Such a struggle is now going on in our own
country. The question we are debating is whether the nation is to be
disintegrated or consolidated. The theory of "State sovereignty" is
nothing more than the old theory of feudal independence. "I love France
so well," said Charles of Burgundy, "that I would fain see it ruled over
by six kings instead of one." "I love the republic founded by our
fathers so well," says Jefferson Davis, "that I would fain see it split
up into several hostile confederacies." When we see that France, under
the direction of a Louis XI., came out of that struggle triumphant, we
shall not despair of our own future, trusting rather to the guidance of
that Providence which is working out its own great designs than to
instruments little cognizant of its plans and too often unconscious of
its influence.
_Good Thoughts in Bad Times, and Other Papers._ By THOMAS FULLER, D.D.
Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
There certainly never was a greater piece of publishing felicity, in its
seasonableness, than this entire reprint. The "Thoughts" are as good,
for whatever is bad or trying in our times, as they were hundreds of
years ago; so that one might almost suspect the title of the book for an
invention, and consider many a passage in it to be new matter,
only--after the fashion of some who, in essay or story, try to
reproduce the ancients--skilfully put in the manner of the old
preacher.
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