Such
persons take a one-sided view of things, and reduce all principles
to the level of their own understandings. If we could comprehend the
relations which the Deity bears to us, as well as we can comprehend
the relations we bear to him, there might be a little seeming reason
in these doubts; but when one of the parties in this mighty scheme
of action is a profound mystery to the other, it is worse than idle,
it is profane, to attempt to explain those things which our minds
are not yet sufficiently cleared from the dross of earth to
understand. Look at Italy, at this very moment. The darkness and
depression from which that glorious peninsula is about to emerge are
the fruits of long-continued dissensions and an iron despotism,
which is at length broken by the impulses left behind him by a
ruthless conqueror, who, under the appearance and the phrases of
Liberty, contended only for himself. A more concentrated egotism
than that of Napoleon probably never existed; yet has it left behind
it seeds of personal rights that have sprung up by the wayside, and
which are likely to take root with a force that will bid defiance to
eradication. Thus is it ever, with the progress of society.
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