ards the
state of apehood and oxhood! For never till in quite recent generations
was such a scandalous blasphemy quietly set forth among the sons of
Adam; never before did the creature called man believe generally in
his heart that lies were the rule in this Earth; that in deliberate
long-established lying could there be help or salvation for him, could
there be at length other than hindrance and destruction for him. O
Heavyside, my solid friend, this is the sorrow of sorrows: what on earth
can become of us till this accursed enchantment, the general summary and
consecration of delusions, be cast forth from the heart and life of
one and all! Cast forth it will be; it must, or we are tending, at all
moments, whitherward I do not like to name. Alas, and the casting of
it out, to what heights and what depths will it lead us, in the sad
universe mostly of lies and shams and hollow phantasms (grown very
ghastly now), in which, as in a safe home, we have lived this century
or two! To heights and depths of social and individual _divorce_ from
delusions,--of "reform" in right sacred earnest, of indispensable
amendment, and stern sorrowful abrogation and order to depart,--such
as cannot well be spoken at present; as dare scarcely be thought at
present; which nevertheless are very inevitable, and perhaps rather
imminent several of them! Truly we have a heavy task of work before us;
and there is a pressing call that we should seriously begin upon it,
before it tumble into an inextricable mass, in which there will be no
working, but only suffering and hopelessly perishing!

Or perhaps Democracy, which we announce as now come, will itself manage
it? Democracy, once modelled into suffrages, furnished with ballot-boxes
and such like, will itself accomplish the salutary universal change from
Delusive to Real, and make a new blessed world of us by and by?--To the
great mass of men, I am aware, the matter presents itself quite on this
hopeful side. Democracy they consider to _be_ a kind of "Government."
The old model, formed long since, and brought to perfection in England
now two hundred years ago, has proclaimed itself to all Nations as the
new healing for every woe: "Set up a Parliament," the Nations everywhere
say, when the old King is detected to be a Sham-King, and hunted out or
not; "set up a Parliament; let us have suffrages, universal suffrages;
and all either at once or by due degrees will be right, and a real
Millennium come