test and sullen defiance. Yet we remember that it is not the clergy, but the Government, which holds the bell-ropes."
It will not, furthermore, be disputed that under the liberal policy which Juarez adopted after the overthrow of the empire, and which the present President has especially carried out, more has been done for the regeneration and progress of Mexico than in almost all former years. Not only has freedom for religious belief and worship been secured, but a system of common schools has been established; the higher branches of education fostered; brigandage in a great degree suppressed; an extensive railroad and telegraph system constructed; postage reduced and post-office facilities extended; the civil and military law codes revised and reformed; the payment of interest upon the national debt in part renewed; and general peace, at home and abroad, maintained—and all this under difficulties which, when viewed abstractly and collectively by a foreign observer, seem to be appalling and insurmountable.
Now, why should not the United States, which heretofore has been so prompt to sympathize with and even give material aid to the people of every Old World nationality struggling for freedom and against oppression—to Poland, Greece, Hungary, and Ireland—be equally ready to sympathize with
