Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-08-13

may audibly discourse one with another,
And yet they must go many miles before their
bodies can meet together, by the reason OF the
vast, hollow valleys which are betwiXt them.'
III every community there are various par
ties and sects occupying different submits OF
opinion, rising, with different elevations into
the clear air Of truth, rejecting more or less
of the pure white light of Gods wisdom. BY
various paths of education, of circumstance,
of condition, do men climb these heights,
each according to his ability. Some pause,
painting aud exhausted, at the end of those
graded roads, thai centuries have smothed
some make new paths and look into SUMMER
lands Of promise; one mans sweat lands him
on the black summit of a prejudice; the red
pinnacle Of passion attracts another; and so
they talk to one another across the dividing
valleys, like the Welsh shepherds, and, seem
so near each other. Let them talk! Let
each tell what he sees from his own elevation,
tell it boldly and fearlessly, looking up and
down; SO perchance shall the valleys get
brdged over, that safely, from high to higher,
men may pass, in an ever ascending life.
But often the isolation of some high peak
frightens men; they look down, and their
heads grew dizzy; tancying that strength lies
in numbers, they heed the reckoning hands
from some lower standpoint, which the null
titudes have had strength to reach; they fiat
ter themselves that by going down to the peo-
pie they shall gain strength to lead them up;
hot, bax boIl ind vrinn far
flight beyond the possibilities of weary feet;
and so they begin to descend, and 10, the
deep valleys grow darker; the way becomes
tangled and intricate; the people, who beck
oned, missing the elevation they DESIRED be-
gin to scoff and jeer; and the man, or the
party, whichever it may be, descending from
its own platform OF truth to lower levels, is
buried out of sight forever, in the dismal
gorges it seeks to traverse, by the rocks OF
,scorn, of Indifference, ofridicule, hurled down
by the very hands that beckoned and be-
sought.
But the clear out-speaking of our truth,
whatever it may be, is demanded of US all So
shall error be wInnowed away, so shall paths
to nobler heights of opinion and action be
smoothed and graded. This out-speaking is
alton hard. The more earnest the man, the
more inclined is he to say WIN MUSES.,
am l that should do this? | am not elo-
quent, but am slow of speech, and of a slow
tongue" Agreement is so much easer than
difference; peace so much more agreeable
than conflict; the carriage of agreement runs
smoothly in the ruts Of social life, the wrench
and jolt of the ''turning-out' ease-lovers are
fain to avoid. Lovers of popularity too meet
the same temptations they are too apt to say,
''Let us leave the decision of these vexed
questions in Gods hands" He will provide!
|'Who am 1, to do this thing" 81 pray thee
have NE excused
Another thought of Fuller's may be dropped
like seed into the minds of such men. He
says:
" When the angel brought ST. Peter out of
prison, the iron gate opened of its own ac-
cord. But coming TO the house of Mary, the
mother Of John, mark, he was fain to stand
before the door and knock. When iron gave
obedience, how can wood make oppOsition2'
49, The answer is easy. There was no man
to open the iron gate, but FORTRESS was pro-
hlueu, Vi COURSE, 10 UNLOCK the QOOr; GOQ
would not, therefore, show his finger where
mems hands were appointed to do the work"
God works on humanity by human hands,
through human minds. No man has a right
to stand aside from this work,-an idler in
Gods harvest field. No man, placed as por.
ter at any gate of truth or opinion, has a
right to leave the opening of that door to
God.
Again, there is a large class of men who
say, 90 the public mind is not prepared for
discussion" ave shall lose influence"
"' We shall fail to accomplish the lesser good,
by aiming at the greater" Let us pause to
note the drift of public opinion and then strive
to direct it," And so they pause till men
swarm around some base leader and all the
honey Of the public hive is poisoned. They
withhold their pearls, fearing to cast them be-
fore swine, forgetting that their pearls are
divine seed, entrusted to them by God for the
very soil that surrounds them.
The old Divine again says, II saw in seed
time husbandman at plow, in very raining
day; asking him the reason why he would
not rather leave off than labor in such foul
weather, his answer was returned me in their
country rhyme
COW beans in the mud,
And they'll come up like a wood
Now public opinion is often the most hope
less mud, till the seeds of high thought are
sown within it, The mud frightens only the
incompetent general; the true leader knows
how to marshal victory out of its blacklist
depths.
There need be no rashness in discussion.
Rash words are like the lightnings flash, the
sword of destruction, drawn dazzlingly from
its sheath to leave a denser darkness behind
it. But the clear and calm presentation of
truth is like the sunshine, bringing up the
perfect day OF God. Again, we find in Full
ler's "Good Words" this wisdom =
''We read that the nails in the holy of no.
lies va Chron., iii, s, 81 were of fine gold.
Hence arlseth question, how such nails
could be useful? pure gold being so flexible
that nail made thereof will bow, and not
drive -O'
NOW, was present at the debate hereof
betwlxt the best working guldsmiths in Lon.
don, where, among many other ingeniouO on
swers, this carried away the credit for tho
greatest probability thereof, viz; that +bn,,
were screw nails, which had holes nrenarod