The Portland daily press., 1864-12-21
a Prophecy Falfllsd.

Theodore Parker,in d ic'sel "A..soA
Rome. An tho month Of November, 1859. uses
these words
s,The American people VIII have to march to
savaro mu.ic. and it Is better Tor them TO race
II IN saasou. A few years ago 1t did not seem
d;t,icuIt first to check slavery, and then to end
a. sdthout any bloodshed. Il think 1t cannot
~ ~ lone now, nor euer In the tuture. All the
Great charters of humanity have been writ IN
blood l once hoped that of American Demo-
cracy would be engrossed in less costly ms
but it is plain, now, that the pilgrimage musC
Head through a Red Sea, wherein many rha-
raoh. will go under and perish"
z Looking back now over the dark and bloody
record OF the last four years. these words OF
the great refor,ner sound in our ears like the
voice Of q nrophet of old. 1t would almost
Z seem as If for him, whose steps were even
then drawing near the confines OF the other
world the veil of the future had been partial
E,vi;F,ed, and he was allowed to see things yet
hidden from other eyes. The veri6cation of
his words has not, perhaps, come in manner
in which he looked for it. 1t used to be a ter
ror of many thoughtful minds th=t the chained
black giant of the South, maddened by his
wrongs, would rise some day, and fling of his
letters, marking his path to freedom with the
blood of his enslavera Not only to the north
err. observer was this danger apparent. Tae
horrors of San Domingo have haunted the
dreams of Southern women for years. But
not 10 that quarter was the storm to burst--
The character of the black man is such as to
make him the safe victim Of long course of
tyranny Inferior to the white in intellectual
power, he is also less strongly moved by the
instinct of liberty and the impulse of ven
geance. Not through his own efforts have the
chains of the oppressed been rent asunder. but
the tyrant himself. blind and drunken with
blood and crime, with his own hand lighted
The torch which has laid his power inruins.
And God, whose great Providence makes
even the wrath Of man to praise him, is bring-
ing out of all results which but brief time
ago seemed utterly impossible. Through the
parted waves Of contention, which rise like
the foaming Red Sea wall on either side, the
slave will march forward into. the promised
| and Of freedom, where hewilf be enabled to
work out unimpeded the problem of his ca
,pacity for . nobler DEVELOPMENT He has al
eady done much in this struggle to prove
that he may be safely trusted for that work.
But ours, not his, is the greater deliveranee.
Through the wild Red Sea which RACES yet
around US, the nation is passing. out from a
bondage worse than BIZ, from the slavery of
old PREF ndices, party shackles, Conventional
moralities, the lust Of power and the greed Of
goldinto the blessed Canaan of freer thought,
a'ffeer speech and freer conscience, where
the sacred ark of our liberties shall be en-
shrined in the temple of puret, grander civ
iIization than the world has ever seen.
Scat least, 1t may be If we 80, will it; Ill
we are willing to learn the lesson God has
been teaching us through these tdreadful years
that there is no safety but in Right and Jus.
tice. We must be fools and blind indeed, ii
we cannot read His words when they are writ
ten 10 characters Of blood, and lighted up for
US with the red glare of war. If we fall to do
so, be sure they will yet be burned into our
souls BY the fierce brand of still deeper woes
Years ago, the same wise thinker whose
words stand at the comnencemento Of this ar
ticle said, 1.-THE existeuce, Of slavery endan-
gers all our Democratic Institutions" And
! again: hasa ae adaisla'D4a assaElra9 81
Republicans will eventually see that they
cannot defend henaturnl rights of .treemer
acithout destr0yiny that slouery which takes
d,ooy the natural rights of the negro T.
Is tnot wen 10 take heed OF such. words ?D'
ssaoU sIdssq 1asHl .fsersu eide EPSILON.