A thousand projects have been broached, will continue to be
broached, and will fail, each in its time, showing the mistakes of
men, without remedying the evils of which they complain. This is not
because a beneficent Providence has neglected to enlighten their
minds, and to show them the way to be happy, here and hereafter; but
because human conceit runs, pari passu, with human woes, and we are
too proud to look for our lessons of conduct, in that code in which
they have been set before us by unerring wisdom and ceaseless love.
If the political economists, and reformers, and revolutionists of
the age, would turn from their speculations to those familiar
precepts which all are taught and so few obey, they would find rules
for every emergency; and, most of all, would they learn the great
secret which lies so profoundly hid from them and their philosophy,
in the contented mind. Nothing short of this will ever bring the
mighty reform that the world needs. The press may be declared free,
but a very brief experience will teach those who fancy that this one
conquest will secure the victory, that they have only obtained King
Stork in the lieu of King Log; a vulgar and most hideous tyrant for
one of royal birth and gentle manners.
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