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Show 86 whose fury hardly any thing escapes. These mighty forces sweep all lesser political organizations before them. And these are to be robbed of their pernicious power, not by forming a third party, but by the increase of intelligence and virtue in the community, and by the silent flowing together of reflecting, upright, independent men, who will feel themselves bound to throw off the shackles of party; who will refuse any longer to neutralise their moral influence by coalition with the self-seeking, the hollow-hearted, and the double-tongued; whose bond of union will be, the solemn purpose to speak the truth without adulteration, to adhere to the right without compromise, to support good measures and discountenance bad, come from what quarter they may, to be just to all parties, and to expose alike the corruptions of all. There are now among us good and true men enough to turn the balance on all great questions, would they but confide in principle, and be loyal to it in word and deed. Under their influence, newspapers might be established, in which men and measures of all parties would be tried without fear or favor by the moral, Christian law ; and this revolution of the press would do more than all things for the political regeneration of the country. The people would learn from it, that whilst boasting of liberty, they are used as puppets and tools ; that popular save- 87 reignty, with all its paper bulwarks, is a show rather than a substance, as long as party despotism endures. It is by such a broad, generous improvemen! of society, that our present political organizations are to be put down, and not by a third party on a narrow basis, and which, instead of embracing all the interests of the country, confines itself to a single point. I cannot but express again regret at the willingness of the abolitionists to rely on and pursue political power. Their strength has always lain in the simplicity of their religious trust, in their confidence in Christian truth. Formerly, the hope sometimes crossed my mind, that, by enlarging their views and purifying their spirit, they would gradually become a religious community, fuunded on the recognition of God as the common, equal Father of all mankind, on the recognition of J esus Christ as having lived and died to unite to himself and to baptise with his spirit every human soul , and on the recognition of the brotherhood of all the members of God's human family. There are signs that Christians are tending, however slowly, toward a church, in which these great ideas of Christianity will be realized ; in which a spiritual reverence for God, and for the human soul, will take place of the customary homage paid to outward distinctions ; and in which our present narrow sects will be swallowed up. |