Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/299

286 places of the earth, filled up yet fuller with the habitations of cruelty? Then our ruin is certain,—is also just. The power of self-rule, which we were not fit for, will pass from our hands, and the halter of yengeance wiU gripe our neck, and America shall lie there on the shore of the sea, one other victim who died as the fool dieth. What a ruin it would be! Come away! I cannot look, even in fancy, on so foul a sight. If we decide for the unalienable rights of man; for present welfare, future progress; for Christianity and Democracy; and so organize things and men that all may share the labour and government of society — ^then what a prospect is before us I How populous, how rich, will the land become! Ere long, her borders wide will embrace the hemisphere—how full of men! If we are faithful to our duty, one day, America, youngest of nations, shall sit on the Cordilleras, the youthful mother of the continent of States. Behind her are the Northern lakes, the Northern forest bounded by Arctic ice and snow; on her left hand swells the Atlantic, the Pacific on her right—both beautiful with the white lilies of commerce, giving fragrance all round the world; while before her spreads out the Southern land, from terra firma to the isles of fire, blessed with the Saxon mind and conscience, heart and soul; and, underneath her eye, into the lap of the hemisphere, the Amazon, and the Mississippi—classic rivers of freedom—pour the riches of either continent ; and behind her, before her, on either hand, all round, and underneath her eye, extends the new world of humanity, the commonwealth of the people, justice, the law thereof, and infinite perfection, God; a Church without a bishop, a State without a king, a community without a lord, a family with no holder of slaves, with welfare for the present, and progress for the future, she will show the nations how dicine a thing a people can be made.