The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1878-05-23
THOUGHTS FROM EMERSON.

We are to know that we are never 1
without a pilot. When we know not /
how to steer, and dare not hoist sail, /
we can drift. The current knows the !
way, though we do not. When the /
stars and sun appear; when we have !
conversed with navigators who know /!
the coast, we may begin 70 put out an
oar or trim sail. The ship of heaven
guides Itself, and will not accept
wooden rudder.
How came this creation so magi-
cally woven that nothing can do me
mischief but myself-that an invisible
fence surrounds my being which screens
me from all harm that | viii to resist?
If viii stand upright, the creation can
not bend me. But if / violate myself,
if l commit crime, the lightning loi
ters by the speed of retribution, and
every act is not hereafter but instanta-
neously rewarded according to its
quality. Virtue is the adopting of this
dictate of the universal mind by the in
dividual will. Character is the habit of
this obedience, and religion is the ac
companying emotion, the emotion of
reverence which the presence of the
universal mind ever excites in the indi-
vidual.
- The mystic or theist is never
scared by any startling materialism- He
knows the laws of gravitation and of re-
pulsion are deaf to French takers, be
they never so witty. If theology shows
that opinions are fast changing. it is net
so with the convictions of men with re-
gard to conduct. These remain. The
most daring heroism, the most accom-
plished culture, or rapt holiness, never
exhausted the claim of these lowly du-
ties-never penetrated to their origin,
or was able to look behind their source.
We can not discnchant, we can not i'm
poverish ourselves, by obedience; but
by humility we rise, by obedience we
command, by poverty we are rich, by
dying we live.
Man does not live by bread alone,
but by faith, by admiration, by sympa-
thy. lis very shallow to say that cot
ton or iron, or silver and gold, are kings
of the world; there are rulers that will
at any moment make these forgotten.
Fear will; love will; character will.
Men live by their eredence. Govern
ments stand by it-by the faith that peo-
pie share-whether it comes from the
religion in which we were bred, or from
an original conscience in themselves,
which the popular religion echoes. If
government could only stand by force,
if the instinct of the people was to resist
the government, it is plain the govern
ment must be two to one, in order to be
secure, and then it would not be safe
from desperate individuals. But no;
the old commandment, IS Thou shalt not
kill" holds down New York, and Lon
don, and Paris, and not a police, or
horse-guards.
The credence of men it is that
molds them, and creates at will one or
another surface. The mind as il opens
transfers very fast its choice from the
circumstances to the cause; from cour-
tesy to love, from invention to science,
from London or Washington law, or
public opinion, to the self-revealing
idea; from all that talent executes to
the sentiment that fills the heart and
dictates the future of nations.
The man of this age must be mstric-
ulated in the university of sciences and
tendencies flowing from all past periods.
He must not be one who can be sur
prised and shipwreeked by every bold
or subtle word which malignant and
acute men may utter in his hearing, but
should be taught all skeptieisms and un-
beliefs, and made the destroyer of all
card-houses and paper walls, and the
sitter of all opinions, by being put face
to face from his infancy with Reality.
"A man who has accustomed him
self to look at all his circumstances as
very mutahle, to carry his possessions,
his relations to persons, and even his
opinions, in his hand, and in all these to
pierce to the principle and moral law,
and everywhere to ind that-has put
himself out of the reach of all skepti-
cism; and it seems as if whatever is most
affecting and sublime in our intercourse,
in our happiness, and in our losses,
tended steadily to uplift US to a life so
extraordinary, and one might say, super
human.-Nortb american Rerie1o.