' They are
fearless of personal consequences. As free men, they will think, as
free men they will speak, and as such they will act, regardless of the
jibe and sneer of those who accuse them of change, of inconsistency,
of being mutable and unstable of purpose. The point to the march
of improvement, the advance in the actualities of life, and ask, 'When
every thing else is on the move, shall we stand still? Shall the
opinions of a quarter of a century, a decade, a year, a month ago,
remain unchanged, immutable, fixed as a star always, amidst the new
demonstrations looming up like mountains everywhere around us?'
"Man's life is short at best; a little point of time, scarcely
discernible on the map of ages; his aspirations, his hopes, his
ambition, more transient than the lightning's flash; but his opinions
may tell for good upon that little point occupied by his generation,
and he should 'speak them in words hard as rocks.' They may aid in
illuminating the darkness of the present, and he should therefore
'speak them in words hard as rocks.' They may have some influence in
building up and ennobling human destiny in the future, and he should
therefore 'speak them in words hard as rocks,' regardless of the
contumely heaped upon him by little minds for having thus spoken them.
What if the ridicule, the denunciations of the unthinking, the
sensual, the profligate, the unreflecting fools of the world be poured
upon him? What of that? To-day, may be one of darkness and storm.
Pages:
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158