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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Untitled Article
respectable as shop-lifting- or pocket-picking , and not more so , when the profession of mere soldier shall be as honourable as that of street bully , or retail cut-throat ; or ( if not having a stamp of infamy , exactly ) when the jingling- of spurs and the clank of scabbards shall herald the approach of a nmchacho , and notify to all decent people to put away their fractibles and frangibles , being , in sheer merriment of heart
and good humour , disposed to allow him to amuse himself with a fewgambols : —when military achievements and military establishments shall be as useful as fires in fields of ripened wheat ; when prayers for success in battle shall be as great proof of religious confidence and feeling as was the crucifying of Christ , and a Te Deum for victorious slaughter as acceptable praise and grateful homage as buffeting the Creator ' s face ; when ' fight and die for your king , my brave
countrymen , shall be understood to te the text from which knaves have preached to fools , and fools have been cajoled into knaves ; when the text itself shall become a dead letter , and the right lineal descendants of kings themselves shall rejoice that it is so ; when the festivities which celebrated each victory , and the laudations that hailed each warrior , shall be known as the rivetting and the rattling of new links in the chain which fettered humanity , and put additional strength into the
hands of villany to draw them tighter round the enthralled ; when a conqueror shall be known as the universal foe ; when names and monuments of 4 glory * shall be detested as records and symbols of blood , indurated selfishness , and as the food which fattened oppression ; when Achilles , in Hyde Park , shall tell a tale that shall be interpreted beyond Apsley House ; when our great-grand-children shall discover that the morality of their ancestral teachers was an opiate that put
honesty of purpose and sincerity of communion to sleep , and the policy on which they moved was a pig ' s swimming ; and shall wonder that we had no better wisdom than to fire our own barns , and lock-up storehouses in order to spite our neighbours . Yes , though I do look forward to all this , reader , I cannot see that man will abate one jot of his corporeal courage , or lose an atom of his physical daring , by mingling in them the intellectual boldness that leads him to an
examination of the plea which calls on him to exercise them , which bids him use his right of scrutiny into the cause , and assert his freedom of refusal or rejection if he find it based on sophistry or bigotry ; and especially then when he will guard against the selfishness of a class , which masks its diabolism of will , and greediness of advancement , in the hypocrisy of l national honour , ' or the puffery of * patriotism . ' ' Old England ' s Glory' has been a pestilential wind , which has desolated thousands of homes , and withered tens of thousands of hearts .
even as their voices shouted the cry , to fatten and gorge a few ; and the hungry have been told to look on the red arid trampled field of slaughter , and banquet on their murdered and mangled brethren , to peruse the records of victory , and grow full upon its fumes . Ay , ay , ye poor and vital-gnawed of England ! look on yonder magnificent triumph of art , that bridge which throws its stately grace across your noble , treasure-bearing river , Thames ;—it has a name—sound it—does not your heart throb with exultation ? Perambulate this great city ; it is the abode of Plutus , and his hundred thousand faithful adorers—
Untitled Article
694 Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1833, page 694, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2624/page/34/
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