corn-plucking on the Sabbath, and said, "Weel, I dinna think the better of
him." In other words he was quite positive, like all his countrymen, that
he could impose a sort of Pax Germanica, which would satisfy all the needs
of order and of freedom forever; leaving no need for revolutions or
reactions. I am myself of a different opinion. When I was a child, when the
toy-trade of Germany had begun to flood this country, there was a priggish
British couplet, engraven on the minds of governesses, which ran--

What the German children delight to make
The English children delight to break.

I can answer for the delight of the English children; a just and godlike
delight. I am not so sure about the delight of the German children, when
they were caught in the infernal wheels of the modern civilisation of
factories. But, for the present, I am only concerned to say that I do not
accept this line of historical division. I do not think history supports
the view that those who could break things could not make them.

This is the least intrusive approach by which I can touch on a topic that
must of necessity be a delicate one; yet which may well be a difficulty
among Latins like yourself. Against this preposterous Prussian upstart we
have not only to protect our unity; we have even to protect our quarrels.
And the deepest of the reactions or revolts of which I have spoken is the
quarrel which (very tragically as I think) has for some hundred years
cloven the Christian from the Liberal ideal. It would ill become me, in
whose country there is neither such clear doctrine nor such combative
democracy, to suppose it can be easy for any of you to close up such sacred
wounds. There must still be Catholics who feel they can never forgive a
Jacobin. There must still be old Republicans who feel that they could never
endure a priest. And yet there is something, the mere sight of which should