune! It was the battles of
Cannaê and of Thrasymene which recalled the Romans to the love of their
fatherland; nations had till now, about such things, no other teacher
than misfortune. They should choose to have a less afflicting one. They
can have it. To point this out will be the final object of my remarks,
but so much is certain, that prosperity alone is yet no security for the
future, even of the happiest commonwealth. Those ancient nations have
been also prosperous. They were industrious, as your nation is; their
land has been covered with cities and villages, well-cultivated fields,
blessed with the richest crops, and crowded with countless herds spread
over immense territories, furrowed with artificial roads; their
flourishing cities swarmed with artists, and merchants, and workmen, and
pilots, and sailors, like as New York does. Their busy labourers built
gigantic water-works, digged endless canals, and carried distant waters
through the sands of the desert; their mighty, energetic spirit built
large and secure harbours, dried the marshy lakes, covered the sea with
vessels, the land with living beings, and spread a creation of life and
movement along the earth. Their commerce was broad as the known world.
Tyre exchanged its purple for the silk of Serica; Cashmere's soft
shawls, to-day yet a luxury of the wealthiest, the diamonds of Golconda,
the gorgeous carpets of Lydia, the gold of Ophir and Saba, the aromatic
spices and jewels of Ceylon, and the pearls and perfumes of Arabia, the
myrrh, silver, gold dust, and ivory of Africa, as well as the amber of
the Baltic and the tin of Thulé, appeared alike in their commerce,
raising them in turn to the dominion of the world, and undoing them by
too careless prosperity. The manner and the shape of one or the other
art, of one or other industry, has changed; the steam-engine has
replaced the rowing-bench, and cannon replaced the catapult; but, as a
whole, even your country, which you are proud to hear styled "the living
wonder of the world"--yes, even your country in the New World, and
England in the Old--England, that gigantic workshop of industry,
surrounded with a beautiful evergreen garden; yes, all the dominions of
the Anglo-Saxon race, can claim no higher praise of its prosperity, than
when we say, that you have reproduced the grandeur of those ancient
nations, and nearly equal their prosperity. And what has become of them?
A sad skeleton. What remains of their riches, of their splendour, and
of their vast dominions? An obscure recollection; a vain memory. Thus
fall empires; thus vanish nations, which have no better guardians than
their prosperity. But "we have," will you say, "we have a better
guardian--our freedom, our republican institutions; our confederation
uniting so many glorious stars into one mighty galaxy--these are the
ramparts of our present, these our future security."
Well, it would ill become me to investigate if there be nothing "rotten
in the state of Denmark," and certainly I am not the man who could feel
inclined to undervalue the divine power of liberty; to underrate the
value of your democratic institutions, and the vitality of your glorious
Union. It is to them I look in the solitary hours of meditation, and
when, overwhelmed with the cares of the patriot, my soul is groaning
under nameless woes, it is your freedom's sunny light which dispels the
gloomy darkness of despondency; here is the source whence the
inspiration of hope is flowing to the mourning world, that down-trodden
millions at the bottom of their desolation still retain a melancholy
smile upon their lips, and still retain a voice in their bleeding chest,
to thank the Almighty God that the golden thread of freedom is not yet
lost on earth. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, all this I feel, and all this
I know, reflecting upon your freedom, your institutions, and your Union;
but casting back my look into the mirror of the past, there I see upon
mouldering ground, written with warning letters, the dreadful truth,
that all this has nothing new; all this has been; and all this has never
yet been proved sufficient security. Freedom is the fairest gift of
Heaven; but it is not the security of itself. Democracy is the
embodiment of freedom, which in itself is but a principle. But what is
the security of democracy? And if you answer, "The Union is;" then I
ask, "And where is the security of the Union?" Yes, ladies and
gentlemen, Freedom is no new word. It is as old as the world. Despotism
is new, but Freedom not. And yet it has never yet proved a charter to
the security of nations. Republic is no new word. It is as old as the
word "Society." Before Rome itself, republics absorbed the world. There
were in all Europe, Africa and Asia Minor, but republics to be found,
and many among them democratic. Men had to wander to far Persia if they
would have desired to know what sort of thing a monarch is. And all they
have perished; the small ones by foreign power, the large ones by
domestic vice. And union, and confederacy, the association of
societies--a confederate republic of republics, is also no new
invention. Greece has known it and flourished by it, for a while. Rome
has known it; by such associations she attacked the world. The world has
known them; with them it defended itself against Rome. The so-called
Barbarians of Europe, beyond the Danube and the Rhine, have known it; it
was by a confederacy of union that they resisted the ambitious mistress
of the world. Your own country, America, has known it; the traditionary
history of the Romans of the West, of those six Indian Nations, bears
the records of it, out of an older time than your ancestors settled in
this land; the wise man of the Onondaga Nation has exercised it long
before your country's legislators built upon that basis your independent
home. And still it proved in itself alone no security to all those
nations who have known it before you. Your own fathers have seen the
last of the Mohawks burying his bloody tomahawk in the namesake flood,
and have listened to the majestic words of Logan, spoken with the
dignity of an Aemilius, that there exists no living being on earth in
the veins of whom one drop of the blood of his race did flow. Well, had
history nothing else to teach us, than that all what the wisdom of man
did conceive, and all that his energy has executed through the
innumerable days of the past, and all that we take to be glorious in
nations and happy to men, cannot so much do as to ensure a future even
to such a flourishing commonwealth as yours; then weaker hearts may well
ask, What good is it to warn us of a fatality which we cannot escape;
what good is it to hold up the mournful monuments of a national
mortality to sadden our heart, if all that is human must share that
common doom? Let us do as we can, and so far as we can, and let the
future bring what it may. But that would be the speech of one having no
faith in the all-watching Eye, and regarding the eternal laws of the
universe not as an emanation of a bountiful Providence, but of a blind
fatality, which plays at hazard with the destinies of men. I never will
share such blasphemy. Misfortune came over me, and came over my house,
and came over my guiltless nation; still I never have lost my trust in
the Father of all. I have lived the days when the people of my oppressed
country went along weeping over the immense misfortune that they cannot
pray, seeing the downfall of the most just cause and the outrageous
triumph of the most criminal of all crimes on earth; and they went along
not able to pray, and weeping that they are not able to pray. I
shuddered at the terrible tidings in the desolation of my exile; but I
could pray, and sent the consolation home, that I do not despair; that I
believe in God, and trust to His bountiful providence, and ask them who
of them dares despair when I do not? I was in exile, as I am now, but
arrogant despots were debating about my blood, my infant children in
prison, my wife, the faithful companion of my sorrows and my cares,
hunted like a noble deer, and my sisters in the tyrant's fangs, red with
the blood of my nation, and the heart of my aged mother breaking, about
the shattered fortunes of her house, and all of them at last homeless
wanderers, cast to the winds, like the yellow leaves of a fallen tree;
and my fatherland, my dear, beloved fatherland, half murdered, half in
chains, and humanity nearly all oppressed, and those who are not yet
oppressed looking with compassion at our sad fate, but taking it for
wise policy not to help, and the sky of freedom dark on our horizon, and
darkening fast over all, and nowhere a ray of hope; a lustre of
consolation nowhere; and still I did not despair; and my faith to God,
my trust to Providence has spread over my down-trodden land.
I therefore, who do not despair of my own country's future, though it be
overwhelmed with misfortunes, I certainly have an unwavering faith in
the destinies of Humanity; and though the mournful example of so many
fallen nations instructs us, that neither the diffusion of knowledge,
nor the progress of industry, neither prosperity, nor power, nay, not
even freedom itself, can secure a future to nations, still I say there
is one thing which can secure it; there is one law, the obedience to
which would prove a rock upon which the freedom and happiness of nations
may rest sure to the end of their days. And that law, ladies and
gentlemen, is the law proclaimed by our Saviour; that rock is the
unperverted religion of Christ. But while the consolation of this
sublime truth falls meekly upon my soul like as the moonlight falls upon
the smooth sea, I humbly claim your forbearance, ladies and gentlemen; I
claim it in the name of the Almighty Lord, to hear from my lips a
mournful truth. It may displease you; it may offend; but still truth is
truth. Offended vanity may blame me; power may frown at me, and pride
may call my boldness arrogant, but still truth is truth, and I, bold in
my unpretending humility, will proclaim that truth; I will proclaim it
from land to land and from sea to sea; I will proclaim it with the faith
of the martyrs of old, till the seed of my word falls upon the
consciences of men. Let come what come may, I say with Luther: God help
me, I cannot otherwise. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the law of our
Saviour, the religion of Christ, can secure a happy future to nations.
But, alas! there is yet no Christian people on earth--not a single one
among all. I have spoken the word. It is harsh, but true. Nearly two
thousand years have passed since Christ has proclaimed the eternal
decree of God, to which the happiness of mankind is bound, and has
sanctified it with His own blood, and still there is not one single
nation on earth which would have enacted into its law-book that eternal
decree. Men believe in the mysteries of religion, according to the creed
of their church; they go to church, and they pray and give alms to the
poor, and drop the balm of consolation into the wounds of the afflicted,
and believe they do all that the Lord commanded to do, and believe they
are Christians. No! Some few may be, but their nation is not--their
country is not; the era of Christianity has yet to come, and when it
comes, then, only then, will be the future of nations sure. Far be it
from me to misapprehend the immense benefit which Christian religion,
such as it already is, has operated in mankind's history. It has
influenced the private character of men, and the social condition of
millions; it was the nurse of a new civilization, and softening the
manners and morals of men, its influence has been felt even in the worst
quarter of history--in war. The continual massacres of the Greek and
Roman kings and chiefs, and the extermination of nations by them--the
all-devastating warfare of the Timurs and Gengis Khans--are in general
not more to be met with; only my own dear fatherland was doomed to
experience once more the cruelties of the Timurs and Gengis Khans out of
the sacrilegious hands of the dynasty of Austria, which calumniates
Christianity by calling itself Christian. But though that beneficial
influence of Christianity we have cheerfully to acknowledge, yet it is
still not to be disputed that the law of Christ does yet nowhere rule
the Christian world.
Montesquieu himself, whom nobody could charge to be partial for
republics, avows that despotism is incompatible with the Christian
religion, because the Christian religion commands meekness, and
despotism claims arbitrary power to the whims and passions of a frail
mortal; and still it is more than 1,500 years since the Christian
religion became dominant, and through that long period despotism has
been pre-eminently dominant; you can scarcely show one single truly
democratic republic of any power which had subsisted but for a hundred
years, exercising any influence upon the condition of the world.
Constantine, raising the Christian religion to Rome's imperial throne,
did not restore the Romans to their primitive virtues. Constantinople
became the sewer of vice; Christian worship did not change the despotic
habits of Kings. The Tituses, the Trajans, the Antonines, appeared
seldom on Christian thrones; on the contrary, mankind has seen, in the
name of religion, lighted the piles of persecution, and the blazing
torches of intolerance; the earth overspread with corpses of the million
victims of fanaticism; the fields watered with blood; the cities wrapped
in flames, and empires ravaged with unrelenting rage. Why? Is it
Christian religion which caused these deplorable facts, branding the
brow of partly degraded, partly outraged Humanity? No. It was precisely
the contrary; the fact that the religion of Christ never yet was
practically taken for an all-overruling law, the obedience to which,
outweighing every other consideration, would have directed the policy of
nations--that fact is the source of evil, whence the oppression of
millions has overflowed the earth, and which makes the future of the
proudest, of the freest nation, to be like a house built upon sand.
Every religion has two parts. One is the dogmatical, the part of
worship; the other is the moral part.
The first, the dogmatic part, belonging to those mysterious regions
which the arm of human understanding cannot reach, because they belong
to the dominion of belief, and that begins where the dominion of
knowledge ends--that part of religion, therefore, the dogmatic one,
should be left to every man to settle between God and his own
conscience. It is a sacred field, whereon worldly power never should
dare to trespass, because there it has no power to enforce its will.
Force can murder; it can make liars and hypocrites, but no violence on
earth can force a man to believe what he does not believe. Yet the
other part of religion, the moral part, is quite different. That
teaches duties toward ourselves and toward our fellow-men. It can be,
therefore, not indifferent to the human family: it can be not
indifferent to whatever community, if those duties be fulfilled or not,
and no nation can, with full right, claim the title of a Christian
nation, no government the title of a Christian government, which is not
founded upon the basis of Christian morality, and which takes it not for
an all-overruling law to fulfil the moral duties ordered by the religion
of Christ toward men and nations, who are but the community of men, and
toward mankind, which is the community of nations. Now, look to those
dread pages of history, stained with the blood of millions, spilt under
the blasphemous pretext of religion; was it the intent to vindicate the
rights, and enforce the duties of Christian morality, which raised the
hand of nation against nation, of government against government? No: it
was the fanaticism of creed, and the fury of dogmatism. Nations and
governments rose to propagate their manner to worship God, and their own
mode to believe the inscrutable mysteries of eternity; but nobody has
yet raised a finger to punish the sacrilegious violation of the moral
laws of Christ, nobody ever stirred to claim the fulfilment of the
duties of Christian morality toward nations. There is much speaking
about the separation of Church and State, and yet, on close examination,
we shall see that there was, and there is, scarcely one single
government entirely free from the direct or indirect influence of one or
other religious denominations; scarcely one which would not at least
bear a predilection, if not countenance with favour, one or another
creed--but creed, and always creed. The mysteries of dogmatism, and the
manner of worship, enter into these considerations; they enter even into
the politics, and turn the scales of hatred and affection; but certainly
there is not one single nation, not one single government, the policy of
which would ever have been regulated by that law of morality which our
Saviour has promulgated as the eternal law of God, which shall be obeyed
in all the relations of men to men. But you say, of the direct or
indirect amalgamation of Church and State, proved to be dangerous to
nations in Christian and for Christian times, because it affected the
individual rights of men, and among them, the dearest of all, the
liberty of conscience and the freedom of thought. Well, of this danger,
at least, the future of your country is free; because here, at least, in
this, your happy land, religious liberty exists. Your institutions left
no power to your government to interfere with the religion of your
citizens. Here every man is free to worship God as he chooses to do.
And that is true, and it is a great glory of your country that it is
true. It is a fact which entitles to the hope that your nation will
revive the law of Christ, even on earth. However, the guarantee which
your Constitution affords to religious liberty is but a negative part of
a Christian government. There are, besides that, positive duties to be
fulfilled. He who does no violence to the conscience of man, has but the
negative merit of a man doing no wrong; but as he who does not murder,
does not steal, and does not covet what his neighbour's is, but by not
stealing, not murdering, not coveting what our neighbour's is, we did
yet no positive good; a man who does not murder has not yet occasion to
the title of virtuous man. And here is precisely the infinite merit of
the Christian religion. While Moses, in the name of the Almighty God,
ordered but negative degrees toward fellow-men, the Christian religion
commands positive virtue. Its divine injunctions are not performed by
not doing wrong; it desires us to do good. The doctrine of Jesus Christ
is sublime in its majestic simplicity. "Thou shalt love God above all,
and love thy neighbour as thou lovest thyself."
This sublime doctrine is the religion of love. It is the religion of
charity. "Though I speak with the tongues of angels, and have not
charity, I am become as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. Though I
have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all
knowledge, and have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and
have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to
feed the poor, and give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it
profiteth me nothing." Thus speaks the Lord, and thus speaking He gives
the law, "Do unto others as thou desirest others to do unto thee." Now,
in the name of Him who gave this law to humanity, to build up the
eternal bliss and temporal happiness of mankind, in the name of that
Eternal Legislator, I ask, is in that _charity_, in that
fundamental law of Christianity, any limit of distinction drawn in man
in his personal, and man in his national capacity? Is it but a law for a
man where he is alone, and can do but little good? Is it no law more
where two are together, and can do more good? No law more when millions
are together? Am I in my personal adversities; is my aged mother in her
helpless desolation; are my homeless sisters whom you feed to-day, that
they may work to-morrow; are we your neighbours, unto whom you do as you
would others in a similar position do unto yourself? And is every one of
my down-trodden people a neighbour to every one of you? but all my
people collectively, is it _not_ a neighbour to you? And is my
nation not a neighbour to your nation? Is my down-trodden land not a
neighbour to your down-trodden land? Oh! my God, men speak of the
Christian religion and style themselves Christians, and yet make a
distinction between virtue in private life and virtue in public life; as
if the divine law of Charity would have been given only for certain
small relations, and not for all the relations between men and men.
"There he is again, with his eternal complaints about his country's
wrongs;" may perhaps somebody remark: "This is an assembly of charity,
assembled to ease his private woes of family; and there he is again
speaking of his country's wrongs, and alluding to our foreign policy,
about which he knows our views to be divided." Thus I may be charged.
My "private family woes!" But all my woes and all the woes of my family,
are concentrated in the unwarrantable oppression of my fatherland. You
are an assembly of charity, it is true, and the Almighty may requite you
for it; but being a charitable assembly, can you blame me that the
filial and fraternal devotion of my heart, in taking with gratitude the
balm of consolation which your charity pours into the bleeding wounds of
my family, looks around to heal those wounds, the torturing pains of
which you ease, but which cannot be cured but by justice and charity
done to my fatherland. Shall this sad heart of mine be contented by
leaving to my homeless mother and sisters the means to have their bread
by honest labour, their daily bread salted with the bitter tears of
exile; and shall I not care to leave them the hope that their misfortune
will have an end; that they will see again their beloved home; that they
will see it independent and free, and live where their fathers lived,
and sleep the tranquil sleep of death in that soil with which the ashes
of their fathers mingle? Shall I not care to give the consolation to my
aged mother, that when her soon departing soul, crowned with the garland
of martyrdom, looks down from the home of the blessed, the united joy of
the heavens will thrill through her immortal spirit, seeing her dear,
dear Hungary free? Your views are divided on the subject, it may be;
but can your views be divided upon the subject that it is the command of
God to love your neighbours as you love yourselves? That it is the duty
of Christians, that it is the fundamental principle of the Christian
religion, to do unto others as you desire others to do unto you? And if
there is, if there can be no difference of opinion in regard to the
principle; if no one in this vast assembly--whatever be the platform of
his party--ever would disclaim this principle, will any one blame me
that in the name of Christ I am bold to claim the application of that
principle? I should not speak of politics! Well, I have spoken of
Christianity. Your politics either agree with the Law of Christ, or they
do not agree with it. If they don't agree, then your politics are not
Christian; and if they agree, then I cause no division among you.
And I shall not speak of my people's wrongs! Oh! my people--thou heart
of my heart, thou life of my life--to thee are bent the thoughts of my
mind, and they will remain bent to thee, though all the world may frown.
To thee are pledged all the affections of my heart, and they will be
pledged to thee as long as one drop of blood throbs within this heart.
Thine are the cares of my waking hours; thine are the dreams of my
restless sleep. Shall I forget thee, but for a moment! Never! Never!
Cursed be the moment, and cursed be I in that moment, in which thou
wouldst be forgotten by me!
Thou art oppressed, O my fatherland! because the principles of
Christianity have not been executed in practice; because the duties of
Christianity have not been fulfilled; because the precepts of
Christianity have not been obeyed; because the law of Christianity did
not control the policy of nations; because there are many impious
governments to offend the law of Christ, but there was none to do the
duties commanded by Christ.
Thou art fallen, O my country, because Christianity has yet to come; but
it is not yet come--nowhere! Nowhere on earth! And with the sharp eye of
misfortune piercing the dark veil of the future, and with the tongue of
Cassandria relating what I see, I cry it out to high Heaven, and shout
it out to the Earth--"Nations, proud of your momentary power; proud of
your freedom; proud of your prosperity--your power is vain, your freedom
is vain, your industry, your wealth, your prosperity are vain; all these
will not save you from sharing the mournful fate of those old nations,
not less powerful than you, not less free, not less prosperous than
you--and still fallen, as you yourself will fall--all vanished as you
will vanish, like a bubble thrown up from the deep! There is only the
law of Christ, there are only the duties of Christianity, which can
secure your future, by securing at the same time humanity."
Duties must be fulfilled, else they are an idle word. And who would
dispute that there is a positive duty in that law, "Love thy neighbour
as thou lovest thyself. Do unto others as thou wouldst that others do
unto thee." Now, if there are duties in that law comprised, who shall
execute them, if free and powerful nations do not execute them? No
government can meddle with the private relations of its millions of
citizens so much as to enforce the positive virtue of Christian charity,
in the thousand-fold complications of private life. That will be
impossible; and our Saviour did not teach impossibilities. By
commanding charity toward fellow-men in human relations, He commanded it
also to governments. It is in their laws toward their own citizens; it
is in their policy toward other nations, that governments and nations
can fulfil those duties of Christianity; and what they can, that they
should. How could governments hope to see their own citizens and other
nations observing toward them the positive duties of Christian morality,
when they themselves do not observe them against others; when oppressed
nations, the victims, not of their own faults, but of the grossest
violation of the law of Christ, look in vain around to find out a nation
among Christian nations, and a government among Christian governments,
doing unto them, in the hour of their supreme need, as the Saviour said
that it is duty to do unto others in every case?
Yes, gentlemen, as long as the principles of Christian morality are not
carried up into the international relations--as long as the fragile
wisdom of political exigencies overrules the doctrines of Christ, there
is no freedom on earth firm, and the future of no nation sure. But let a
powerful nation like yours raise Christian morality into its public
conduct, that nation will have a future against which the very gates of
hell itself will never prevail. The morality of its policy will react
upon the morality of its individuals, and preserve it from domestic
vice, which, without that prop, ever yet has attended too much
prosperity, and ever yet was followed by a dreadful fall. The morality
of its policy will support justice and freedom on earth, and thus
augmenting the number of free nations, all acting upon the same
principle, its very future will be placed under the guarantee of them
all, and preserve it from foreign danger--which is better to prevent
than to repel. And its future will be placed under the guarantee of the
Almighty himself, who, true to His eternal decrees, proved through the
downfall of so many mighty nations, that He always punished the fathers
in the coming generations; but alike bountiful as just, will not and
cannot forsake those to whom He gave power to carry out His laws on
earth, and who willingly answered His divine call. Power in itself never
yet was sure. It is right which makes power firm; and it is community
which makes right secure. The task of PETER'S apostolate is
accomplished--the Churches are founded in the Christian world. The task
of PAUL'S apostolate is accomplished--the abuses of fanaticism and
intolerance are redressed. But the task of him whom the Saviour most
loved, is not yet accomplished. The gospel of charity rules not yet the
Christian world; and without charity, Christianity, you know, is "but
sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal."
Oh! Charity, thou fairest gift of Heaven! thou family link between
nations; thou rock of their security; thou deliverer of the oppressed;
when comes thy realm? Where is the man whom the Lord has chosen to
establish thy realm? Who is the man whom the Lord has chosen to realize
the religion, the tenets of which the most beloved disciple of the
Saviour has recorded from his divine lips? who is the man to reform, not
Christian creeds, but Christian morality? Man! No; that is no task for
a man, but for a nation. Man may teach a doctrine; but that doctrine of
Charity is taught, and taught with such sublime simplicity, that no
sectarist yet has disputed its truth. Historians have been quarrelling
about mysteries, and lost empires through their disputes. The Greeks
were controversially disputing whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the
Father alone, or from the Father and Son; and Mahomet battered the walls
of Byzantium, they heard it not; he wrested the cross from Santa Sophia;
they saw it not, till the cimeter of the Turk stopped the rage of
quarrel with the blow of death. In other quarters they went on disputing
and deciding with mutual anathemas the question of transfiguration and
many other mysteries, which, being mysteries, constitute the private
dominion of belief; but the doctrine of charity none of them disputes;
there they all agree; nay, in the idle times of scholastical subtility,
they have been quarrelling about the most extravagant fancies of a
scorched imagination. Mighty folios have been written about the problem,
how many angels could dance upon the top of a needle without touching
each other? The folly of subtility went so far as to profane the sacred
name of God, by disputing if He, being omnipotent, has the power to sin?
If, in the holy wafer, He be present dressed or undressed? If the
Saviour would have chosen the incarnation in the shape of a gourd,
instead of a man, how would he have preached, how acted miracles, and
how had been crucified? And when they went to the theme of investigating
if it was a whip or a lash with which the angels have whipped St. Jerome
for trying to imitate in his writings the pagan Cicero, it was but after
centuries that Abbot Cartaut dared to write that if St. Jerome was
whipped at all, he was whipped for having _badly_ imitated Cicero.
Still, the doctrine of Christian charity is so sublime in its
simplicity, that not even the subtility of scholasticism dared ever to
profane it by any controversy, and still that sublime doctrine is not
executed, and the religion of charity not realized yet. The task of this
glorious progress is only to be done by a free and powerful nation,
because it is a task of action, and not of teaching. Individual man can
but execute it in the narrow compass of the small relations of private
life; it is only the power of a nation which can raise it to become a
ruling law on earth; and before this is done, the triumph of
Christianity is not arrived--and without that triumph, the freedom and
prosperity even of the mightiest nation is not for a moment safe from
internal decay, or from foreign violence.
Which is the nation to achieve that triumph of Christianity by
protecting justice out of charity? Which shall do it, if not yours? Whom
the Lord has blessed above all, from whom He much expects, because He
has given her much.
Ye Ministers of the Gospel, who devote your lives to expound the eternal
truths of the book of life, remember my humble words, and remind those
who, with pious hearts, listen to your sacred words, that half virtue is
no virtue at all, and that there is no difference in the duties of
charity between public and private life.
Ye Missionaries, who devote your lives to the propagation of
Christianity, before you embark for the dangers of far, inhospitable
shores, remind those whom you leave, that the example of a nation
exercising right and justice on earth by charity, would be the mightiest
propagandism of Christian religion.
Ye Patriots, loving your country's future, and anxious about her
security, remember the admonitions of history--remember that the
freedom, the power, and the prosperity in which your country glories, is
no new apparition on earth; others also had it, and yet they are gone.
The prudence with which your forefathers have founded this commonwealth,
the courage with which you develop it, other nations also have shown,
and still they are gone.
And ye ladies; ye fairest incarnation of the spirit of love, which
vivifies the universe, remember my words. The heart of man is given into
your tender hands. You mould it in its infancy. You imprint the lasting
mark of character upon man's brow, You ennoble his youth; you soften the
harshness of his manhood; you are the guardian angels of his hoary age.
All your vocation is love, and your life is charity. The religion of
charity wants your apostolate, and requires your aid. It is to you I
appeal, and leave the sublime topic of my humble reflections to the
meditations of your Christian hearts.
And thus, my task of to-day is done. Man shall earn the means of life by
the sweat of his brow. Thus shall my family. Your charity of to-day has
opened the way to it. The school which my mother, if God spares her
life, will superintend, and in which two of my sisters will teach, and
the humble farm which my third sister and her family shall work, will be
the gift of your charity to-day.
A stony weight of cares is removed from my breast. Oh! be blessed for
it, be thanked for it, in the name of them all who have lost every
thing, but not their trust to God, and not the benefit of being able to
work. My country will forgive me that I have taken from her the time of
one day's work--to give bread to my aged mother and to my homeless
sisters, the poor victims of unrelenting tyranny. Returning to Europe, I
may find my own little children in a condition that again the father
will have to take the spade or the pen into his hand to give them bread.
And my fatherland will again forgive me, that that time is taken from
her. That is all what I take from her; nothing else of what is given, or
what belongs to her. And the day's work which I take from my country, I
will restore it by a night's labour. To-day, the son and the brother has
done his task; you have requited his labour by a generous charity; the
son and brother thanks you for it, and the patriot, to resume his task,
bids you a hearty, warm farewell.