Page:Essays and phantasies by James Thomson.djvu/76

 cruelly mauled by the newspapers: "Ah, my dear brethren, and beloved sweet sisters, do any of you still hope that a journalist, and even an editor, can be saved? Verily, I say unto you, that if Jesus Christ Himself tried to haul up an editor into Heaven, the odds are more then ten to one that the editor would drag Him down into the Other Place; more than twenty to one, if the editor had edited an atheistic or a religious periodical." Amen.]

Having thus stated as clearly as I can what the two indispensable radical reforms are, I will go on to sketch my plan for speedily effecting them. But I must beg the reader to remark that I by no means lay so much stress on my particular process for bringing these about, as I do on my demonstration of the fact that these, and no others or other, are the reforms which must be brought about in order to extinguish evil and misery. In my diagnosis of the disease I have absolute confidence: the two (perhaps twin) maladies we must cure, to get a healthy and sane world, are imperfection in nature and imperfection in human nature. But thus much established, I do not pretend to assert that the physic and regimen I propose are the best that can be adopted; and, indeed, I am well aware that the treatment will be infinitely improved as soon as the process of cure has commenced. For it is manifest that immediately the first man has reformed himself to divine perfection, he will know infinitely better than I, and than all the present foolish wisdom of the world, how to set about persuading every other living human being to follow his happy example. I am here simply concerned to show to our present imperfect intelligence that the work is quite practicable, even with such means as we can now discern; and not only practicable, but a work which may be speedily and without much difficulty effected; trusting that when I have shown all this, one or more persons will be encouraged to take without delay the initial step (initial to the