Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-10-03

lied have vanished and scarce a trace of
them can be found in the dim records OF the
past. PhGnecia, with civilization superior
to our own, and power that coonized the
world, made her ndelibe mark on the worl's
languages and development and faded utterly
away. Thebes spread her magnificent ruins
over the desert, and her nle.Iong avenue of
sphinxes holds forever the secret of her doom,
and Karnac and Luxor give no whisper Of the
mystery of palace or of temple, and Memnon
sings no more at sunrise to the singing god
dess of the Nile, the fair and lotus-crowned
Isis. Troy lives only in the songs of blind
Homer The great empires Of Assyria and
Babylon are dead in the dust OF the centuries
And so Of all, have been beaten into
fragments to pave the roadway Of the ma
tons, that the wheels of progress might run
more smoothly over it.
Is it that the world was made for the many,
rather than for the few? Is it that the highest
developmentin the trcest possible religious and
political life is intended to be produced? Is
1t that Liberty is the everlasting law, whereby
ali institutions are finally judged? 1t would
seem that so far as the ideal of freedom is
true or false, selfish or selt-renouncing in the
heart of a naton does the nation live or die.
The old-world liberty, holding its own with
iron hand and selfish hearth lies buried beneath
the ruins of old-wOrld grandeur, and Time
kindes a warning beacon over its magnificent
and melancholy tomb. In the old rationale
ties there the selfishnesS of class and
cast, and position eating them up like a cor.
roding rust. Liberty was not to them golden
stairway, by which the whole people
assembled to a nobler life, to a free, full,
perfect development, to a high and true Gull
ture; it was a mere ladder up which the !
privileged few climbed to power, to Selt-ag- |
grandizement, to a splendid tyranny over the |
weak, and poor, and ignorant, and SO the |
tower of their strength was undermined. and /
they passed away.
The older civilizations persisted under this
law, and the more modern governments have
been condemned before the same tribunal.
Greece, with all her wisdom and her beauty,
saw the barbarian flood beat agains the walls
of her courtly Athens, and overflow her SPLEEN
dor and her pride, and found too late that the
dazzling ornaments wherewith she had adorned
herself, were only chains that she had forged
and bound upon her own limbs. Rome was
once the world, and now the world looks with
curious eyes on that grand old wreck strand
cd amid the seven hills, in the midst Of the
desolation Of its sea-likc Campagna. And
All1IJ r-~.roO i-~...i .i~z,'- I'LL ,..i
aces the soft murmur Of that ocean bride,
welded yearly with pomp and rejoicing, but
the caresses OF the bright sea stole away the
republics strength, and while the nation
Haunted its magnfcence in the eyes of the
envious world, its liberty foated away over
the waves of the AdIiatc, and through the
avenue of its pride and power, came up ruin
and death.
There are strange whispers in the air OF
that strange old Past; there is wisdom
buried beneath those ruins of empires. The
key to the Sphinx's riddle is hidden in those
old graves, and when we are wise enough to
take it, her dumb lips shall open and tell us
the secret of eternal youth and immortal life
In the dim, shrouded future lies the tomb OF
every nation, in which the selfshness of class
over-rides the development of the masses, and
grand past to encourage her. lost step in the
onward march Of the nations tainted, and lay,
fair and lifeless, with her culture and
refinement folded magnificent around her,
and the hoof of brute Austria press
ed blood from her vintage, as it tram.
pied ruthlessly on her heart. Spain for
centuries dominated the world, and the
!
fers; but she took her gold and marble and
precious stones and built a splendid tomb for
freedom and advancement, and the weight of
that tomb sunk her into insignifcance; and
the miasma from it poisoned her to deadly
weakness and imbecihty. When Hungary
shouted Long live Maria Theresa, our
King" twas the cry of the free naughty Mag
gars, who felt that their hands upheld her
throne; but that class-treedom was strangled
at last by Austrian despotism, and the nation
lies in the grave, waiting for the resurrection
morning. For the same reason and in the
way Poland persisted, there was no pro-
vision made for the people and so night came
down upon them, that they might learn that
only the power of an enlightened progress.
I've, free people can unbar the gates of morn
ing and bring in a permanent and serene day
The governing class alone does mot make the
Nation. That consists of the millions who
are governed: and their rulers are always
called to a strict account, though it be only by
the dumb misery Of the cheated and tramped
masses.
The world is not given over to Kings or
Presidents, to Cabinets or Ministries, we must
acknowledge divine power over the nations,
holding them in the orbit of eternal pur-
pose in spite of all their alterations. Through
the clank and roar of every irou-foundry,
through the murky air, crimsoned with the
glow of boiling metal, walks the spiritual
foreshadowing of what this power does in the
earth. There the iron cold and in its useless
forms is collected and cast into the furnace
and when in the fl cree heat it flows like WATER
stout-handed men guide it to the mould; or,
as 1t bends in the fire, they snatch it forth to
veltto the ponderous hammer; or they bindit.