The general purity
of life and propriety of demeanor of so many thousands of undefended
young girls cast yearly upon our shores, with no home but their church,
and no shield but their religion, are a sufficient proof that this
religion exerts an influence over them not to be lightly trifled with.
But there is a real unity even in opposite Christian forms; and the
Roman Catholic servant and the Protestant mistress, if alike possessed
by the spirit of Christ, and striving to conform to the Golden Rule,
can not help being one in heart, though one go to mass and the other
to meeting.
Finally, the bitter baptism through which we have passed, the life-blood
dearer than our own which has drenched distant fields, should remind
us of the preciousness of distinctive American ideas. They who would
seek in their foolish pride to establish the pomp of liveried servants
in America are doing that which is simply absurd. A servant can never
in our country be the mere appendage to another man, to be marked like
a sheep with the color of his owner; he must be a fellow-citizen, with
an established position of his own, free to make contracts, free to
come and go, and having in his sphere titles to consideration and
respect just as definite as those of any trade or profession whatever.
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