And, too,
we love thee when thou art moved and governed by justice; we hate
thee when thou showest thyself a sycophant to make a mad mob serve a
pestilential ambition. Like a young giant thou graspest power; but,
when in thy hands, it becomes a means of serving the baser ends of
factious demagogues. Hypocrite! With breath of poison thou hast sung
thy songs to liberty while making it a stepping-stone to injustice;
nor hast thou ever ceased to wage a tyrant's war against the rights
of man. Thou wearest false robes; thou blasphemest against heaven,
that thy strength in wrong may be secure-yea, we fear thy end is
fast coming badly, for thou art the bastard offspring of
Republicanism so purely planted in our land. Clamour and the lash
are thy sceptres, and, like a viper seeking its prey, thou charmest
with one and goadeth men's souls with the other. Having worked thy
way through our simple narrative, show us what thou hast done. A
father hast thou driven within the humid wall of a prison, because
he would repent and acknowledge his child. Bolts and bars, in such
cases, are democracy's safeguards; but thou hast bound with heavy
chains the being who would rise in the world, and go forth healing
the sick and preaching God's word. Even hast thou turned the hearts
of men into stone, and made them weep at the wrong thou gavest them
power to inflict. That bond which God gave to man, and charged him
to keep sacred, thou hast sundered for the sake of gold,--thereby
levelling man with the brutes of the field.
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