The Illinois free trader and LaSalle County commercial advertiser. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1841-1843, 1842-06-17
For the Bloomington e. T.) Herald.
Moral Reflections.

4 = VI S'S S'0"'''t"b''' " J AiSia1S'
Moral Reflections.
"-All the worlds a stage,
And all the men and women merely players
They have their exits and their entrance;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages, &c.'
SHAKESPEARE.
| When we pause on our onward way 10
the narrow house, and reflect upon the
wide world, or more properly speaking,
the heterogeneous mass people that dwell
upon It's varied surface. When we look
at our own race alone, what variety of
character do we behold, as respects phys
zeal organization, constitution of mind
and incentives to action. Truly we are
lost in wonder and establishment! Come
with me reader, for moment and let us
go into the realms of contemplation I'VE
will view those benighted lands where the
glorious faculty of reason and It's attributes
have been shackled and Kept down by iy-
ranhy. Men endowed with immortal
minds and bearing the impress of Divini-
~ are held under the dominion of super
snllon, idolairy, sensuality and fear -
Why is this Why should our fellow
creatures continue in darkness! Is the
age Of barbarism to be handed down from
generation to generation. Is man to re-
main the slave Of vile passion, and the no.
bic features of his nature to be palsicd,
paralysea and kept in AFFECTION by the
power of vitiated and illegiiima,e habits,
customs and the laws of usurpation p
Forbid it justice, forbid it truth, forbid il
reason, forbid il humanity!
The gag law must be abolished by
every nation, ere its people become the
civilized and refined people the freedom
of thought, word and action. The liber-
ty of the Press must reign supreme and
the rod Of oppression broken in twain
The principle 'ihat all men are created
free and equal and are endowed by their
creator with certain inalienable rights
must be disseminated TO the four corners!
Of the world, and the throne heads must
DC battered down and the cap of universal
liberty reared upon the fall consolidation
of power is opposed to all that ennobles
and exhalis man in the scale of happiness,
virtue, truth, justice and intelligence, can
find no loolhold while tyranny exists
10 keep man in ignorance Of his own
nature, and the laws by which he lives
and moves and has his heing, is the pride
of usurpaton and the lile-blood of mon
achy, treachery and deceit!
But political freedom is but one step in
the pathway to human happiness; and
but one link in the chain Of that great and
stupendous reformation that is fast com
ing over the world. The social condition
of man needs a radical and thorough
change if honesty, justice. truth, good
viii conduce to tae end Happiness. y
Now, as society exists even in our own
dear country, we are all Jus more or less
su1i.c. . hccc ne the children of misery,
woe and want! The constitution of So
ciety is rotten, it is based upon wealth
and its demoralizing influences! The
noblest feelings of man are corrupted,
subdued and brought under the dominion
of money! The noblest faculty Of mqn
that faculty which eevaies him above
the brute creation-that faculty which is
: his sheet anchor ofienlimes when the over.
whelming storms of misfortune assail him
has become contaminated with the venom
} Of avaricioasness, and dies in commissions
at the fooistool Of oppression!
I How plastic aud pliable, in youthful.
, ncss---how stubborn and ungoyernabe, il
age. is that wonderful substance called tn.
, brain 1.-THE impressions that are made
: upon it ere it has arrived at maturity
: generate into habits be they viriuous o.
!, vicious and dame nature has often to bca
: the blame of vitiated education. Tn,
i images of early thought, are difficult 10 b,
d erased from the tablets OF, memory -
II deep.rooted prejudices are invnciblc, n
: matter how inconsistent they be with III
If dictates Of an enlightened judgment. 'rh
Is errors of a barbarous antiquity have be
n come inwroughl with the principles 9