The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-11-07

are not an lnconcelvaDle mixture.
We have had such men, and among
them are our national saints. Was
George Washington, whom the win
ter at Valley Forge could not break
into vacillation, any less set in his
purpose than Peter the Hermit?
Think of Garrison, whom mobs could
not intimidate nor prisons deter,
clear-sighted, calmly poised, welding
only the sword of reason, the fanatic
Of the autislavery cause. His coun-
terpart in the political realm was no
less a person than Lincoln himself.
AS fiat boatman, he attended slave
auction in New Orleans, and his soul
was stirred. 1t was a rude vow he
registered then, but none the less
real. eff ever get chance, I'll hit
that institution" said he to his COM
panion," and by God, I'll hit ithard"
But he could not be coaxed, driven
or argued into striking until the time
had come. Then he smote it and it
died. What was George William
Curtis but the fanatic of Civil Service
Reform? Above all the claims of
party, he put the obligation to politi-
cal righteousness, and dared to tell a
party convention itself that he car
ried his sovereignty under his own
hat. These are but samples of
host
Why should we nurse the delusion
that only selfshness can be cool and
strong in methods and judgment?
Indeed, if we want illustrations of
fanaticism, we can find them swarm
ingly numerous in the realm of
modern moneymaking. There is
one ideaism enthroned. 1t is the
fearful fanaticism of our times, and,
fearfully shall we account for it, for
as Lecky more than suggests, it is
the source of the most colossal I'M
scrupulousness that the world has
ever witnessed.
The ideas and causes of righteous
ness and humanity shall not lack lead
ers. The prophetic resources of the
race are abundant, and when the cryis
raised, these masters of devotion will
come forth and repeat the great mys-
terry Of Palestine by becoming incar-
nations of the concrete Word of God
applicable to the world in their day
and generation. Men and women,
with love equal to their pointed and
intense earnestness, shall come for
ward and demonstrate by being the
reforming power of Christianity.
But leaders are nothing without
following, an edge nothing without
the axes heft. 1t is the glory of
Christianity that, by its champion
ship of the cause of man for his own
sake and worth as the Son of God in
nature and the Son of God in des
tiny, it draws to its support and con-
verts into it's own, the power that lies
in the waiting, wholesome moral earn
estness of the people.
You have heard of favorable at
mospheres charged with force that
seemed ready for any noble service.
What is such an atmosphere but the
quiet awakedness of common, I'M
presuming consciences? There are
many who feel their responsibility in
the sight of God, but shrink from
conspicuousness in the sight of men.
Without, perhaps, any pronounced
share of the faculties which serve the
seif-asserting and administering
disposition, not wrestlers in the
arena of practical affairs, and wear
ing no social trophies or political dec
orations, they possess, nevertheless,
an ineradicable sense of their own
moral dignity and responsibility, and
constitute, so have often thought,
Christ's peculiar own. They are the
men and women with two talents, or
a talent and a half, yes one talent,
the average men and women.
Where did we ever get the idea that
the man with one talent was nee
essarily unfaithful9 They are the
bricks of the building, the prepon-
derating substance and mass of its
walls, the source of its strength. For
them, all the rest exist, foundation
and ornamentation for the structure,
not structure for the foundations or
namentation. Usually these have an
unsophisticated moral susceptibility
which makes them the repository of
weightiest power From their num-
Der, Jesus selected his immediate
disciples.
For every reform called for by the
Ideal Christ, this great mass of un-
presuming but quivering and whole
some moral earnestness is the or
dained support. Get it in motion,
and its momentum will carry right