MfcuS
No. 7.
SOCIAL CONFLICT.
435
ognizcd nud nsscrtcd, animating mankind
with n spirit of activity, that consummated
tills emancipation from tlio darkness of
primitive times, giving birth to nn cmo
lion, Hint longed for Utopian fields, Ue
spising insubordination, and serving ns
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 setter is conceived, not on
ly as possible but practicable. It is this
power of conceiving something beyond,
attainable, and yet not obtained, that caus
es 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
or conditions are common to nil men,
and asu'.e from those of which we hnve
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 nnnals of life, yet revealing u natural
tendency, the conception of life's realities
and obligations, and eflulgcnt with hu
man ollbrls. And even the beautiful pict
ure from Talfourd'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 who 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
unthing subdues, or tends more to stifle
with impotency, the mental or physical
powers of men, as a passive submission
to the circumstances of the times in
which they live, nothing to inspire them
with the ardor of improvement, nothing to
accomplish but characterize their age, as
debilitated and stationary. England, to-
till, trembling under the distinction of
caste, as the whorls di industry move
with a lagging velocity, with the duty and
ultimate end of a people lost sight of, in
the struggle for life's maintainence, views
the restlessness and feverish anxiety of a
free and independent people across the
water ns the "disagreeable symptoms of
one of the phsaes of industrial progress."
Yet as the rumor of dissatisfaction Is
wafted to our ears, it is prophetic of the
birth of a conflict, and another step on
the Inbyrinthiau road of progress in tlie
nation making of Great Brltiun. 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, nffording a greater in
centive to action, as we rest far from the
finnl end, with reform the current
pass word of the day, than the conflicts
both religious and civil, that have an
imated Europe, aiur 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 lust 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 Protettantism 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, nnd
in the laud where freedom knows no civil
limit, Jealousy, superstition, and conserv
atism are discarded elements, and man
kind accustoms Itself to present clrcum
stances, with a listless insidious air, that
betokens u " higher venture on to-mor
li;