b heart, wherever you come upon her in a silent meditative hour,
begins to have dreadful misgivings about it.
The model of the world, then, is at once unattainable by the world, and
not much worth attaining? England, as I read the omens, is now called a
second time to "show the Nations how to live;" for by her Parliament,
as chief governing entity, I fear she is not long for this world! Poor
England must herself again, in these new strange times, the old methods
being quite worn out, "learn how to live." That now is the terrible
problem for England, as for all the Nations; and she alone of all, not
_yet_ sunk into open Anarchy, but left with time for repentance and
amendment; she, wealthiest of all in material resource, in spiritual
energy, in ancient loyalty to law, and in the qualities that yield such
loyalty,--she perhaps alone of all may be able, with huge travail, and
the strain of all her faculties, to accomplish some solution. She will
have to try it, she has now to try it; she must accomplish it, or perish
from her place in the world!
England, as I persuade myself, still contains in it many _kings_;
possesses, as old Rome did, many men not needing "election" to command,
but eternally elected for it by the Maker Himself. England's one hope
is in these, just now. They are among the silent, I believe; mostly far
away from platforms and public palaverings; not speaking forth the image
of their nobleness in transitory words, but imprinting it, each on his
own little section of the world, in silent facts, in modest valiant
actions, that will endure forevermore. They must sit silent no longer.
They are summoned to assert themselves; to act forth, and articulately
vindicate, in the teeth of howling multitudes, of a world too justly
_maddened_ into all manner of delirious clamors, what of wisdom they
derive from God. England, and the Eternal Voices, summon them; poor
England never so needed them as now. Up, be doing everywhere: the hour
of crisis has verily come! In all sections of English life, the god-made
_king_ is needed; is pressingly demanded in most; in some, cannot
longer, without peril as of conflagration, be dispensed with. He,
wheresoever he finds himself, can say, "Here too am I wanted; here is
the kingdom I have to subjugate, and introduce God's Laws into,--God's
Laws, instead of Mammon's and M'Croudy's and the Old Anarch's! Here is
my work, here or nowhere."--Are there many such, who will answer to the
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