The Cocqcigrues are
never coming; and none know that better than the present able and moderate
leaders of the Conservative party; none will be more anxious to teach that
fact to their young adherents, and to make them swim with the great stream,
lest it toss them contemptuously ashore upon its banks, and go on its way
unheeding.
Return to the system of 1800--1830, is, I thank God, impossible. Even
though men's hearts should fail them, they must onward, they know not
whither: though God does know. The bigot, who believes in a system, and not
in the living God; the sentimentalist, who shrinks from facts because they
are painful to his taste; the sluggard, who hates a change because it
disturbs his ease; the simply stupid person, who cannot use his eyes and
ears; all these may cry feebly to the world to do what it has never done
since its creation--stand still awhile, that they may get their breaths.
But the brave and honest gentleman--who believes that God is not the
tempter and deceiver, but the father and the educator of man--he will
not shrink, even though the pace may be at moments rapid, the path be at
moments hid by mist; for he will believe that freedom and knowledge, as
well as virtue, are the daughters of the Most High; and he will follow them
and call on the rest to follow them, whithersoever they may lead; and will
take heart for himself and for his class, by the example of that great
Prince who is of late gone home.
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