The great idea that
the Bible is the history of mankind's deliverance from all tyranny, outward
as well as inward; of the Jews, as the one free constitutional people among
a world of slaves and tyrants; of their ruin, as the righteous fruit of a
voluntary return to despotism; of the New Testament, as the good news that
freedom, brotherhood, and equality, once confided only to Judaea and to
Greece, and dimly seen even there, was henceforth to be the right of all
mankind, the law of all society--who was there to tell me that? Who is
there now to go forth and tell it to the millions who have suffered, and
doubted, and despaired like me, and turn the hearts of the disobedient to
the wisdom of the just, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come?
Again I ask--who will go forth and preach that Gospel, and save his native
land?
But, as I said before, I read, and steadily. In the first place, I, for the
first time in my life, studied Shakspeare throughout; and found out now the
treasure which I had overlooked. I assure my readers I am not going to give
a lecture on him here, as I was minded to have done.
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