No. 7.
SOCIAL CONFLICT.
485
ognizcd ntul asserted, animating mankind
with it spirit of activity, Hint consummated
this emancipation from the darkness of
primitive times, giving birth to an cmo
lion, that longed for Utopian fields, lie
spising insubordination, and serving as
a courageous leader in the advance of
civilization. In all projects of society
and government, a point now, so high or
good, is never attained, but that something
still higher or octter is conceived, not on
ly as possible but practicable. It is this
power of conceiving something beyond,
attainable, and yet not obtained, that cans
os this prevailing disregard for the past,
the strifes and conflicts of the present, the
consolation in day dreams of the illusion,
ary prospects of the future. These states
01 conditions arc common to all men,
and asu'e from those of which we have
not a due conception of their being, an
exceedingly small proportion, none live
a pretended life, but at its end dis
close a genuine living, perhaps a blot on
the 'tnnals of life, yet revealing a natural
tendency, the conception of life's realities
and obligations, and ellulgcnt with hu
man etlbrts. And even the beautiful pict
ure from Tnlfourd's easy pen, of a poet's
life, is dreamy and fanciful, even of that
one, whose character is written on his
soul in verse, and vli' is nothing but a
rhyme among men. For that spirit,
splendent with individuality, created in
every bosom, will assert its sway, and in
proportion to its power will do homage
to the being it represents.
History lias authenticated the fact, that
nothing subdues, or tends more to stille
with impotcucy, the mental or physical
powers of men, as a passive submission
to the circumstances of the times in
which they livo, nothing to inspire them
with the ardor of improveinent.nothiiigto
accomplish but characterize their age, as
debilitated and stationary. England, to
day, trembling under the distinction of
caste, as the wherls (il industry move
with a lagging velocity, witli the duty and
ultimate end (.; a people lost alght of, in
the struggle for lifo's maintainence, views
the restlessness and feverish anxiety of a
free and independent people across the
water as the "disagreeable symptoms of
one of the plisaes of industrial progress."
Yet as the rumor of dissatisfaction is
wafted to our cars, it is prophetic of the
birth of a conflict, and another step on
the labyrinth ian road of progress in tne
nation making of Great Britain. A eu
logy on these non-conformists that have
characterized every age, giving to their
times a fervency for improvement,
falls upon the historian, and yet what
brighter examples, affording a greater in
centive to action, as we rest far from the
final end, with reform the current
pass word of the day, than the conflicts'
both religious and civil, that have an
iinated Europe, and rescued the human
mind from its profound lethargy of scv.
eral centuries. It was there the non con
formist struck the first blow, raising
his feeble voice from amid the crimes
and atrocities, fostered from the impure
imaginations of the casuists, against the
degeneracy and intolerance of the clerical
magnates., laboring with invincible per
severance, washing with their blood the
guillotine blocks of early Europe, recover
ing the powers of thinking and inquiring
for themselves, and at last prepared the
genius of the times, to applaud and even
aid the attempt of Luther to unveil the
long established errors, to snatch Europe
from the unhallowed grasp of the papal
power, and lift Protestantism from out the
bosom of the Romish Sec. One is wrong
in supposing that the processes of human
affairs are disturbed by the intrusion of
things materially new. Change is the
touchstone to universal prosperity, and
in the land where freedom knows no civil
limit, jealousy, superstition, and conserv
alism are discarded elements, and man
kind accustoms itself to present circum
stances, with a listless insidious air, that
betokens a " higher venture on to-mor
WffiH
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III