Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/250

Rh will not be paid in this life. Their reward is in the nobleness which does such deeds and lives such life : thus they will take with them "an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and which fadeth not away." (2.) Here, I think, is their defect. They forget, sometimes, that there must be political workmen. This comes from the fact, that, to so great an extent, they are non-voters, even "non-resistants." If they were the opposite, they would have appealed to violence : being Quakers and non-resistants, they have not done quite justice always, it seems to me, to those who work in the political way. This has been charged against them : that they quarrel among themselves; two against three, and three against two; Douglas against Garrison, and Garrison against Douglas; the liberty-party men against the old anti-Slavery men ; and all that. That is perfectly true. But remember why it is so. You can bring together a Democratic body, draw your line, and they all touch the mark: it is so with the "Whigs. They have long been drilled into it. But, whenever a body of men with new ideas comes to organize, there are as many opinions as persons. Pilate and Herod, bitter enemies of each other, were made friends by a common hostility to Jesus ; but, when the twelve disciples came together, they fell out : Paul resisted Peter; James differed from John ; and so on. It is always so oil every platform of new ideas, and will always be so—at least for a long time. "We must bear with one another the best we can. I think that the anti-Slavery party has not always done quite justice to the political men. See why. It is easy for Mr. Garrison and Mr. PhilKps or me to say all of our thought. I am responsible to nobody, and nobody to me. But it is not easy for Mr. Sumner, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Chase to say all of their thought ; because they have a position to maintain, and they must keep in that position. The political reformer is hired to manage a mill owned by the people, turned by the popular stream— to grind into anti-Slavery meal such com as the people bring him for that purpose, and other grain also into different meal. He is not principal and owner, only attorney and hired-man. He must do his work so as to suit his employers, else they say, "Thou mayest be no longer miller." The non-political