THE BATTALION
5
that Government is merely an agent, delegated to execute the
prescribed laws of the people.
In observing the business management of a private cor
poration, we will notice that due care is taken in the selection
of those to whom the management is confided, and in propor
tion to the care and vigilance they exercise in the selection
of their officers, so much does their confidence in the success
of the business increase, and yet how little we observe this
rule in the management of our government. This very neg
ligence is the germ of our surrounding danger. From a win
dow in one of the towers in the castle, Rebecca looked down
and described the besiegers to Ivanhoe. Let us scale some
bights of observation and gaze upon the host that lay sieze to
our republic. Without the aid of the telescope we will discern
an army drawn up in line of battle, led by a leader “Ignor
ance.” In another direction we will see an army the most
dangerous and most destructive of all, bearing a banner with
the inscription “Indifference.” These are the ghastly hosts
that threaten us. Not from across the sea, not from the
north or south, but from those that live in the midst of our
own household. There is a beautiful proverb “that by the
faults of others, wise men profit.” We need no better source
from whence to draw our lesson than the cause that led to the
fall of the Roman Republic. Let us direct our thoughts for a
moment to that republic and assertain the cause of its fall.
Historjr teaches us that the Roman Republic was at one
time the greatest in the world, having subjugated during its
regime almost the entire world then known to exist, and yet,
how ignominiously it fell. Who caused its destruction? Was
it accomplished by foreigners? No, it was the hand of its
own citizens that caused the fall of its beautiful edifice.
Through many causes, of which Indifference was the main,
the people allowed the comitia to fall into the hands of
the shrewd and cunning politicians, who, while professing to
serve their country, were all the time serving their own selfish
purpose, and, having accomplished their object, caused the
very foundations of their institutions to be razed.
Fiom the ruins of that great republic a most cruel Des-