Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/195

 the laureate's desiderata of manhood,—"heart, head, hand." His practice squares with his theory of life to a nicety. His soul is in his work. Like Cromwell, he prays to God, and keeps his powder dry. What good, he is never tired of asking, is the petition, " Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," if a man is not prepared at the call of duty to take off his coat and descend into the political arena to wrestle with the powers of Conservative darkness? In one of his "Nine Lectures on Preaching," delivered as Lyman Beecher lecturer at the University of Yale, Connecticut,—a series of papers not less distinguished by practical wisdom than literary merit,—he told the students of the theological faculty,—

"In your pastoral preaching you ought not to omit to illustrate the law of Christ in relation to public duty. Perhaps you have sometimes met good people who have informed you, in a tone of spiritual self-complacency, that they have never been in a polling-booth. They do not seem to understand that the franchise is a trust, and that it imposes duties. A secretary of state might as well make it a religious boast that he habitually neglected some of the work belonging to his department. The duties of an individual voter may be less grave than the duties of an official politician; but neglect in either case is a crime against the nation. I think it possible that the time may come when men who refuse to vote will be subjected to church discipline, like men who refuse to pay their debts. The plea that the discharge of political duty is inconsistent with spirituality ought to be denounced as a flagrant piece of hypocrisy. It is nothing else. The men who urge it are not too spiritual to make a coup in cotton or