Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1859-08-06

rivets of their broken cisterns on it. or
pound the wrinkles out of their battered
opinions on it, or punish it with piteful
indentations. The perfection of art with
such man is to strike heartily when he as
sumes the Office of hammer, and bear
bravely when be is compelled to be an an
! vii. Until man becomes as good an an
vii az he is hammer, he fails to be thor
ougbly fitted for his work What an indu-
rate old anvil Martin Luther was He
smote errors and abuses and sins with
blows that sent their resonant echoes
through oil the centuries. He was q NOR
al sledge-hammer, assailing a system that
shook through all its rotten timbers but
that system and its defenders returned his
assaults, and tested bis resistance and en-
durance. The diet of Worms made an an-
vii of him ; and the kind of steel he had
in him was manifested in his reply to the
friends who undertook to dissuade him
from going to Worms to be hammered =
"Were there as many devils in Worms as
there are roof-tiles, l would on !" That
was the way Of Luther the anvil.
The hammer and the anvil are the two
hemispheres of every true reformers char
acter They are, in fact, the two aspects
of every leader, let him be never SO high,
or never so humble. Every man who
strikes blows for power, for influence, for
institutions, for the right, must be Just as
| good an anvil as he is hammer. If he
is not, he may properly conclude that he
has no very important mission in the i'm
provement and progress of his race. If
private and instituted sin, error, predjudice
and wrong would be kind enough to stand
quietly and let us batter in their sides, or
knock them down, reform would become q
fine art, with great attractions for men of
weak constitutions. and gentle pedigree /;
but they always object to this mode of
treatment; and any man who attacks them
must calculate on his power of resistance,
or his power to bear without finching the
blows he will receive in return A pugil-
ist who is an inferior hammer not unfre-
quently wins fight in consequence of be-
| ing O superior anvil If victory were al
ways with the hammer the French wold al
ways be victorious but the anvil won at
Waterloo.
But the blows which a reformer receives
in direct response to his own are not always
the hardest things he has to bear. Many
become so hardened to these that they
rather enjoy them. Direct and powerful
opposition is a kind Of compliment to the
assailing power, and demonstrates fear,
or the consciousness of damage, on the
part of the assailed. Every system and
institution of wrong, error and sin has its
defenders /; but, beyond these, it has ad-
herents and friends in multitudes, who be-
ing unable TO enter the lists as champions,
resort to smaller and meaner arts of enmi-
ty. There is never wanting any number
Of dogs to bark at an honest man. Now
this playing the part of anvil, and being
the object of the vocal demonstrations of
q popular quadruped, are two very differ
ent things. Many man can withstand
the fiercest blows of an individual, who
will shrink from the barking of the people.
Many a man gives blows valiantly and re-
ceives them bravely, who is made very ner-
vous and miserable by clamor about his
heels, and splteful feints at the terminal
portions of his pantaloons In fact, there
is nothing which true man cannot bear,
provided he is conscious of possessing
sympathy of the people.
When reformer utterly loses, or fails
to gain, the sympathy Of the people, strong
indeed must be his conviction, profound
indeed must be his charity and vital must
his faith and purpose be, if he can still
strike Justify in their behalf Oh ! how
few enter upon a career of reform in what
ever department of life, and come out of
it uniDjured How few are able to battle
through lifetime with the errors and sins
of society, and escape unimbittered tow
ards those whom they have endeavored to
benefit How few can close life of self
sacrifice, -misconstrued, misrepresented
abused, with the immortal words, yelling
up from heart Of love still full and over
flowing Father, forgive them, for they
know not what they do !"
l suppose that indifference to direct op-
position and popular clamor, even if in
some sense desirable, is impossible in a ma
ture worthy of any good work Every
man who becomes the subject of these
should, however, guard himself against the
consequences to which l have alluded.--
Every man should guard himself against
waning faith in humanity. Moral forces
move slowly, partly from their nature and
the complication Of their processes, and
partly from the lack of social sympathy
among the masses of men. The most tina t
reformer can hope to do in his short life
is to introduce leaven into society which
shall at length work the elevation he de-
sires to effect. He can rarely move masses
to his will by the immediate exercise of
power, because there are, in sympathy, no
such things as masses of men. There are
loosely bound aggregations of individual
ties, but no masses through which runs SO
thorough sympathy that action upon one
will be action upon all 1t must be re-
membered that a man may apparently
have all society against him, and yet
be engaged in a work which will GER
tainly and thoroughly reyOlutionize its
opinions and habits. An air line railroad,
running straight through home-lot and gar
den and dwelling, through bill aud valley
and meadow, will throw everybody upon its
course into wild confusion during the pro-
cess of its construction and were we to
sympathize with. the camor of those with
whose privatefnterests it temporarily in
"a "a al ~. -