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Untitled Article
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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
Ever the human mind , dissatisfied or aspiring , has striven to overleap the boundaries of the present , and to gratify its longing after immortality , with the records of the past , and the secrets of the future . We stand between both , hedged in by the narrow circle of time , upon whose confines we fume and fret . Discontented with the partial beams that pass to
us from the things to come , and yet more perplexed by the doubtful glare that flashes upon us from the things that have been . History and prophecy have , therefore , in every age attracted the regard and most signally awakened the curiosity of man . They have by turns kindled his proudest hopes , and called forth his basest fears ; roused his noblest energies , and flattered his most grovelling weaknesses ; fostered his best virtues , and incited his worst crimes ; now exalting him above humanity—now debasing him below it .
Ut the history of the past we are not about to treat . It is the purpose of this paper to make a slight survey of the present , and , without pretending to prophetic powers , to inquire what is the probable aspect of the future .
It is very difficult to draw the character of our own times . The artist floats on with the stream , and cannot calculate its rapidity . His attention is so much occupied by the delights or the dangers immediately before him , that he cannot contemplate the terrors , the grandeur , the loveliness , scattered over the entire scene . Probably he plays a part , however . humble , and therefore insensibly invests with an undue
splendour that peculiar underplot of the great drama in which lie appears . The most astounding events come not altogether , nor are their effects visible at once ; they appear in succession , and that , which , to the backward eye of history , is one perfect whole , is beheld by the spectator at intervals , and in parts , and therefore seems to him distinct and unconnected .
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i \ 8 The Signs qf the Times .
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Laud less , restless , joylesa , hopelesa , Gasping still for bread and breath , To their graves by trouble hunted , Albion ' s helots live for death . Tardy day of hoarded ruin ! Wild Niagara of blood ! Coming sea of headlong millions , Vainly seeking work and food ! Why is famine reap'd for harvest ? Planted curses always grow ; Where the plough makes want its symbol , Fools will gather as they sow .
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THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 218, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/26/
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