Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Slavery volume 5 .djvu/98

86 there is another and unseen state, with sentiments not yet become popular, and with ideas not yet confirmed in actions, not organized into institutions, ideas scarcely legal, certainly not respectable. Slowly from its depths comes up this ideal state, the state of the future ; and slowly to the eternal deep sinks down the actual state, the state of the present. But sometimes an earthquake of the nations degrades of a sudden the actual; and speedily starts up the ideal kingdom of the future. Such a thing has just come to pass. In France, within five-and-forty days, a new state has arisen from underneath the old. Men, whose words were suppressed, and their ideas reckoned illegal but two months ago, now hold the sceptre of five-and-thirty millions of grateful citizens, hold it in clean and powerful hands. A great revolution has taken place; one which will produce effects that we cannot foresee. It is itself the greatest act of this century. God only knows what it will lead to. We are here to express the sympathy of republicans for a new republic. We are here to rejoice over the rising hopes of the new state, not to exult over the fallen fortunes of the Bourbons. Louis Philippe has done much which we may thank him for. He has kept mainly at peace the fiercest nation in the world; has kept the peace of Europe for seventeen years. Let us thank him for that. He has consolidated the French nation, helped to give them a new unity of thought and unity of action, which they had not before. Perhaps he did not intend all this. Since he has brought it about, let us thank him for it, even if his conduct transcended his intention. But, most of all, I would thank this "Citizen King" for another thing. His greatest lesson is his last. He has shown that five-and-thirty millions of Frenchmen, in this nineteenth century, are only to be ruled by justice and the eternal law of right. We have seen this crafty king, often wise and always cunning, driven from his throne. He was the richest man in Europe, and the embodiment of the idea of modern wealth. He had an army the best disciplined, probably, in the world, and, as he thought, completely in his power. He had a Chamber of Peers of his own appointment; a Chamber of Deputies almost of his own election. He ruled a nation that contained three hundred thousand office-holders, appointed