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due, and to injure no sacred, public, or foreign rights, and to forbear 
touching what does not belong to us.” 
Justice is truth in action. 
Justice satisfies everybody, and justice alone. 
Every place is safe to him who lives with justice. 
“Justice,” says Daniel Webster, “is the great interest of man on 
earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized na¬ 
tions together. Wherever her temple stands, and so long as it is duly hon¬ 
ored, there is a foundation for general security, general happiness, and 
the improvement and progress of our race.” 
But, then, please, remember, dear reader, that it is impossible to be 
just if one is not generous, and to be generous is a duty as indispensably 
necessary as those imposed upon us by the law. 
And as to charity, we may justly say that it is the very life of our 
soul, whence it follows that it is the soul of all virtues. Without it there 
is no true virtue, that is, no virtue which can lead us to our true end, the 
possession of God. It is in regard to other virtues that which the root is to 
the tree, that which a wise queen is to her subjects. It extends not only 
to the moral virtues, but also to the other so-called theological virtues, Faith 
and Hope. 
“Of all virtues,” says St. Thomas, “the theological virtues are the 
most excellent, because they tend directly to God Himself, who is the rule 
of all perfection; and. among the theological virtues, the most excellent is 
that which tends most perfectly to Him, and rests in Him and for Him. 
This virtue is charity.”* 
In so saying, the Angelic Doctor is the echo of St. Augustine, who 
defines all virtues by charity. “Faith,” he says, “is a love which believes; 
hope, a love which expects. ; patience, a love which endures; prudence, a 
*8t. Thom., 2a 2ae 9, xxiii, Art. 6. 
