Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-05-26

THE "AUTocRAr" IN SELF.DEFENCE.-
Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, at the Unitarian
Festival in Boston on Wednesday evening,
made the following.reply to recent criticisms of
his conversations in the Atlantic Monthly:
1t is customary to allow all presiding off
GERS, and all public speakers, certain space
of time to confess their unfitness for the place
they hold, and to deplore their manifold inca
pacities to discharge its duties. l claim the
time-honored privilege of this allotted space,
but not for its common purpose. claim it to
defend your committee and yourselves, in case
it and you should be attacked, through the
person of your chairman, who, as his friends
inform him, has been recently accused of the
crime for which Socrates suffered-that of be-
ing a poisoner of public opinion. To this
charge your charman-always for your sake
and not for his own-enters the following
plea Guilty but with extenuating circum-
stances.
This trick of poisoning was taught him by
his instructors in the art, commonly called, of
healing. The doctors of this place have long
been famous for its practice. They began poi
soning mems bodies in It'll Zebidiel Boyls-
ton was the first criminal. He poisoned many
victims, amidst the howls of the populace and
eitc ueHuHCldtiOHS VI pTOleSSlOIldl rivals ana
anonymous accusers. And under the name of
inocuLation, this practice of poisoning spread
from Boston all over the continent. AT the
latter part of the same century, another poi
soner, one Edward Jenner, introduced an in
lection into the human system from brute.
The descendants of those same Boston doc
tors were the first to adopt the practice, and
under the name of uaccindtion, this, too, start
ing from Boston, spread over the whole con-
tinent.
In the year 1916, a new generation of those
same Boston doctors contrived fresh poison
of their own. By means of it they reduced
people to such a wretched state of insensbiIi-
ty that they cut their legs off without their
knowing anything about it. They called this
etherfzatton, and this practice, again, starting
from yonder Hospital, made the circuit of the
whole planet Other great cities were slow,
strangely slow, in adopting these new modes
of poisoning. These bold bad fathers and
brothers of ours seemed to be always ready
for anything. The British Government par
doned convicts that they might be innoculat-
ed Zebdiel Boylston took his own son for the
first experiment. When vaccination was first
brought forward, it was said that it would turn
the children into calves and heifers our IA
theirs tried it on us, and we are thought still to
retain the features of humanity. When ether
grief of the race, it was said to be unscriptural
and impieus; our physicians gave it to those
nearest and dearest to them, and told the COM
mentators to mind their own business.
But the Boston PRISONERS have not stopped
at the body The quill that carries the vac
cine virus is not the only quill that has been
loaded with contagious principles. They
poisoned the veins Of Loyalty with the virus
of Liberty, in that hospital of humanity some
times known as the cradle of the latter per-
sonage. So dreadfully did the venom work
that Governor Hutchinson thought that the
people must be put on a low diet of English
liberties" and even dish of tea would not
stay on their stomachs. They poisoned the
the thick black blood of a stagnant theology
with the virus of large and liberal faith. The
children Of the "Sons Of Liberty" looked
after the doctrines of the back-coats as their
fathers had looked after the fireocks of the
red coats. Whether this generation has man
aged to grow up out of that epoch of spiritual
incubation, let this wholesome and happy as
sembly bear witness.
Now let us all remember the lessons of the
past, for they belong to all Of us who deal in
any form Of thought and knowledge not fami-
lar to the common mind or soul. You cannot
introduce the poison of truth under the cuticle
the body, social, political, or religious, with.
| out its producing local heat and irritation
sometimes general fever, headache, giddiness,
and even delirium, in which the subjects use
very bad language, and behave as if they had
just broken out of straight jackets. Ifthe pos
on is in any sense new, there will be more or
less of cutlery among the vulgar. When we
have these symptoms we know that the quill
was good one and that its virus has taken. II
we look and do no not find them, we have to
try again--for II we do not vaccinate with viri-
tatDg truth from time to time, we shall by
and by have a confident eruption of unbelief
and decentralization that will leave the fair
souls of our children covered with scars and
seams, such as we see on the features of old
world emigrants who have been brought up in
the good old fear Of poison