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ORATION AND POEM. 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 CINCINNATI LITERARY CLUB, 
 
 July 4th, 1853. 
 
 ORATION BY CHARLES P.' JAMES. POEM BY C. A. L, RICHARDS. 
 
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 CINCINNATI: J"' 
 
 TRUMAN & SPOFFORD, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 111 Main Steeet. 
 
 1853. 
 
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OEATION. 
 
 THE AMERICAN MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 We have heard the old memorable words once more. 
 They have been thus repeated, every jo^y, for more than 
 three-quarters of a century; and still we find them the 
 most impressive ever uttered by this nation. The most 
 impressive, not merely because they are wise, but because 
 no other expression from a people is comparable with its 
 deliberate, conscious announcement of its own advent. 
 Since the coming of One above all peoples, no event has 
 been so solemn as the coming of this people, with its new 
 work, upon the earth. 
 
 While this announcement lingers on the ear, recalling the 
 scenes in which it was made, we are impelled, if we speak 
 at all, to speak only of the virtue which dared to utter it, 
 in the presence of so many perils. But w^e are noAv in 
 the midst of the new work which was then foretold ; and 
 the spirit, which inspired that prophecy, bids us rather to 
 consider the task which lies before ourselves, than linger 
 in the past. 
 
 On that day, our one great deed, our whole history, was 
 the single fact that we existed ; that we, who in the night 
 
were Dothing, were in the morning a nation. Our future 
 and our work were uncertain ; nothing but our independ- 
 ent existence was clear. Now, when only part of a swift 
 century has passed, the purpose of that existence has un- 
 folded, and the vast means of its accomplishment press 
 upon us foster than we learn their use. 
 
 We, who then scarce lined the margin of one ocean, 
 now stretch to the margin of another, across an interven- 
 ing world. One of the grievances, which jn'ovoked our 
 separation, was an import tax upon the simplest manufac- 
 tures; now all the streams of the north are throbbing 
 with creative toil, and we supply luxury to nations that 
 \vcrc old ere we began. The fields around us were 
 known only as the land of death ; now^ they send the 
 very bread of life to other lands. The forests w^ere im- 
 passable, save to the Indian ; we fly through them now", 
 toward the setting sun, swifter than did his arrow once. 
 Rivers, not known even to the learned geographer then, 
 freight now great fleets with the products of their shores. 
 All climates, all soils, all metals, all materials of physical 
 power, has God given to this people ; and every }car He 
 hastens, from the old world, vast migrations of brave 
 workers, to help us deal with these materials. But yes- 
 terday we fancied that nature had set our home apart, in 
 the seclusion of the two great oceans, that w^e might 
 remain disentangled forever from the old w^orld's ties, — 
 and, even while we dreamed only of self-protection, we 
 
are to-day one of the great powers of the earth, and are 
 implored to help nations of that old world, who were illus- 
 trious and independent ere we existed. Why the very 
 eagles that whirled above our first battle might be living 1 
 
 Shall we imagine that all this swift accumulation and 
 development has been wrought, that it might simply be 
 enjoyed? Have such means been furnished for the first 
 time so suddenly, and entrusted to the first democratic 
 people that has existed on so large a scale, without obli- 
 gations, which are to be also for the first time fulfilled ? 
 Does this altogether new experience promise no new 
 destiny ? Does this combination of elements, never before 
 brought together, offer no new problems in national life ? 
 
 Let us be assured that questions hitherto unsolved are 
 to be answered here. But let us be as well assured that 
 all this amazing prosperity is not the sufficient answer 
 which they demand. To attain the ends for which men 
 are formed into peoples, the ends of nationality, something 
 more than prosperity is needful. Nothing that grows 
 from man was ever developed by man, either single handed 
 or in multitudes, save by many efforts, renewed patiently 
 amid suffering. Above all, the true manhood of democ- 
 racy can be attained, only when it has learned, as a part 
 of self-government, the power of self-denial. To the less 
 fortunate world around us we make our happiness a boast ; 
 but a few short years will explain that we are resting only 
 to grow strong, and growing strong only to be ready for 
 
6 
 
 our task. The fulness of the present hour seems ahuost 
 to dispense with prudence, its peace with watchfulness, its 
 content with regulation ; but even in this very hour, the 
 statesmen, the writers, the preachers, all the thinkers of 
 the land, would be wise to remind us of the future, and 
 to consider for us what we are to do with these marvelous 
 resources, whence shall come our trial, and how we are to 
 prepare for it. That it must come, I believe to be inevi- 
 table ; but, without national vanity, I will add, that such 
 a belief is not discouraging to me. I can not think that 
 this great structure has been a, splendid preparation for a 
 failure. 
 
 The wide field to which these questions poiut, is one 
 which I shall not presume to traverse. Only a single 
 inquiry I shall ask you to consider — an inquiry to which 
 I am directed by the nature of the company assembled 
 here. What, amid all these elements, will be the ofHce of 
 the American man of letters ? ^Vith what duties will he 
 be charged hy the ^vants of this people ? 
 
 Perhaps I should use some broader designation; fur 
 by men of letters I mean all men who spend some portion 
 of their time in the fields of pure thought, and afterward, 
 in whatever form, impart to others the results of their 
 labor ; and to this guild belong, in their degree, not merely 
 the writers of books and their critics, but the lecturer, the 
 journalist, the preacher, the college-professor, the occa- 
 sional orator. In the midst of this great multitude they 
 
are but few, indeed, but, as they undertake to mould their 
 fellows, they owe to the whole people a duty of the most 
 serious importance. 
 
 Men of active life, as we call them, are slow to recog- 
 nize the power of this small body ; but experience has 
 proved that it can hardly be over estimated. In the per- 
 son of the Bramin it has been the tyrant of the Hindoo 
 for ages. The same class, which constitutes now the men 
 of letters, compelled the quick mind of Egypt to mummy 
 its beliefs, and the rebellious heart of the Jew to obey. 
 To Greece it gave heroism, and philosophy, and art, and 
 then helped to corrupt the life it had inspired. To Rome 
 it gave both its republican and its imperial thought. In 
 the white robes of the Druid it made the wild Celt tremble ; 
 and in the cossack of the Roman priest it rebuked em- 
 perors, protected the people, and led Europe on its crusade 
 of self-emancipation. It drove France to revolution, as 
 much as did the misery of the people ; and, finally, in 
 our own great struggle, it was this same power which 
 vitalized the spirit of the country, when it would have 
 failed. To the workers in thought, then, we shall assign 
 by no means too high a place, when we say that it will be 
 their office, even more than it will be the soldier's, to watch 
 for, and be first to encounter, the enemies of this people. 
 
 Their work lies already about them ; but I speak rather 
 of the future, because the long shadows cast upon it by 
 the present, may help us best to measure its extent. And 
 
8 
 
 first of all, they will have to match their strength with the 
 very prosperity in which we rejoice. 
 
 Of course I do not mean, by this contest, an idle war 
 upon w^ealth, or homilies, as idle, upon its temptations and 
 abuse. Simply it is their charge that, as the rich will be a 
 power in the laud, the men of thought shall be a power also. 
 
 What height this country's wealth will gather to, in the 
 next century, no man can predict; but, if it be multiplied 
 a thousand fold, it will not enrich the mass. The law of 
 its distribution will remain unaltered, because the law of 
 the distribution of human faculties will be unaltered; it 
 will be the few, who have the talent for acq^uisition, and 
 for the conduct of affairs, who will be richer; the multi- 
 tude will still live by their daily toil. Colossal fortunes, 
 such as we now have no instances of, will grow up, and the 
 disparity of conditions will be immeasurably increased. 
 Then these huge properties will require permanence. They 
 will be transferred from trade to the surer basis of land 
 investments, and, though we shall have no primogeniture 
 to guard them, they will Ijc kept undivided by the act of 
 their owners. As soon as wealth shall have become the 
 great landlord, its power will be intensified ; for the lands 
 of every country, in all ages, have been the strongest 
 elements of social power. In that day, then, the master 
 of fifty or an hundred millions will bear a relation to the 
 rest of society, which no man bears at present. 
 
 When such properties shall have remained long in the 
 
9 
 
 same families, the rich will be a class, in a sense not known 
 to us now. Growing from their cradles in an atmosphere 
 of their own, and born of parents who so lived before 
 them, they will differ radically from the laboring multitude. 
 Numerous enough to constitute a society, they will, even 
 without premeditation, acquire an organized movement 
 and tone. They will be marked by very much stronger, 
 and by nobler, traits than now. They will have charac- 
 teristic sentiments ; a generosity and a narrowness of their 
 own. They will be adorned by fine and graceful cultiva- 
 tion, and will be too ready to undervalue all culture which 
 is neither fine nor graceful. Having no badges of rank 
 to distinguish them, they will naturally mark their social 
 place by the use of their wealth, and their abodes and 
 their luxury will be such as we have not yet dreampt of 
 Perhaps the world has never seen a class of men whose 
 outward life has appeared so splendid as must hereafter be 
 the life of the great rich in this democratic country. 
 
 But this process will separate the hearts of the rich and 
 the hearts of the multitude, until antagonism will be their 
 chief relation. The political aristocracy of Britain holds 
 an hereditary power by the occasional generous use of 
 which they can win the admiration and afiection of the 
 people; but our social aristocracy can offer no such com- 
 pensation for their daily offense of being an aristocracy at 
 all. Individuals among them will be trusted ; but, so long 
 as our present system shall endure, they will in their char- 
 
10 
 
 acter of a class, have no field of service, and can earn no 
 place in the people's confidence. Every great social power, 
 for which no place is provided in the political system of a 
 country, comes into collision with that system, whether it 
 be democratic or despotic ; and, if this life were even 
 spotless, it would be watched with distrust by the other 
 social powers, which had secured a political recognition. 
 Everything, then, will hereafter impel the people, who, as 
 such, have this recognition, to exclude our future aristoc- 
 racy of wealth from participation in public affjiirs. What 
 so proud a class shall find themselves unable to share, 
 they will unaffectedly despise ; the voter and his off:ices 
 will be held cheap alike, and contempt for democracy 
 will grow to be their settled and avow^ed conviction. 
 
 And yet these results, if no worse followed, might be 
 anticipated with some degree of indifference. We might 
 with little concern, behold this banyan tree turning for- 
 ever from the heavens, and clinging with new hands to 
 the earth beneath it, if it cast no shadow upon the people. 
 But, alas, the attractive and unattainable splendors of vast 
 wealth will subject our poor humanity to the saddest trials. 
 Money will not preach its gospel in vain. To establish 
 the great rich family as one social class, is to establish the 
 multitude as another; and it can not establish classes, 
 without teaching also a doctrine of classification; a doc- 
 trine in which classes will too easily be recognized as 
 grades. Transition from one of these to the other will, of 
 
11 
 
 course, still be possible ; but such transition is the very 
 act of leaving old things behind, and carries few ties or 
 sympathies in its passage. The sons of the people will 
 not sit down among the great rich, to remain sons of the 
 people; and the very multitude will say, as they do 
 already on such occasions, that genius has worked its way 
 from a humbler to a higher sphere. With these rare 
 detachments from one body to the other, their lives will 
 seldom mingle, and the true freedom and manhood of 
 each will be restricted by the line of separation. Looking 
 across the limitations of their own daily tasks, the people 
 will observe that the life of the rich is not only splendid, 
 but gives power to achieve, inspires the individual with an 
 assured, unhesitating will, and unfolds graces which long use 
 or rare genius only can attain; and they will find it hard to 
 go on believing that the equality of man is independent 
 of classes; that the individual man is first, and all cir- 
 cumstances but secondary. Unless some other power shall 
 stand up by the side of wealth, and^ by example as strik- 
 ing, reassure them of their instincts, they will merge the 
 individual in his class, and their genuine faith in the value 
 of men, as men, will finally be lost 
 
 Here, then, is the great w^ork of our men of letters, our 
 men of thought. They alone, in that future state of 
 things, can assert before the people a social equality with 
 the great rich ; they alone will occupy a standing ground, 
 from which they can demonstrate tliat the individual, with 
 
12 
 
 his indestructible powers, is still the strongest of all forces. 
 By asserting their personality, by freeing themselves from 
 class opinion, and thinking and speaking, each man of 
 them, his own thought, they will vindicate the liberty of 
 the individual for the whole people. If in their own lives 
 they shall cherish this right of thought and utterance, 
 this fidl, free, personal existence, as the highest of all 
 social rights, the people also will appreciate them as the 
 highest. Every man who reposes upon what is indestruct- 
 ible in himself, " containing his soul in patience," dealing 
 with circumstance as it is, but retaining the integrity of 
 his being in spite of it and above it, teaches all who look 
 upon him to reverence their lives also. What lesson, 
 then, may not the man of letters, the teacher of the peo- 
 ple, impress upon their hearts, by his own emancipation? 
 If his guidance be true, they can, by following, resume 
 their station, and the wealth, which threatens to over- 
 shadow them, will bear to tliem some true relation. Let 
 them only, Ijy self-culture, develop the power of the in- 
 dividual, and his subordination to propert}^ and to social 
 e:rades will be averted. The consciousness of fuller man- 
 hood will renew their faith in manhood, and they will re- 
 joice that they are indeed the people. 
 
 I have endeavored not to overstate the tendencies which 
 I have attempted to sketch. If I have not done so, the 
 beginning of the service of our American man of letters 
 is, to vindicate individualism. We shall find, I thinkj 
 
13 
 
 that in every social or political trial which appears to 
 threaten the country, his work is still the same. 
 
 The next power with which he will have to measure 
 strength, ur rather, I think, the first, in point of time, is 
 our majority system. 
 
 I shall hardly be understood, I presume, to speak dis- 
 respectfully of the system itself; for it is the very law of 
 our existence, and it Avere as wise to discuss the propriety 
 of breath, as to consider its adaptation to our plan. But 
 under the pretext of this true principle we outrage dem- 
 ocracy by sins too absurd and too mean to be endured. 
 The temptation to commit them steals upon us before we 
 are aware, and is so mingled with the very use of our 
 democratic rights, that nothing but constant watchfulness 
 and resolute individualism can separate the evil from the 
 good. 
 
 The theory of determining events by suffrage makes it 
 the duty of each man, while he enjoys the perfect expres- 
 sion of his own wish, to leave to others the same right in 
 all its fullness. In its absolute perfection it would be an 
 inductive process, for ascertaining the will of the commu- 
 nity, and no fact which belongs to it must be suppressed ; 
 into it must enter the genuine vote of every voter. In 
 strict comphance with the spirit of this scheme, it should 
 be the ultimate object of each person, simply to contribute 
 his wish ; and, for the attainment of this ultimate object, 
 
14 
 
 his vote is his instrumentality. But^ inasmuch as we are 
 always selfish, our poor practice never observes the bounds 
 of this theory, and we propose to ourselves, not to assist 
 at an inductive process, for ascertaining the will of the 
 community, but to make a conquest of that will. We 
 propose, not a simple contribution of our opinion, but that^ 
 if it be possible, our particular opinion shall prevail. To 
 every voter thus disposed, it becomes, of course, an im- 
 mediate object, that the party with which he acts shall 
 be the majority; and its corporate strength, instead of his 
 single vote, is the instrumentality which he proposes to 
 employ. He rests not upon his own feet, but sets himself 
 to accumulate the strength of his corporation, and to con- 
 firm its unity and adhesion. 
 
 Perhaps one of the doctrines of his policy is the rights 
 of men as opposed to property ; in a word, the rights of 
 individualism. Straightway, to carry his faith into mea- 
 sures, he devotes himself to the construction of an associ- 
 ation -which shall be irresistible; he clothes it with per- 
 sonality ; ho concedes to it, and claims for it, rights of its 
 own, which are not the rights of any individual within 
 it ; he demands conformity from all its members ; he re- 
 bukes divergent opinions ; he punishes apostacy, — and all 
 the time knows not that he devotes his energy and zeal 
 to the paradoxical labor of suppressing individualism and 
 depreciating the value of men. 
 
 The lesson which we learn in politics, we remember 
 
15 
 
 with a sad tenacity elsewhere. The passion for acting in 
 masses pursues us, and whatever be the mass to which 
 we adhere, its collective power is still cherished with rev- 
 erence or pride. If there be a vice to reform, we organ- 
 ize a solemn society, and in the number of its branches 
 soon forget its root. We erect a temple, wherein we may 
 worship in the humility of weakness i at once it is a part 
 of our church's value, that it is numerous and strong. 
 In all departments of life, still seeking strength, we seize 
 upon the living reed and bind it in dead fasces ; substi- 
 tuting classes for men, and making all forms of associa- 
 tion corporate. 
 
 I do not pretend to doubt that this disposition was 
 given by nature, and therefore for wise purposes ; but it 
 is not for that reason the less dangerous so to exceed its 
 wholesome limits. We have never done so with impunity. 
 Everywhere this mass power has enforced the same de- 
 mands, requiring always the subordination of the individ- 
 ual. With threats, with the charge of insincerity, with 
 ridicule, with sneers, it mounts as readil}'- the pulpit as 
 the stump, prepared to force conviction and chastise all 
 heresy. Woe to the apostate democrat, — for this is our 
 representative party, — woe to the apostate who is not 
 sound on the currency j for only by the corruption of his 
 heart can his intellect have been convinced ! Woe to the 
 unhappy churchman who questions so much as the hem 
 upon the mantle of his faith ; and worse than woe to the 
 
16 
 
 advocate of manly and honorable temperance, who looks 
 with hope to the vintage of these hills ! With the trim- 
 mer, though he be gifted as Halifax himself, we will have 
 no fellowship ; either he is of us, or against us ; and that 
 he may be of us, he must perfectly conform. 
 
 I trust I shall not be understood to mean that an inde- 
 pendent man, in order to right himself, should abandon 
 his old political friends, upon every conflict of opinion, 
 and seek other candidates than theirs ; or that he should 
 leave his church, because he doubts some tenet of its 
 faith. In either case it is often the wiser and the nobler 
 course, to act with his old associates still ; since thus he 
 may achieve the largest practicable good. But it is im- 
 possible to confound with this duty of wise patience on his 
 part, an obligation to forego his opinions also, or to with- 
 hold their expression ; and the tyrannical meanness of 
 demanding such a surrender of his individuality is only 
 surpassed by the cowardly meanness of conceding it. 
 
 An evil which so pervades the people, corrupting poli- 
 tics, debasing the churches, and hardening philanthropy, 
 will not easily be dealt with ; but if the men of letters, 
 with their vast power to mould the tone and thought of 
 the community, be but half true to their duty, the only 
 evil which our majority system appears to have brought 
 with it can be cured. If they ask for assurance of suc- 
 cess they can find it in experience ; for never has indi- 
 vidualism raised its voice courageously and spoken alto- 
 
17 
 
 gether in vain. When here and there a rare editor 
 without leaving his party, has rebuked its offenses boldly, 
 his words have never fallen to the ground unheeded. 
 When sometimes an emancipated preacher, silenced neither 
 by traditions nor by fear of dismissal, has spoken an un- 
 accustomed truth, he has always found audience and final 
 belief When Emerson and Whipple, within this very 
 year, read before our people enthusiastic eulogies of grand 
 old England, whose virtues it is patriotism with the ma- 
 jority to deny, some salutary truths sank into their hearts, 
 and will never be forgotten. To this day the pulpits of 
 Boston are closed against Theodore Parker, and booksel- 
 lers have refused to publish his writings ; yet, in spite of 
 all, whether his teachings, in other respects, be true or 
 false, he has taught triumphantly the one great truth, 
 that when individualism is earnest it can always be heard. 
 Let others but speak as assuredly ; let it once become 
 the practice of our men of letters to think with freedom 
 and speak without reserve, and the individual will be res- 
 cued from his servile subjection to majorities ; while ma- 
 jorities themselves will be restored to the true ground of 
 their rights and their strength. The true grounds, I say, 
 for only when they are aggregates of free individuals, is 
 their claim to submission sacred. When they subordinate 
 and enslave the individual, they are sure at last to play 
 the usurper and tyrant, over the minorities and their own 
 members alike. 
 2 
 
18 
 
 The services whieli I have indicated, as the future duty 
 of the American man of letters, suggest thoughts, some- 
 what unattractive, perhaps, of conflict and struggle ; the 
 rest of his task affords a pleasanter prospect. He will be, 
 among the people of this wide-spread country, the sym- 
 pathetic chord, which shall transmit swiftest, through all 
 its members, a common and equal life. 
 
 The geographical arrangement of our territory is so 
 marked by form, and soil, and climate, that it can not fail 
 to impress itself plainly upon the character and tone of 
 the inhabitants. With its rim of mountains and con- 
 nected waters, this continent, as Pulsky has said, lies like 
 a bowl, receiving and gathering toward its center whatever 
 falls within it; its form, no less than our historical ten- 
 dencies, suggests that it must be the home of one great 
 people. But within the vast area which this one nation 
 will occupy, lie districts whose traits will mark this unity 
 with the sharpest diversity. By her adjustment of our 
 seats. Nature forbids centralization on this continent ; the 
 same strong hand which binds us together, promises also 
 to preserve the distinctiveness and integrity of the parts 
 it binds. 
 
 New England, for example, seems to have been planned 
 for the home of a manufacturing, constructive people. 
 No spontaneous fruits can be gathered from her hills ; 
 life is impossible, in all her fields, without toil. But 
 the swift streams, rushing from those hills, offer to drive 
 
19 
 
 machinery of unlimited extent, and the capacities of 
 machinery are capable of an indefinite development. 
 Already it is substituted for the human hand, as fast 
 as invention can devise the way; and it is found to 
 work most economically where it is most accumulated. 
 The people of New England, therefore, will work more 
 and more at large establishments and in great bodies; 
 and, as discipline and order are indispensable to such 
 arrangements, they wOl weave these virtues into the 
 habit and tone of their lives. By their use of machinery, 
 they will be occupied chiefly in swift, accurate processes, 
 where a brief delay or an occasional error may sacrifice 
 large results; hence they will be observant, quick and 
 collected. Their work will cultivate the faculty of silence ; 
 they will be speculative, therefore, and their feelings will 
 be less emotional, but more intense. 
 
 The achievements of the mechanic have the effect to 
 excite a sense of personal power. If he builds a perfect 
 machine, its excellence is unmistakeable. Its results he 
 before him, and, unlike the artist or the poet, unlike all 
 who deal with less exact subjects, he knows absolutely 
 that he has succeeded, and feels assured that his success 
 is the work of his own correct thought and cunning hand. 
 He constantly addresses himself to unvarying laws, and 
 learns, by observing their infinite applications and their 
 certainty, to respect most what is capable of precise 
 demonstration. His machinery works out, as it were, at 
 
20 
 
 a single stroke, a prodigious amount of details ; with one 
 mill he supplies some particular want of a great State. 
 Hence the spmt of his invention becomes adventurous. 
 Men fashioned by such influences must be intensely con- 
 scious. Their success in reconstructing and adorning the 
 hard, naked world given them to live in, must cause them 
 to appreciate earnestly the realness and importance of this 
 present hfe, and to value the outward performance of its 
 obligations. 
 
 And such a working life promises to cluster towns 
 around the mills of New England, until the masses of her 
 population must be brought under town influences. The 
 presence of a close community will subject each man con- 
 stantly to the feeling of the community ; while its at- 
 tritions will excite in him the power of resistance and 
 self-protection. 
 
 Without taking account, then, of traits which will go 
 down from the present, by simple inheritance, it seems 
 probable that the New Englander will be led forw^ard, 
 hereafter, in the direction he has already taken. Our 
 American mechanic will still learn from his work, to be 
 orderly, thoughtful, alert and confident. Habituated to 
 think before he feels, he will be the first to receive all new 
 reforms ; and because he will be trained to prompt action, 
 he will be the first to put conviction into practice. His 
 habit of trusting, in his occupations, to a principle which 
 he finds true, will make him, what he is already, both con- 
 
21 
 
 servative and radical ; he will steadily hold hy whatever 
 shall seem to him to rest upon a real fact, and he will 
 often propose to solve at once, by an abstract truth, em- 
 barrassing social questions, which will appear to his west- 
 ern brother to demand time and patience. So, too, in the 
 ordinary current of his life, he will be calm and sober; 
 but, from time to time, he will sweep, with a suddenness 
 known only to a community so ahve and pressing so upon 
 each other, into extremes of enthusiasm and passion. 
 
 Turn now to the fertile district which stretches from 
 our borders westward. What kind of life will its rich soil 
 produce ? The soU itself seems to answer best ; for the 
 history of its people has been too brief to infer their 
 future from. Their varied elements have not blended 
 and settled yet into those clear traits which continue by 
 descent, and, by their present form, foretell their course ; 
 but we may, without a vain pretence of prophecy, picture 
 faintly to ourselves the experiences which such a home is 
 likely to afford, and some of the qualities which those 
 experiences may help to mould. 
 
 The natural resources of our western district are vari- 
 ous enough to produce broad varieties in the pursuits of 
 its inhabitants ; but their chief business must be agTicul- 
 ture. This great area will be thickly strewn with villages 
 and cities, and its streams will be industrious in manu- 
 factures; but the future traveler, flying upon the swift 
 railway, will pass, from morning to evening, between its 
 orchards, and vineyards, and fields of waving grain. 
 
99 
 
 The soil will still be fertile ; for if it suffers from 
 present misuse, science will restore it. But fertile as it 
 may be, its crowding population must of necessity be 
 industrious. Brief periods of rest, however, will break 
 the husbandman's year, and the temper of his life will be 
 less urgent than that of his New England brother. The 
 slower and less exact processes of his labor, too, will not 
 demand the same prompt conclusions nor the same severe 
 faculty of attention ; and, when they shall be once per- 
 formed, he must wait the issues of time and w^eathcr. 
 He, too, like the New Englandcr, must reconstruct his 
 world ; ])ut while one will be taught, as it were, to compel 
 results, the other will be taught " to labor and to wait :" 
 in his character, as well as in his work, there will be an 
 undertone of acquiescence. His business will invite ex- 
 periment, less than either manufactures or trade; for 
 experiments in agriculture look too far into the future for 
 their rewards, to be attractive ; our western man will there- 
 fore practice, in his annual routine, more prudence and 
 economy than invention. But while his sense of personal 
 ability will not, like that of the New England mechanic, 
 be excited by the contemplation of his own clever devices 
 and their swift success, he will have a deep sense of the 
 power and dignity of his occupation and of his class ; be- 
 cause he will believe, as the husbandman always does, that 
 he, of all men, is on man the least dependent. He may 
 be less self-reliant ; he will be less conscious, but he will 
 
23 
 
 be always proud. The comparative isolation of his life 
 will make him simple in thought as well as in manner. In 
 the narrow circle of his family and near neighbors, he will 
 be communicative; his feelings will move with his intel- 
 lect ; perchance before it. New social movements, there- 
 fore, to win his consent, will need commonly to address, 
 first his affections, and even the best reforms will conquer 
 slowly the prejudices of his sentiment. Besides, a com- 
 munity scattered thus from farm to farm, is, by mere sep- 
 arateness, slower to receive the impulse of new ideas, than 
 one compacted in close towns. These conditions of our 
 western life will sometimes keep us in the rear of true 
 reformation ; but they will serve also to subject all 
 schemes of reformation to a salutary test. Planting him- 
 self upon his natural base, the earth, our grain-grower will 
 be, among this people, the one great power in repose ; the 
 surest element of stability. 
 
 But yonder, far southward, beyond the mountains which 
 circle from Carolina to Mississippi, lies another district, to 
 which the eye turns hesitating; for it is a land whose 
 future all men speak of, only to question. Its history has 
 been marked and positive. But some of the traditions of 
 that history are opposed by the feeling of a united world, 
 and it is said that, with such a force to meet, its course 
 hereafter can no longer be argued from its past. If I 
 seem to venture too boldly upon the field of doubt, let me 
 confess in advance, that I feel the uncertainty of my 
 
24 
 
 footing. But I can not doubt that there is a necessary 
 relation between the life of every people and the home in 
 which it dwells , and it is upon what I imagine to be that 
 relation, in the case before us, that I rest, for the present, 
 my own conclusions. 
 
 Nature seems to say, that, when one of its present in- 
 stitutions shall have changed, this must still be the land, 
 not of cities, and factories, and trade, but of agriculture. 
 The streams which coil upon its hot surface are too slug- 
 gish to turn the water-wheel, and its dark forests will not 
 furnish the fuel which can take the place of that inexpen- 
 sive agent. But had it both the swift stream and the 
 coal mine, its burning sun would check the quick alertness, 
 and weary the long persistence, which a manufacturing 
 people must possess. It is rather in the fields, which 
 those slow winding streams and that hot sun fertilize, that 
 the people of that country must fmd their occupation : 
 they, as well as ourselves, nmst be agriculturists. But 
 the laborer, who shall endure the toil of cultivation there, 
 will differ widely from the laborer of the North or West. 
 He may be white; he will not be bought and sold; but 
 he will need a peculiar physical temperament and capacity, 
 in order that he may be fitted for his work. If he shall 
 be so adapted, he will bear the marks of his adaptation, 
 and therefore will be a distinct class among the people. 
 They will look upon him as a laborer-breed, and his social 
 position will inevitably be inferior. His occupation in the 
 
op, 
 
 fields, bending in dull patience to the heat, will be un- 
 friendly to his development, and, above all, to his versa- 
 tihty. Both of these will be more easily attained by 
 other classes, who will pursue their vocations under the 
 shelter of the roof; and to them, therefore, will the social 
 power of that country belong. If the field laborer shall 
 be such as I have imagined, he will rarely be owner of the 
 soil ; the more versatile classes will possess a better talent 
 for acquisition, and therefore will supply the landlords. 
 
 What the life of a people in such circumstances would 
 be, we can infer from experience. The landlords will be 
 a thorough aristocracy, and, unlike the aristocracies of our 
 trading districts, they will probably be the most influen- 
 tial body in their community. To the power of land 
 ownership they will add an actual superiority in intellect. 
 In the North, the people, the W'Orkers, unwearied by their 
 work, are themselves readers and thinkers, and from among 
 them spring chiefly the men of letters. But in the more 
 enervating climate of the South, physical work of any 
 kind tends to exhaustion, and leaves little temper, when 
 its requirements have ceased, for the vigorous task of 
 thought, such thought as shall affect a people. The land- 
 lord of the South, then, promises to be both its man of 
 wealth and its man of letters, and to unite the social 
 power of the two. Below him will range the other classes 
 in the degree that their vocations shall involve physical 
 labor. 
 
26 
 
 In warm climates, as I have intimated, physical activ- 
 ity is apt to be followed by mere rest ; from such rest 
 grows one of the distinctest traits of Southern life ; a 
 trait which it can hardly fail to preserve. The man of 
 action turns, namely, to the easy recreations of society, 
 and these become, therefore, important and respectable. 
 He becomes a more social person than the man of a cold 
 climate, and companionship is a more frequent necessity 
 of his life. In such a community, the character and 
 opinions of the working part of the people are hkely to 
 be formed, more in their hours of intercourse than in their 
 hours of solitude. From a pastime, conversation becomes 
 an effective talent ; the talker grows fluent, and ready, and 
 warm, and into his eloquent talk he throws that which, 
 in the more silent North, is expressed only by the pen, 
 and seen only in books. A full expression from within is 
 an absolute human necessity ; in such a country as New 
 England this need is satisfied, in a great measure, by lit- 
 erature ; in the South, perhaps in an equal measure, by 
 conversation. Nay, the Southern man applies his readier 
 art to the very uses of letters ; for he emplo3's it seriously 
 as an instrument of power. By means of it he disseminates 
 his opinions and impresses himself upon society. But 
 conversation rarely attains the clearness and precision of 
 literature, though it may assume its office. It is affected 
 by the magnetism of personal presence, and feeling, or 
 even passion, is more apt to obtrude, where only thought 
 
27 
 
 should speak. Where the thinkers of a community are 
 writers, their thought is corrected in its very utterance ; 
 their audience is the community itself, with all its variety 
 of sympathies and antipathies; and such an audience 
 brings with it a test of truth which informs the speaker, 
 ere he has spoken, when his thought is immoderate or 
 false. But this large standard of the universal is not 
 present to the conversationist; his thought, standing before 
 only an equal power, is not so conscious of its narrowness 
 or its insufficiency. It is hardly necessary to add, that 
 neither the talker nor the listener have the same room for 
 deliberate investigation that the writer and his reader 
 have. Conversation waits not, but urges to its conclu- 
 sions ; and the opinions of a community, if formed mainly 
 by such a power, are apt to be interwoven with their im- 
 pulses, and therefore to be neither exact nor true. But 
 if conversation were more exact, and the talker himself 
 more collected and thorough, it is not in personal inter- 
 course that new ideas, distasteful to the community, are 
 most apt to be announced. Intellectual life can not so 
 link itself with purely social action, without submitting 
 itself to social prejudices and weaknesses. With the 
 talker for chief teacher, society must emancipate itself but 
 slowly from the past. It is tempted, rather, to centralize 
 and breed-in its common sentiments. 
 
 If, with these limitations upon its life, the South shall 
 hold labor, above all the labor of the field, in contempt, it 
 
28 
 
 will have a sad struggle indeed, in attaining that generous 
 development which should belong to the future of this 
 nation. In a love of the soil and its uses, and in a manly 
 respect for the labors of its cultivation, lies that power 
 which forever renews the youth of old England, the youth 
 of all genuine agricultural countries. Unless a people 
 clasp with love the very feet of Nature, and reverently 
 rest their heads like children on the bosom of their mother 
 earth, their poetr}', and music, and art will wait for their 
 inspiration in vain ; life may be fiery and earnest, but not 
 bounding and glad ; intellect may lilt a proud front, but 
 its eye will not laugh and be moist with the soft hght of 
 humor. 
 
 In this hasty survey of our horizon, perhaps I may have 
 misinterpreted the signs of the future; it may be that 
 neither the North, nor the South, nor the West will be 
 such as I have imagined. But if I am wrong in all the 
 details, the general truth remains none the less certain, 
 that the physical ckcumstances of a people and the nature 
 of its home, })y determining its work and modes of hfe, 
 must, in a great measure, determine also its character and 
 temper. And if this be true, it is clear that the physical 
 conditions of the three great sections of this country 
 must always impose upon their populations very different 
 tasks, and invite them to extremely different modes of 
 action. Whatever the particular life of each might be, 
 a broad diversity of local character would be the natural 
 
29 
 
 result of such influences. And the causes which would 
 produce this diversity would also produce uniformity 
 within the hmits of each. Already this has been their 
 operation, and the longer the hand of circumstance shall 
 press upon the people, the deeper, if it be unresisted, will 
 be its print. 
 
 If we were left wholly to our physical training, the 
 great plan of our national life would, in a few short years, 
 be broken and hopelessly marred. The North, and the 
 West, and the South, would turn, each upon its own cen- 
 ter, either never touching, or touching but to jar. The 
 railway and the river, it is true, would mingle their popu- 
 lations, but the inner life of a people is not reached by the 
 passing trader. Unless the very intellect and spirit of 
 one people should go forth, by their own proper vehicle 
 and road, to penetrate the valleys and secret recesses of 
 another, the two would be strangers after a thousand 
 years of trade. It is the books, the very thoughts, and 
 beliefs, and hopes, and affections of each, embodied in 
 literature, which alone can so interpenetrate as to join 
 and mingle the living currents of their different lives. 
 Were there no American literature, were there no Ameri- 
 can men of letters, New England would harden and con- 
 tract in her towns, the South would return, like its bayous, 
 to its fountain streams, and our own West would come to 
 be one boundless prairie of stupidity. 
 
 With such an office to perform, our man of letters 
 
30 
 
 must be no imitator. He must gather in the culture of 
 the wide world, but he must come always back to his own 
 soil and his own house for the true sources of his power. 
 He must be thorough in his knowledge; but in its pur- 
 suit must be ever careful that he do not, by solitude and 
 by a vocational spirit, detach himself from his people. If 
 he is to know their life, he must breathe the same air and 
 eat of the food by which it is supported. If he is to speak 
 to their hearts, the instincts and sympathies of his own 
 must be as healthy and active as theirs. He must thor- 
 oughly respect the life they have to lead, and all the 
 labors they have to perform. He must, in a word, be the 
 genuine American democrat. Let him only be thus loyal 
 to his work, and the nation wiU be his audience, and he 
 will be our national man. 
 
POEM. 
 
 " The Club Committee, it behooves you know it, 
 Have just concluded to appoint you Poet ! " 
 Such was the doom, that thundered thro' the air, 
 And left its victim, smitten with despair. 
 
 Appointed Poet ! Heaven save the mark, 
 
 As well appoint me to construct an ark ! 
 
 Or (tho' the awkward word may chance to clog our rhythm,) 
 
 Ask me to nicely calculate the logarithm. 
 
 Expressing the proportions of a line 
 
 Drawn from Noah's .ark to Heaven's rainbow sign ! 
 
 Appointed Poet ! And the deed was done ; 
 The fated verses must be straight begun. 
 With dread of that one step from the sublime. 
 Lines must be written that shall fairly rhyme ; 
 And epithets be linked that shall apply, 
 Such as "the hearing ear," "the seeing eye," 
 In measures fit for sounding minstrelsy. 
 
 Behold the instant end of all my peace. 
 See every cherished occupation cease. 
 3 
 
34 
 
 A patient comes ; prescriptions must be writ ; 
 In need of wisdom, I but think of wit. 
 
 I write a letter to a friend I prize, 
 Quick to the thought a droll allusion flies ; 
 I save the joke, too precious now to send, 
 Enrich my poem, and defraud my friend. 
 
 With some ingenious Beatrice I talk. 
 Who pounces on a sentence like a hawk, 
 And when some favorite fancy I would prove. 
 Turns inside out my meaning, like a glove ; 
 Sharp, piercing, teasing, and tormenting, see 
 The polished weapons of the repartee ! 
 Tipped with a feather from the wing of wit, 
 See her bright arrows quiver where they hit ! 
 Till, roused to action by the earnest game, 
 ]\Iy flashing falchion hovers o'er the dame. 
 But falls not — prudence moderates my haste. 
 So smart a figure 'twere a sin to waste ; 
 I substitute an answer less complete. 
 Thus gain a couplet, and confess defeat. 
 
 Alas ! that such a task my pen should claim, 
 
 More fit to write for medicines than fame. 
 
 Yet from dark visions of the doctor's life, 
 
 From thoughts of rasping saw and keen-edged knife, 
 
35 
 
 From poultice, plaster, powder, potion, pill. 
 
 Of the rich drugs Arabian trees distil. 
 
 Or the mild simple of the neighb'ring hill ; 
 
 From viewing tongues, now red, now ghastly white, 
 
 Now furred with yellow, and now black as night ; 
 
 From pressing hands, that burn with feverish heat. 
 
 From the quick counting of the pulses beat ; 
 
 While friends around with half suspended breath 
 
 Await the augury of life or death. 
 
 While fond devotion stands beside the bed 
 
 To smooth the pillow or support the head ; 
 
 From the strange dreams that haunt the mind insane. 
 
 From the wild frenzies of the tortured brain ; 
 
 From the flushed beauty of the hectic cheek, 
 
 That seems of health and happiness to speak, 
 
 As on his couch the cheered consumptive lies. 
 
 Thinks he grows well, and, convalescing, dies ; 
 
 From scenes like these, how welcome is the change 
 
 To the free poet's unrestricted range, 
 
 Who hears not only writhing manhood's groans, 
 
 But woman's laughter, and sweet childhood's tones ; 
 
 Wlio turns from Life's last look, and Love's last sigh. 
 
 To meet the glance of mother Nature's eye. 
 
 The season smiles, and every heart at ease 
 Sings with the birds, or wanders with the breeze ; 
 Laughs with the stream along its mossy way, 
 Fresh with the verdure of the early May ; 
 
36 
 
 Clings to the earth, in earth's most beauteous bowers, 
 Or floats to Heaven on the breath of flowers. 
 
 For Nature to her earnest pupils yields 
 Thoughts in the air, and lessons in the fields, — 
 And to her eager children doth impart 
 All the rich secrets of her SAvelling heart ; 
 And warmly gives to those, who round her press, 
 The tender blessing of her fond caress ; 
 Breathes on their burning souls her potent charm, 
 And lulls them, cradled in her loving arm, 
 With melodies of streams, of lowing herds. 
 Of hummino; branches, and the voice of birds. 
 
 'o 
 
 The season smiles ; but what if it should frown ? 
 No flooding rain our buoyant souls can drown. 
 Let the hoarse tempest in its fury come, 
 Our merry voices strike the thunder dumb ! 
 Or flashing wit, from lips to laughter vowed. 
 Shames back the liditninc; to its native cloud ! 
 
 '& 
 
 The beast, that no imagination knows. 
 Burns in the sunshine, shivers in the snows;' 
 Man, like the ancient Atlas, bears on high, 
 On his own shoulders, his peculiar sky. 
 Let but the tear-drops o'er his visage creep. 
 To him, the very heavens seem to weep. 
 
37 
 
 Or let some pond'rous sorrow weigh him down, 
 
 To him, creation lowers at his frown. 
 
 But, if joy's wreathed chalice he can drain, 
 
 Nature dries up her sympathetic rain ; 
 
 Each tearful globe the light once more refracts. 
 
 And rainbows hover o'er the cataracts. 
 
 But dream no more 'mid Nature's lovely scene, 
 Lie idly stretched beneath the shadows green. 
 No more, my Muse : the sacred day demands 
 A wider duty at thy feeble hands. 
 
 The day ! Its honors are too often sung, 
 Its praises dribble from the nation's tongue. 
 And windy patriots blast it with their breath, 
 Till you might wish that it could take its death 
 Of cold ; and leaving maudlin worlds, like this. 
 Accept an early apotheosis. 
 And stand for ever, 'mid the spheral chime, 
 A frozen moment in the path of time. 
 The day ! Its name is chanted o'er and o'er. 
 From the wild prairie to the ocean's shore. 
 Each country tavern boasts its zealous throng. 
 Who hail Columbia in discordant song ; 
 Each country meeting house its crowd invites 
 To hear of tyrants' wrongs, and freemen's rights. 
 Of Russia's craft, and England's greedy maw, 
 From some young Brutus, who professes law ! 
 
38 
 
 On such rude manners, while we all look down^ 
 
 The country only imitates the town. 
 
 Along its streets, in rich imposing show, 
 
 See soldier-citizens undaunted go ! 
 
 Martial in dress, and mild in all beside, 
 
 The school-boy's envy, and their sisters' pride, 
 
 Fired with fury, and an early glass. 
 
 They storm a bar-room, which they scorn to pass, 
 
 And, hot with all the toils of their campaign, 
 
 Well-iced potations valorously drain ; 
 
 And re-enact the inevitable law, 
 
 One can't have bricks without their proper straw ! 
 
 While in loud tumult, and chaotic strife, 
 
 Thunders the drum, and whistles shrill the fife, — 
 
 While in unwieldy and discordant play, 
 
 Th' unmuzzled dogs of war salute the day. 
 
 TIark ! the hoarse cannon whose sulphureous breath 
 
 Betrays the wonted instrument of death, 
 
 And seems to sigh for more than mimic war ! 
 
 See the swift rocket with its lingering star ; 
 
 And, thrown before some rustic bumpkin's feet. 
 
 Hear tlie torpedo crack along the street ; 
 
 And the sharp squib exploding in the air, 
 
 Affair so noisy, it annoys the fair. 
 
 But not the smoke, and not the gaping crowd, 
 Can dim the day of which the world is proud. 
 
39 
 
 The day that saw our eagle plume his wings 
 And strike his talons to the hearts of kings. 
 That saw, emblazoned on that famous scroll, 
 The written pledge of each unflinching soul. 
 The steady hand, that marked the steadfast mind. 
 And saw thrones crumble as John Hancock signed. 
 
 The poet summoned for a casual rhyme, 
 
 Must make his verses mirror forth the time ; 
 
 Must sketch the central thought that makrs his day, 
 
 Relate its growth, and picture its decay. 
 
 The favorite truth or folly of the age. 
 
 That forms the fair Corinna's present rage 
 
 And fills the tomes of the historic sage. 
 
 "&^ 
 
 However wise or weak it be, the thought 
 Within the verse's texture must be wrought. 
 Until at once, placed side by side, we see 
 /The age's hieroglyphics and their key. 
 
 What then the theme that most demands our page. 
 Around what central thought revolves the age ? 
 
 Where'er we wander in our daily walk. 
 Religion is a staple of our talk. 
 The last new form the orthodox erect, 
 The last new tenet of the last new sect. 
 
40 
 
 At ball or concert, in the social throng, 
 Religious dogmas alternate ^Yith song. 
 Each beardless urchin, lately taught to read, 
 Has his own notion of th' Apostles' Creed. 
 Each tender girl, her golden cross will wear. 
 And work her cover for the book of prayer. 
 Each older maid, by wandering doubt perplext, 
 States her objection, and o'erthrows her text. 
 Each gray haired grand-sire owns his novel truth. 
 And leaves behind the faith that blessed his youth. 
 Religious faith, or doubt, the mystic's dream. 
 The zealot's strong-armed engine, is our theme. 
 
 Religious faith ! At once the Omcy flies. 
 
 Along: the range of solemn mysteries, 
 
 Before whose shrines, in deep, unhallowed awe, 
 
 In the stern terror of a broken law. 
 
 Pale Superstition bows its humble neck, 
 
 And tortured Conscience lays its spirit's wreck. 
 
 From the dark dungeons, where among the dead, 
 
 The Inquisition rears its awful head ; 
 
 From the rough rock whereon its victims lie, 
 
 To own their guilt, and tlien, confessing, die j 
 
 I'rom the heaped faggots where the martyr stands; 
 
 From the funereal pile of Eastern lands, 
 
 Where the doomed widow wrings unpitied hands ; 
 
 From the harsh dictates of Geneva's creed. 
 
 Purer in thought, but not more free iii deed, 
 
41 
 
 Where old reformers persecute in turn, 
 
 And stern John Calvin bids Servetus burn ; 
 
 From every cruelty and every crime, 
 
 One pretext floats above the wail of Time, 
 
 Religious Faith ! a zeal for sacred things ! 
 
 Alike the plea of bishops, and of kings ; 
 
 As each lays on his persecuting rod. 
 
 Snatching God's vengeance from the hands of God 
 
 Religious faith ! Behold its varied seat. 
 In Nova Zembla's cold, or Egypt's heat ; 
 Alike it finds its consecrated home. 
 In leaping minaret, or swelling dome ; 
 Where deep devotion pours its pulsing tides, 
 On Ganges' banks, or Sinai's rugged sides ; 
 In marble temples, of the Grecian mould. 
 Or 'mid rude splendor and barbaric gold. 
 
 Religious faith ! It hallows every creed. 
 Sanctions each tenet, and admits each deed. 
 And thro' the world's broad life its influence runs, 
 As thro' the solar system flows the sun's. 
 
 Not now the faith for which the martyrs died. 
 But later growths of intellectual pride. 
 Three forms it takes, conspicuous to the view, 
 Each to its rapt disciples only true. 
 
42 
 
 Among old Oxford's cloisters, halls, and towers, 
 
 Where square-capped students meet in learning's bowers, 
 
 Pale Pusey in his chamber, damp and chill. 
 
 Ascetic, and dyspeptic, takes his pill. 
 
 And his slow blood along his veins to urge, 
 
 Finds much advantage in a gentle scourge. 
 
 And, on his skin, an influence to exert, 
 
 Feels himself better for a thick, hair shirt. 
 
 Nor can his stomach bear too frequent food. 
 
 Religious fastings seem to do him good; 
 
 Like Esop's fox, he covers his mishap. 
 
 And gaping pupils suffer at the trap. 
 
 The fashion takes ; the quick infection spreads. 
 From empty stomachs up to empty heads. 
 For multiform transgressions to atone, 
 Each solemn curate wears his hempen zone, 
 Cuts his hair short, would like to shave his crown. 
 And lets his coat below his knees hang down. 
 His sleek black waistcoat buttoned to the chin, 
 Shuts out dissent and keeps devotion in. 
 A spotless neck-cloth somewhat stiff and tight. 
 Completes the model of a Puseyite ! 
 To every inconsistency he runs, 
 Reveres the fathers, and has yet no sons. 
 In prayers, and fast, and vigil, spends his life. 
 And weds a theory instead of wife. 
 
43 
 
 la papal limits finds his largest scope, 
 Yet still denies, and still condemns the Pope 5 
 But grows uneasy in his present home. 
 Begins to wander, and goes on to Rome ! 
 
 To him a posture seems a thing of weight, 
 A point 0' th' compass quite a point of state. 
 He deems a part more worthy than the whole, 
 Upholds a rubric, tho' it cost a soul ; 
 And leaving Christian virtues in the lurch. 
 Defends a custom, and divides a church. 
 Like one, with end too paltry for his means. 
 Who fells an oak to make a dish of greens. 
 Bouses a tempest to destroy a fly. 
 Or stems life's currents for a currant pie ! 
 
 The second folly in our midst appears, 
 The mushroom product of our latest years — 
 The Spirit-rappings, which the world receives. 
 Laughs, questions, cogitates, and then believes. 
 
 Behold the process, which the adept tries. 
 From vasty deeps to make the spirit rise ! 
 A ring is formed, and hand is locked in hand. 
 And soon the docile table owns command ; 
 Spins on one leg, and runs along the floor, 
 Makes leaps, and hops, and fifty antics more 
 
44 
 
 And shows itself possessed of all the wit 
 That should be theirs, who round its margin sit. 
 Knives, forks, and platters join the merry dance, 
 While tongs and shovel o'er the carpet prance. 
 Religion stares, philosophy is dumb, 
 As from its raps new revelations come, 
 Containing hints of seven future states, 
 Laid down by tables, and explained by plates ! 
 
 Such daring folly, my Muse assail. 
 
 And quite lop off this Fish's floundering tale ; 
 
 And scourge with earnest scorn the fools and knaves 
 
 Who sink or float on Superstition's waves ; 
 
 While, (the fefl offshoots of the fatal ring,) 
 
 Insanity and self-destruction spring ; 
 
 While crazy girls suspend them in their garters. 
 
 Like a re-issuing of Fox's INIartyrs ; 
 
 Who yesterday clasped hands in frantic flocks, 
 
 Like Mary, trembling at prophetic Knox. 
 
 The third great movement springs from human pride, 
 A vice, and virtue, walking side by side. 
 
 Whate'er your faith, whate'er your Christian light, 
 Howe'cr devout }'our pra}'ers at morn and night, 
 Ilowe'er in silence you adore tlie truth, 
 Howe'er to duty you devote your youth; 
 
45 
 
 Howe'er admitted orthodox your creed, 
 Howe'er for sacred conscience you would bleed, 
 Howe'er you hymn youi> great Creator's praise, 
 In vocal deeds, that lighten others' days. 
 One fault avoid, with unremitting care. 
 Your scorn of priestly sophism don't declare. 
 Submit to forms, howe'er absurd or odd. 
 The shabby stucco of the church of God. 
 For outraged Christendom indignant damns, 
 The man who owns no reverence for shams. 
 
 So Parker sinned in old Socinian eyes ; — 
 Here the whole trouble in a nut-shell lies — 
 He boldly struck at all the false pretense 
 Of reading Scriptures in your private sense ; 
 Nor e'er devised a theory, and, next. 
 To bolster up its weakness, marred a text ; 
 And, with no feeling of his church's pulse, 
 Took of its creed the logical results. 
 And having fairly made his notion out. 
 No paltry Scripture caused a single doubt. 
 In language bold, and now and then profane, 
 He takes the lion fairly by the mane ; 
 Trusts all to reason ; not one word to what 
 All revelation says is so, or not. 
 Some things we know, and other some we trust, 
 And Moses may be right, but Parker must ! 
 
46 
 
 The churches tremble, still the man proceeds, 
 And cuts, and slashes at the Christian creeds. 
 BeUeves in Christ, denying half he said ; 
 Conceives him well intentioned, but misled ; 
 Thinks his views large, but tells you o'er and o'er, 
 Buddha and Plato said the same before ; 
 Holds blunders much that Christ considered truth, 
 But pardons all things on the score of youth ! 
 
 Of modern life, this oracle once said, 
 
 "We think in lightning, while we pray in lead." 
 
 His prophet's sons accept this thought of his, 
 
 And chuckle o'er the bold antithesis. 
 
 We too accept : the lightning scathes and sears, 
 
 And rends the monarch of a thousand years. 
 
 To steal the flame, that warmed the Gods on high, 
 
 Prometheus plucked the lightning from the sky ; 
 
 But the electric flashing thought struck back, 
 
 And riveted Prometheus to the rack. 
 
 "We pray in lead:" the waters gently flow, 
 
 That drown each thirst, and wash away each woe. 
 
 Prayer draws the blessing from its fountain head, 
 
 And God's life-water runs in tubes of lead. 
 
 CINCINNATI : MOKGAN A OVEKEND, PKINTEES 
 
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