Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/107

 tribes of India, from the Red-skinned native of Canada and the poor down-trodden Egyptian, there goes up an exceeding bitter cry that pierces our hearts as the wail of the infant in the street pierced mine; and are we to remain silent? I say no; punish we must, though we punish with love; and for this are we to be branded as enemies of our country? And yet the vile slander is repeated at each instance of our tender love of these our erring children; and one of us who was not afraid to lift his voice in horror and reprobation of the vile massacre that followed the death by sunstroke of an English officer is held up to execration, forsooth, as a traitor to his country!

Yes; calumny seems a monster which revives from the ashes of its funeral pyre, like the fabled Phœnix of Arabia; and I know of no more abominable calumny than that which ascribes to the Puritan an ignorance of the arts, and indeed a detestation of them.

In answer to this, let me point out once and for all that it is we and we alone