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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
marked out far himself , a * he would death ; and Jove , which forbids him to wrong the noble nature that he guides , by any neglect . * He that ruleth his owti spirit is greater tlian he that taketh a city . *
The legislator must , Janus-like , look back upon the past , and forward into the future : his telescopic vision must be directed to the Source and termination of things , as far as it be possible for him to penetrate points so deeply veiled ; and ,, at the same time , his microscopic vision myst mark and observe the present , even tp the passing vapour of the hour , and the pernicious vermin of the minute . He must love humanity with that large love which seeks
happiness in the happiness of humanity , suffers agony in its misery , humiliation in its debasement , and which would make him content to live , or resigned to die , if to do either might assist to advance universal salvation . Where shall we look for a legislator such as this ? Not echo , but the whole world , may answer , Where ?
Sit there such on any of the thrones before which the trammeled multitude of every latitude pay tribute , tremble , cringe , and scowl ? Sit there such in any of the assemblies ostensibly convened to make laws for these multitudes ? No—and how should they ? That infirm and senseless form of humanity called a Kingthat excrescence first cast forth by human weakness , and since
continued by its craft , and partaking of the properties to which it owes its origin and continuance—how is it fit to personify greatness—to be the pedestaled example to a nation—a shining light on the civil horizon , purif y ing , warming , and irradiating the moral atmosphere , and chasing all its clouds and vapours ? Take the crown from the head of royalty , the robe from it £
body , strike the sceptre from its hand , and drive away the herds which minister to the mockeries of its gilded sepulchre , and let royalty stand nude by the red Indian—with his practised eye which pierces space like the eagle ' s—with his fleet foot which traverses it like the deer ' s—with his high heart which will Dot heave with a groan beneatli the scalping knife of his foe , —and what looks a king ?—That embodied lullaby , with whose fijflt
food falsehood was administered , and who , when pomp and flattery do not sustain him above his fellows * falls so immeasurably below them ! Place royalty beside a less poetic being than the Indian , place him beside the enlightened mechanic of the present day , with his informed ( thanks to penny and' twopenny trf ^ h' ) but uniuflut e ^ mind , his home anxieties and thence intensified atfectioi ^ f :, , wfy > lives by his honest , overtasked , and itt-requitqd iapoury wi submits to the scalping knives of tithes and taxation ; and what loola aAung ? .. ,
Untitled Article
UAimr *{ 4 Oo * pir + t ibii . 9 ff
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1835, page 771, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2652/page/15/
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