Page:The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Volume 1).djvu/402

354 In no case employ violence or falsehood, I cannot too often or too vividly endeavour to impress upon your minds, that these methods will produce nothing but wretchedness and slavery—that they will at the same time rivet the fetters, with which ignorance and oppression bind you to abjectness, and deliver you over to a tyranny, which shall render you incapable of renewed efforts. Violence will immediately render your cause a bad one. If you believe in a Providential God, you must also believe that he is a good one; and it is not likely, a merciful God would befriend a bad cause. Insincerity is no less hurtful than violence: those who are in the habits of either, would do well to reform themselves. A lying bravo will never promote the good of his country—he cannot be a good man. The courageous and sincere may, at the same time, successfully oppose corruption, by uniting their voice with that of others, or individually raise up intellectual opposition to counteract the abuses of Government and society. In order to benefit yourselves and your country to any extent, habits of sobriety, regularity, and thought, are previously so necessary, that without these preliminaries, all that you have done falls to the ground. You have built on sand. Secure a good foundation, and you may erect a fabric to stand for ever—the glory and the envy of the world!

I have purposely avoided any lengthened discussion on those grievances to which your hearts are from custom, and the immediate interest of the circumstances, probably most alive at present. I have not however wholly neglected them. Most of all have I insisted on their instant palliation and ultimate removal; nor have I