The Hillsdale standard. [volume] (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1851-1909, 1858-04-20
s. HILLsDALE, MICH, TUESDAY, APRIL 20 1858

brow shalt thou eat bread sli the days of
thy ife;" and filling up the picture come
the dark, glossy greens and luxuriant To-
liage of the sunny South; ask can it bo
possible that country filed with such in
exhaustble resources will be given up by
the good God into those tyrant hands,
dripping with the gore Of human beings
murdered body and soul, to be blasted
with that fearful, blighting curse9
Secondly, That we arc to be the rulers
of the world by physical force, standing
at the head Of great confederacy, is un-
true. We arc a nation Of civilians, not Of
warriors. Tho time of the rule of the
sword is fast passing, and tho sway Of tie
pen becomes more and more firmly estab-
lished. The genius Of American enter
prise charges to tho conquest of civilization
tion seated on a plou h-beam and not
cannon ball. With tho fall of Rome fell
the last world wide Empire and he who
thinks of founding another will finally SEQ
his folly, as did tho almost god-liko Ma
polcon, who, in mid career Of his vast rs
pirations, at last realized the Interchangeable
edict, "yet he shall come 10 his end and
mono shall know him."
Finally, therefore, to dream of extend
ing our limits for evil purposes or by evil
means, rushing forward to the commission
of high handed outrages, urged on by
false ideas respecting Manifest Destiny, and
believing VIC are to hold pre,emincncc by
any other means than high, moral and in
tellectual culture, is not only repugnaut to
our better nature, but positively injurious,
for "who handleth pitch and is not defled.'
II. then, these arc not tho real features
of Manifest Destiny, let us look to the
past for moment and ascertain what
facts exist to found by analogy our hopes
for the future; and, as we gaze down the
vista of the past fifty, aye twenty five
years, having taken,breath for the renew
al Of the ascent toward the pinnacle on
whose top the Gear light Of truth shines
with an cternally vivilying cffulgence, let
us fix our eyes heavenward, and with firm
step and unconquerab,e will press forward
to tho attainment of what is yet to he ac-
complshcd. Near tho close of the last
month of the last year in tho last century,
from every hearthstone in the whole coun-
try, walled forth tho mournful cry "Wash-
ington is dead" The Father of his coun-
try, the just patriot and the universally
beloved, sleeps the sleep that knows no
waking. He, the man Ct all men, was
the first of his times, and yet what did he
know speak it reverontly-in compsri-
son with tho school boy of our dayl He
never stood on the grade where the paral
lei iron bars stretched far, far toward tho
horizon until that subtitle magician, dis
tancc, had blended the two into one, and
marked single point on the centre in
crosse little by little as, accompanied by a
heavy, rattling thunder, fiery shape,
eating wood and drinking water, and
breathing from his misshapen nostrils huge
exhalations of mingled fire and smoke, is
c Be fR1ad Rsdy dy"sSa ad Te Sc sh
be dmly perceived in the wake of the
monster the material Of young western
city carried or single train. But what
school boy has not seen on somo branch of
the vast circuatory system of the CONT
nent phenomenon which the old Puritan
would have classcd with the Salon witch
craftl The wond ders Of steamboat navi-
CATION wcro hidden mystery to him.
The vision of one of our floating palaces,
and visit to Europe in two weeks, would
have been as faubulo"s as any tale of the
Arabian Nights. He never read a morn
ing paper tho matter Of which, going to
press the night teforc, had been prepared
by the tirclcss arms of the steam engine
for hundreds of thousands of subscribers
ere tie dawning light shimmcrcd coldly in
the east. Nor did he sec in any newspa-
per the column head "Tclegram" whore
we shall soon SEQ the announcement of an
event by "Atlantic Telegraph" some il
or eight hours before its occurrence. But
he, who, in our day, knows naught Of
these things, must, deed, be ignorant.
From these things we may gain some
slight perception of tho vast strides Of
Young America in the path of Manifest
Destiny, and of the grandness of those
discoveries which, bursting in lightning
flashes from the great temple Of science,
have, by that common application to tho
every day wants of the human race, be-
come rs familiar as Household Words
Feeling then the burden of great inpsi-
ration for the good of the whole family of
man resting upon us, inasmuch as we have
led in the mighty march of discovery Of
tho truly practical and useful, we must
perceive that the path marked out for us
by manifest destiny is not tho subjugatien
of powers and principalitics by physical
force, thus initiating the dark brutality Of
scmi-civilized and savage people before
the divine radiance of Christianity, emo
mating from tho mercy scat, revealed to
man in characters that, flashing far down
amidst the deepest ignorance and grossest
darkness, bid him love his ncighbor as
himself. Tho scheme Of universal conquest
should be abandoned, and the sooner the
better, for the fat Of the Onnipotent,
who remains tho samo yesterday, to day,
and forever, has gone forth that the last
great Empire has fallen, until the stone,
cut without hands from the mountain,
shall absorb into one great fraternity all
tho kingdoms Of earth and the glory OF
them. On tho contrary, whatever is no.
bic, great in goodness and philanthropic,
it is our privilege, aye positive duty to en-.
gage in, earnestly and enthusiastically