Page:Romance & Reality 2.pdf/325

Rh a happier and better doctrine. Let me quote the very words. "No: man must either believe in the perfectibility of his species, or virtue and the love of others are but a heated and objectless enthusiasm.***To the man who finds it possible to entertain this hope, how different an aspect the world wears! Casting his glance forward, how wondrous a light rests upon the future! the farther he extends his vision, the brighter the light. Animated by a hope more sublime than wishes bounded to earth ever before inspired, he feels armed with the courage to oppose surrounding prejudice, and the warfare of hostile customs. No sectarian advantage, no petty benefit, is before him; he sees but the regeneration of mankind. It is with this object that he links his ambition—that he unites his efforts and his name! From the disease, and the famine, and the toil around, his spirit bursts into prophecy, and dwells among future ages; even if in error, he luxuriates through life in the largest benevolence, and dies—if a visionary—the visionary of the grandest dream."*