FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29  
30   31   32   >>  
demigods. To the broad vision of a true philosophy, nothing in this world stands alone. Everything is a necessary part of everything else. The margin of chance is narrowed by every extension of reason and knowledge, and nothing comes unbidden to the feast of human experience. The universe, of which we are a part, is continually proving itself a stupendous whole, a system of law and order, eternal and perfect: Every seed bears fruit after its kind, and nothing is reaped which was not sowed. The distance between seed time and harvest, in the moral world, may not be quite so well defined or as clearly intelligible as in the physical, but there is a seed time, and there is a harvest time, and though ages may intervene, and neither he who ploughed nor he who sowed may reap in person, yet the harvest nevertheless will surely come; and as in the physical world there are century plants, so it may be in the moral world, and their fruitage is as certain in the one as in the other. The bloody harvest of Harper's Ferry was ripened by the heat and moisture of merciless bondage of more than two hundred years. That startling cry of alarm on the banks of the Potomac was but the answering back of the avenging angel to the midnight invasions of Christian slave-traders on the sleeping hamlets of Africa. The history of the African slave-trade furnishes many illustrations far more cruel and bloody. Viewed thus broadly our subject is worthy of thoughtful and dispassionate consideration. It invites the study of the poet, scholar, philosopher and statesman. What the masters in natural science have done for man in the physical world, the masters of social science may yet do for him in the moral world. Science now tells us when storms are in the sky, and when and where their violence will be most felt. Why may we not yet know with equal certainty when storms are in the moral sky, and how to avoid their desolating force? But I can invite you to no such profound discussions. I am not the man, nor is this the occasion for such philosophical enquiry. Mine is the word of grateful memory to an old friend; to tell you what I knew of him--what I knew of his inner life--of what he did and what he attempted, and thus if possible to make the mainspring of his actions manifest and thereby give you a clearer view of his character and services. It is said that next in value to the performance of great deeds ourselves, is the capacity to appreciate suc
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29  
30   31   32   >>  



Top keywords:

harvest

 

physical

 

bloody

 
storms
 
masters
 

science

 

Science

 

violence

 
capacity
 

worthy


thoughtful
 

dispassionate

 

consideration

 

subject

 

Viewed

 

broadly

 

invites

 

social

 
natural
 

scholar


philosopher

 

statesman

 

memory

 

friend

 

grateful

 

philosophical

 

enquiry

 

clearer

 

mainspring

 

actions


attempted

 

occasion

 
desolating
 

certainty

 

manifest

 

performance

 

invite

 
profound
 
discussions
 

services


character

 
illustrations
 

eternal

 

perfect

 
system
 
continually
 

proving

 

stupendous

 

defined

 

distance