Litchfield enquirer., 1858-07-22

thought, noble sentiment, uttered and re- spoLded to here, in the midst of friends and neighbors, sweethearts and wives, comes winged with irresistible light and power into the soul.
 And one thing more wish te notice. We are here without distinction of sect or party. l do not deny the utility or necessity of sec.s and parties, but 1 say it is bad thing for any man to live exclusively in tho midst of his own set, among lis own fellows it is a good thing for man often to mingle with the whole peo- pie. Tie one tends to wither aud shrivel the soul, the other. tends to el.iarge it. I have read of man who had lived thirty years in prison at last he was offered his Liberty, but his whole being had become so impressed with the darkness and dampncss of his dungeon, that the blessed light of heaven, the genial breath of liberty, was painful to him and so he ask ed to be t4ken back to his cell. And people who always live by themselves never let in the light from the broad atmosphhre of S : clety around tlem-are always more or less like this poor moomahiac
 Some hail century ago great discovery was made, which is that association is the key of of power. The old idea was that power be- longed to kings by divine right but this new discovery showed how great deal oi the power of the world could be yielded by men, Hence thousand societies, religions, moral, cliarit;- ble, social, and political, slrhg into existeuce and 1t nay he added that for the last lialf cen tnry, large part of the business of the world has been carried OH by these associations By them the Bible has been translated into the language of the heathcn and it has been spread over the world. By them the glad tid- ings of the gospel have been preached to nearly all lands. Every great aid good idea is thus eIIthroncd in an association But there is very common abuse of this great discovery, which is that little aid eccentric nay, even pernicious ideas, have taken example from this system, and hence We have associations q, voted to their propagation. There is no phantasm so wild, no opinion so absurd, as not to have its society, with presidents, vice-presidcnts, and secretaries, and with its organ and it's agents aud all the customary machinery for enforcing it.
 And it is very curious torcmark, that exact ly i'll proportion to the narrowness of these ideas, are the zeal, bitterness and bieotry with which they are urged Bigotry is partial blind ness. It makes even a good thing bad, but tie spirit in which it is preached. The way in which this obliquity of vision arises is that One thing, often small thing, usurps the whole horizon of the mild If put my little fin ger across my eyes, l can see nothing but my little finger this large assemblage, these hills the very light of day are excluded from my vision. A q thus it is ill afa:ls of the mind; ; if person permits his thoughts to dwell ex- clasively on ono idea if hc puts himself in such position before the world that his whole success in life, his pride of character, his wil his temper, all arc concerned in magnify ing that idea then he is likely to see that and only that and he is apt to feel that all the world are mad because they do not see it and appreciate it as he does.
 The way in which small idea is thus mag nifed may be illustrated by an anecdote One day Western farmer was standing on his door-stcps, which overlooked broad prairie Suddenly his gaze became fixed and he cried out" buffalo ]! there goes buffalo !"
 Where, where, father 2 said the boys.
 There, there on the prairie ! There it gees there it goes don't you sec it why you are blind as b:etles p -
 "Stop minute, father p said one of the boys, at the same time approaching the old man and looking in his face. "Stop minute l see it ; here it is i; at ras omly e muskeeter on your eyebroao."
 And thus you can easily see that a thing put out of it's proper place in relation to other things ; thing brought too near the eye-be- comes wonder to the bcwildered imagination of him who has thus abused his sight. Thus it is. that among the fanatics aud monomaniacs of the present day, we see them crying out Lo, a buffalo, buffalo r when all the world can see that it is but musqnito.
 Auother curious thing in relation to these monomaniacs, or reformers, as they call them- selves, is that while they profess to be above other meu in charity :; while protesting to coll- tenn the selishn,ss of other men, and to be guided by a more heavenly light than others they are beyond all other men, bitter and de- nunciary toward those who differ from them in opinion Taking charity as their text, they are universally the most uncharitable of the human kind. In truth, tle first qualification of good speaker for convention of these one ideaists, seems to be asfaculty for cursing theiI~opponents.
 l have heard of a man who was very much excited because he buttoned up a humble bee in his pantaloons but one would think that tuGSc 1lcIUl LuCu oIULOFS Hdu SWalIOWeu a HOT nets nest, and stung themselves, and wished to communicate their own emotious to the audi ence. Another curious thing with these wise. acres is, that while they are blind, they rail like bedlamittes at those who do not partake of their obliquiry. There is no so great all of fence to fanatic as calm, common sense ]; there is nothing which so sours the bosom of mad reformer as to be calm, quiet and pleas ant Two men on a journey, once went to bed at an Inn in the sane room. They wished to set out early the next morning, ard therefore about day break, one of them got up and look ed out of the window We'll" said tl,e oth- CT, how is it p "It's beautiful weather, and its just about day break" was the reply. Upon this the other got up, and intending to look out of the window, as it was still dark, he put h's head into cupboard in the corner of II T I I. l