The Aberdeen weekly. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1878-1933, 1907-08-30
THE Sewers.

as of old, the harvest is reaped by
hands which were lifted only TO
smite the sewers of the seed. Now,
as Of old. shifty politicians and
cunning phrasemakers have come
to believe that the dynamic ideas Of
the time were conceived in their
own mechanic brains. Not only
so but a great party has snatched
the sickle from its opponent 5
hands, and is cutting a wide swath
Fifteen eyentful years have come
and gone since plutocracy's claims
were first challenged by clustered
thinkers who clearly saw that We
were face to face with the desp0tism
in subtler form. The nation was
then in love with money and the
things that money can buy, wealth
was thought to be the supreme goal
of achievement. By this criterion.
all creeds and all policies were tried d.
In those evil hours. the crucial ques-
ton was not Is it right?"-but
viii it pay?' In the memorable log
ic Of events, the voices of individual
protestants were merged in a single
vOice-trumpet-toned and passion
ate as such heaven-sent voices al
ways are. From that time forth
the perfect triumph OF the mighty
propaganda was sure The first
apostles will sleep for the most part
in forgotten graves, while their
catechumens march on to the con-
quest of the land
The pages of history are filled
with examples of the same sort.
Mirabeau and Napoleon did not be-
get, but were begotten by, the earth
quake which brought feudal France
to the dust. 1t is in the closets of
philosophers and in the song of
poets who lived long before that we
must find the forces which shattered
the ancient regime. Noltaire and
Condorcet and Rousseau were, after
all, but shadows of a substance more
potent than themselves-were but
mouths through which millions of
once inarticulate Frenchmen spoke.
The guillotine was but a final ex-
preston of the fierce unrest that
pulses through the Contrat So
cial. . And when the Sans Culotte
armies crossed the frontiers to be-.
siege the capitals of the kings, the
movement was but the physical
analogue Of the crusade which had,
through generations, been preached
by the knights of the pen. If Heine
had lived in 1898, he might well
have written the scornfuI words he
actually wrote in 1848-"Thrice
hath the Gallo cock crowed, and
all Europe Is astir. .
The annals of England, too,
preach the doctrine to which human
egotism seems so hard. Hampden
and Cromwell, Falkland and Ppm,
Fairfax and Nane were not sewers,
but reapers, Of the golden harvest
we call constitutional freedom. The
martyrs of the people cause perish
ed by the fagots or the AK, long be-
fore the masterful Protector and his
colleagues were born. The Ironsides
who rode down the Cavaliers on
Marston Moor got the fury of their
onset from ancestors who, in
thousand ways, had been driven to
hate Plantagenet and Tudor. Not
all at once could the rudest of
soldiers have come to look upon the
Mace as a bauble which might be
flung aside in a crisis, while the
House of Commons was locked out.
The occasion brought the men, with
the heroic temper derived from their
lineage. So, too, the repeal of the
Corn Law was the fruit of tree
that had been planted long before
Golden and Bright appeared upon
the scene. Through decade after
decade the artisans had vaguely
known that they were toiling to en-
rich the great landlords; but the
artisans then had no ballot with
which to make their knowledge tell.
1t was the province Of the Manches-
ter statesman to enlarge the scope
of the propaganda, till it eliminated
in the conversion of Peel. The
famine loaf had been eaten by
millions of firesides, before it was
borne aloft by advocates of the re-
demption reform. Mr.. Gladstone's
most poignant pleas for Ireland
were but and echo of the soul-search-
ing cry with which Emmett, and
countless Irishmen less famous than
Emmett, had gone to dungeon or
1t matters not whether if
the martyr be obscure or illustrious
his blood is the seed of the church
and the State.
Let us not repine, then, because
we see others reaping where we
have sown. In the providence of
God, individuals and parties alike
loom small The atom of dust
obeys the same law that drives the
spheres, wheeling I'M
shaken through the void immense.
In the divine economy the ape, as
well as the archangel, has his place.
Without the actor, the dramatist' S
noblest vision must remain colorless
and cold. Imitation is the SINGER
est fiattery," and we may infalibly
know that the giant is about to pre-
vail when we see the pigmies es-
saying to don the giants garb. But
let US never make the fatal mistake
of giving to the impersonator of |
the garland that belongs to
the genius who created the Dane. |
AS the faithful Mahometan turns |
toward Mecca as he prays, so should /
we direct our homage to the i'm
but too often anonymous, |