Such was our dream. Insane and wicked were the passions which accompanied
it; insane and wicked were the means we chose; and God in his mercy to us,
rather than to Mammon, triumphant in his iniquity, fattening his heart
even now for a spiritual day of slaughter more fearful than any physical
slaughter which we in our folly had prepared for him--God frustrated them.
We confess our sins. Shall the Chartist alone be excluded from the promise,
"If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and cleanse us from all unrighteousness"?
And yet, were there no excuses for us? I do not say for myself--and yet
three years of prison might be some excuse for a soured and harshened
spirit--but I will not avail myself of the excuse; for there were men,
stancher Chartists than ever I had been--men who had suffered not only
imprisonment, but loss of health and loss of fortune; men whose influence
with the workmen was far wider than my own, and whose temptations were
therefore all the greater, who manfully and righteously kept themselves
aloof from all those frantic schemes, and now reap their reward, in being
acknowledged as the true leaders of the artizans, while the mere preachers
of sedition are scattered to the winds.
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