The Potter journal and news item. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1872-1874, 1873-09-03
LIMITATIONS.

There is hardly anything more
hard to learn, more difficult to recon-
Gle ones self to, than the bounds
that hedge us in on every side, the
impossibility of doing even what we
see clearly we ought to do. Apart
from those that we owe to physical
weakness or mental imperfection, the
circumstances of our life, or the OBJ
tuse perception to which too many of
us are subject, there is such terrible
lack of power to do, when we do see,
such an impossibility to get others to
help in the labors that need many, or
to find out how to work with others
according to their vision.
In this country, where the will of
the people is sovereign, and that will
lies prone before great abuses, the
few, perhaps the many who seek re-
form, labor, and struggle, and lift
by the sweat of their brows, by the
careful watching and the ceaseless
energy-until it seems as though
something was about to be accom-
pished, when some weak one gives
way, and the "soYereign will" is idle
and inert.
Perhaps q reform is needed in our
laws. 1t is plain and simple, and
most people see it, but you cannot
get them to take the needful steps to-
ward a change, or if some do so many
stand in the way Of any progress that
it is only by long, weary process
that any reform is effected. Still
worse is it with the administration
oflaws when made. We suffer abuses
at our very doors because we do not
execute vigorously the good laws that
we have. We see incalculable mis-
chief done to the young people, on
whom rests the hope of the country,
because 50 many lie supiue when need
is Of active, strong, determined resis-
tance.
There are those willing and anxious
to work, fettered, not 50 much by the
will to be overcome as by the want
Of effective help. And this effective
help is lacking most from want of
power to see plainly how and what
to dO--a limitation Of perception.
Each ones great defect heinz the
limit, not only of his own usefulness
but Of that of others.
In view of all these difficulties, of
so many abortive efforts and unsuc-
cessful struggles, it sometimes be
comes a question how the world can
move on at all, how any progress can
be made. Yet we do make progress,
some; little by little, the laws are
and the power given us to
hope for further amendment-but so
slow, so weariIy, does the good time
come.
Like the march Of a great army
which has to bring on all its strag-
glers and all its baggage, provisions.
its cannon, tents, and all else that it
needs, very slowly, even with its per
feet discipline and despotic command,
50 march we, fettered in every limb,
almost in every thought, by all the
circumstances of our lives; limited,
each one Of us, by all our relations
to each other, yet, perhaps, aided in
mass by these same ties that bind us
all together.
We think most of these limits to
all our power to help the world; to
benefit one another when the lawless
liquor traffic faunts itself before our
eyes; when following evil examples,
one after another, violates the law
and the honest sense Of the communi-
ty and escapes that punishment that
should stop him and deter others
from the shameful business. For it
seems so strange that all the chris
tian people, all the moral and legal
force should lie torpid in presence of
this dreadful wrong. Oh, how long?