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Show 112 Wendell PhilliJ?s. from Pocahontas in 1608 to John Brown in 1859, when lm-mam' ty 1· s di ;~:,cor racefu1 ' 'a nd despotism treads it out under its iron heel?_ who reyealed it? One brave act of an old Pu-ritan soul, that did not stop to ask what the majority thought, or what forms were, but acted. The revelation of de. potism is the great lesson which the Puritan ~f o~r month has tn.ught us. lie has flung himself, under the mstmct of a great Idea, against the institutions beneath which we sit ; and he says, practically, to the world, as the Puritan did, "If I am a :elon, bury me with curses. I will tru t to a future age to Judge betwixt you and me. Posterity will summon the State to judgment, and will admit my principle. I can wait." l\ien say it is anarchy; that this right of the individual to ..it in judO'ment cannot be tru ted. It is the lcs on of Puritani~m. If tllC individual, criticising law, cannot be tru ~ ted, then Puritanism is a mistake; for the sanctity of individual judgment is the lesson of l\Iassachusetts history in 1 G20 antl '30. 'Ve accepted anarchy as the safest. The Puritan .. aiu, "Human nature is sinful"; so the earth is accursed since the Fall; but I cannot find any thing better than this ol<l earth to builu on; I mu t put up my corner-stone upon it, cursed as it i ' ; I cannot lay hold of the battlements of heaven." So Puritanism said, "Human nature is sinful; but it is the best ba is we have got. 'Ve will build upon it, and we will trust the influences of God, the inherent gravitation of the race towards right, that it. will end right." I affirm that this is the lesson of our history: that the world • is fluid; that we are on the ocean; that we cannot get rid of the people, and we do not want to; that the millions are our basis; and that God has set us thi~ ta. k: "If you want good institutions, do not try to bulwark out the ocean of popular tl10ught- educate it. If you want good laws, earn them." Conservatism says, "I can make my own hearthstone snfe ; I can build a bulwark of gold and bayonets about it high ns heaven and deep as hell, and nobody can touch me, and that Wendell Phillips. 113 is enough." Puritanism says, ''It is a delu ion; it is a refuge of lies ; it i not safe. The wnters of popular instinct will carry it a way. If you want your own cradle afe, make the cradle of every other man r-:afe and pure. Educate the people up to the law you want." !low? Tlwy cnnnot top for books- show them manhood- show them a brave act. What has John Brown done for us? The worlc1 doubted over the horrid word "insurrection," whether the victim had a right to arrest the course of his master, and, even at any expense of blood, to vindicate his rights; and Brown saiu to his neighbors in the old school-house at North Elba, sitting among the snows- where nothing grows but men- wheat freezes-" I can go South: an<l how the world that he has a right to rise and can rise." lie went, girued about by hi:~ household, carrying his sons with him. Proof of a life devoted to an idea! Not a single spasmodic act of greatness, coming out with no background, but the flowering of sixty years. The proof of it, that every thing around !Jim grouped itself harmoniously, like the planets around the central sun. I-Ie went clown to Virginia, took possession of a town, n.nd held it. IIc says, "You thought this was strength; I demonstrate it is weakness. You thought this was civil society; I show you it is a den of pirates." Then he turned arounu in his sublimity, with his Puritan devotional heart, and f'aid to the millions, "Learn ! " Anu God lifted a million hearts to his gibbet, as the Roman cross lifted a million of heart. to it, in that divine sacrifice of two thousand years ago. To-day, more than a statesman could have taught in seventy year:::, one act of a week has taught these eighteen millions of people. What shall it teach us? "Go thou and do likewise." Do it, by a resolute life. Do it, by a fearless r ebuke. Do it, by preaching the sermon of which this act is the text. Do it, by standing by the great example which God has given us. Do it, by tearing a under the veil of r espectability which covers brutality, culling itself LAw. vV chad a " Union meet· 10% |
