Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Politics volume 4 .djvu/42

30 intellect of this people. Would to God they could learn to love the right and true. Then what a people should we be, spreading from the Madawaska to the Sacramento, diffusing our great idea, and living our religion, the Christianity of Christ! O Lord! make the vision true; waken thy prophets and stir thy people till righteousness exalt us! No wonders will be wrought for that. But the voice of conscience speaks to you and me, and all of us: the right shall prosper; the wicked States shall die; and History responds her long amen. What lessons come to us from the past! The Genius of the old civilization, solemn and sad, sits there on the Alps, his classic beard descending o'er his breast. Behind him arise the new nations, bustling with romantic life. He bends down over the midland sea, and counts up his children—Assyria, Egypt, Tyre, Carthage, Troy, Etruria, Corinth, Athens, Rome—once so renowned, now gathered with the dead, their giant ghosts still lingering pensive o'er the spot. He turns westward his face, too sad to weep, and raising from his palsied knee his trembling hand, looks on his brother genius of the new civilization. That young giant, strong and mocking, sits there on the Alleghanies. Before him lie the waters, covered with ships; behind him he hears the roar of the Mississippi and the far distant Oregon — rolling their riches to the sea. He bends down, and that far ocean murmurs pacific in his ear. On his left are the harbours, shops, and mills of the East, and a fivefold gleam of light goes up from Northern lakes. On his right spread out the broad savannahs of the South, waiting to be blessed; and far off that Mexique bay bends round her tropic shores. A crown of stars is on that giant's head, some glorious with flashing, many-coloured light; some bloody red; some pale and faint, of most uncertain hue. His right hand lies folded in his robe; the left rests on the Bible's opened page, and holds these sacred words—All men are equal, born with equal rights from God. The old gays to the young, "Brother, beware!" and Alps and Rocky Mountains say, "Beware!" That stripling giant, ill-bred and scoffing, shouts amain: "My feet are red with the Indian's blood; my hand has forged the negro's chain. I am strong; who dares assail me? I will drink