Tempo:
INTERIOR VISION. 33
do but as they desire, and open the way for more abuse. Let them talk; there will be a reaction if you perform but your duty, and hundreds who were once alienated from you will flock to you and acknowledge their error. Keep right on the rough or even tenor of your own way.
Why look back to the past, when you should be gazing forward to the future? why hurry to the old haunts, when you see the whole world hastening the other way? A little generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grains of charity, might win all to join and unite into one general and brotherly search after truth ; could we but forego this prelatic tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and precepts of men, I doubt not, if some great and worthy stranger were to come among us, wise to discern the mould and temper of a people, and how to govern it, observing the high hopes and aims, the diligent alacrity of our extended thoughts and reasons, in pursuance of truth and freedom, but that he would cry out as Pyrrhus did, admiring the Roman docility and courage, ‘If such were my Epirots, I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted to make a church or a kingdom happy.” Have you faith in the great spirit of our mighty people? Can you discern the instinct of its immortal longing? Do you hope to stem the tide of its irresistible advance, any more than to take the swallows from the sky and stop their flight toward summer? Is it possible you can believe that tradition will serve for anything but men’s couch dreams, or that the shadows of antiquity will stand for the substance of Now? The President, Congress, and Supreme Court of to-day are not, do not mean, the same powers of fifty years ago. We call our Constitution the same; but laws vary in their effect with the tendencies of their administrators, as completely as if they were repealed, or altered in their substance. Public opinion consigns some to the cobwebs of the obsolete ; altered views change their very interpretation. Are you alone insensible to the change? If not, be up and stirring with the times, —in all affairs, of church, State, politics, labor, love, mariage, and the family; for we live in stirring times, when every one of us must prove ourselves either pieces or pawns in the chess game of life, and to avoid being checked must play WELL!
In these days of turmoil, climatic changes, political change, and
do but as they desire, and open the way for more abuse. Let them talk; there will be a reaction if you perform but your duty, and hundreds who were once alienated from you will flock to you and acknowledge their error. Keep right on the rough or even tenor of your own way.
Why look back to the past, when you should be gazing forward to the future? why hurry to the old haunts, when you see the whole world hastening the other way? A little generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grains of charity, might win all to join and unite into one general and brotherly search after truth ; could we but forego this prelatic tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and precepts of men, I doubt not, if some great and worthy stranger were to come among us, wise to discern the mould and temper of a people, and how to govern it, observing the high hopes and aims, the diligent alacrity of our extended thoughts and reasons, in pursuance of truth and freedom, but that he would cry out as Pyrrhus did, admiring the Roman docility and courage, ‘If such were my Epirots, I would not despair the greatest design that could be attempted to make a church or a kingdom happy.” Have you faith in the great spirit of our mighty people? Can you discern the instinct of its immortal longing? Do you hope to stem the tide of its irresistible advance, any more than to take the swallows from the sky and stop their flight toward summer? Is it possible you can believe that tradition will serve for anything but men’s couch dreams, or that the shadows of antiquity will stand for the substance of Now? The President, Congress, and Supreme Court of to-day are not, do not mean, the same powers of fifty years ago. We call our Constitution the same; but laws vary in their effect with the tendencies of their administrators, as completely as if they were repealed, or altered in their substance. Public opinion consigns some to the cobwebs of the obsolete ; altered views change their very interpretation. Are you alone insensible to the change? If not, be up and stirring with the times, —in all affairs, of church, State, politics, labor, love, mariage, and the family; for we live in stirring times, when every one of us must prove ourselves either pieces or pawns in the chess game of life, and to avoid being checked must play WELL!
In these days of turmoil, climatic changes, political change, and
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