It man must be obeyed before God, the martyrs have bled in vain : Yet none of that blessed army reviled the rulers of the land, They were loud and bold against the sin, but bent before the ensign of authority. Honesty, scorning compromise, walketh most suitably with Reverence: MAN, thou hast a social spirit, and art deeply indebted to thy kind: Seeking, in thy bitterness or pride, to be exiled from thy fellows? WHENCE then cometh the doctrine, that all should be equal and free?— And accidents, alike with qualities, have every shade but sameness: We are equal and free! was the watchword that spirited the legions of Satan, We are equal and free! is the double lie that entrappeth to him conscripts from earth: The messengers of that dark despot will pander to thy license and thy pride, And draw thee from the crowd where thou art safe, to seize thee in the solitary desert. Woe unto him whose heart the syren song of Liberty hath charmed; And yieldeth up the holocaust of self to that fair idol of the damned. No man hath freedom in aught save in that from which the wicked would be hindered, He is free toward God and good; but to all else a bondman. THOU art in a middle sphere, to render and receive honour, If thy king commandeth, obey; and stand not in the way with rebels: But if need be, lay thy hand upon thy sword, and fear not to smite a traitor, For the universe acquitteth thee with honour, fighting in defence of thy king. If a thief break thy dwelling, and thou take him, it were sin in thee to let him go; Yea, though he pleadeth to thy mercy, thou canst not spare him and be blameless: For his guilt is not only against thee, it is not thy moneys or thy merchandize, But he hath done damage to the law, which duty constraineth thee to sanction. Feast not thine appetite of vengeance, remembering thou also art a man, But weep for the sad compulsion, in which the chain of Providence hath bound thee: Mercy is not thine to give; wilt thou steal another's privilege? Or send abroad among thy neighbours, a felon whom impunity hath hardened? Remember the Roman father, strong in his stern integrity, And let not thy slothful self-indulgence make thee a conniver at the crime Also, if the knife of the murderer be raised against thee or thine, And through good Providence and courage, thou slay him that would have slain thee, Thou losest not a tittle of thy rectitude, having executed sudden justice; Still mayst thou walk among the blessed, though thy hands be red with blood. For thyself, thou art neither worse nor better; but thy fellows should count thee their creditor: Thou hast manfully protected the right, and the right is stronger for thy deed. Also, in the rescuing of innocence, fear not to smite the ravisher; SHE that lieth in thy bosom, the tender wife of thy affections, Yea, break stones upon the highway, acknowledging the Lord in thy lot, Happy shalt thou be, and honourable, more than many children of the mighty. Thou that despiseth the outward forms, beware thou lose not the inward spirit; For they are as words unto ideas, as symbols to things unseen. Keep then the form that is good: retain, and do reverence to example; And in all things observe subordination, for that is the whole duty of man. A horse knoweth his rider, be he confident or timid, And the fierce spirit of Bucephalus stoopeth unto none but Alexander; Nay, the very ships, those giant swans breasting the mighty waters, And yet, in travelling the world, hast thou not often known A gallant host led on to ruin by a feeble Xerxes? Hast thou not often seen the wanton luxury of indolence Sullying with its sleepy mist the tarnished crown of headship? Hath emptied the vial of confusion over a thousand homes: Alas! for the palaces and hovels, that might have been nurseries for heaven, By hot intestine broils blighted into schools for hell: None knoweth his place, yet all refuse to serve, None weareth the crown, yet all usurp the sceptre: And perchance some fiercer spirit, of natural nobility of mind, That needed but the kindness of constraint to have grown up great and good, Now, the rich harvest of his heart choked by unweeded tares,— All bold to dare and do, unchecked by wholesome fear, A scoffer about bigotry and priestcraft, a rebel against government and God, And the timid Eli of the house, yon humble parish-priest, The mother, heartstricken years agone, hath dropped into an early grave; A kingdom is a nest of families, and a family a small kingdom; But and if he yieldeth up the reins, it is weak in discordant anarchy, But the meanness of temporizing fear robbeth a kingdom of its honour, And the weakness of indulgent sloth ravageth its bowels with discord. The best of human governments is the patriarchal rule; The authorized supremacy of one, the prescriptive subjection of many: Therefore, to this our day, the Rechabite wanteth not a man, (10) one, While the dissipated forces of many are harmless as summer lightning. |