Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/11

Rh cradle; leaping forward, it founds a third order of nobility, the aristocracy of gold, its symbol the purse, We have got no further on. Shall we stop there? There comas a tomorrow after every to-day, and no child of time is just like the last. The aristocracy of gold has faults enough, no doubt, this feudalism of the nineteenth century. But it is the best thing of its kind we have hod. yet; the wisest, the most human. We are going forward, and not back. God only knows when we shall stop, and where. Surely not now, nor here. Now the merchants in America occupy the place which was once held by the fighters, and next by the nobles. In our country we have balanced into harmony the centripetal power of the Government, and the centrifugal power of the people: so have national unity of action, and individual variety of action—personal freedom. Therefore a vast amount of talent is active here which lies latent in other countries, because that harmony is not. established there. Here the army and navy offer few inducements to able and aspiring young men. They are fled to as the last resort of the desperate, or else sought for their traditional glory, not their present value. In Europe, the army, the navy, the parliament or the court, the church and the learned professions, offer brilliant prizes to ambitious men. Thither flock the able and the daring. Here such men go into trade. It is better for a man to have set up a mill than to have won a battle. I deny not the exceptions. I speak only of the general rule. Commerce and manufactures offer the most brilliant rewards—wealth, and all it brings. Accordingly, the ablest men go into the class of merchants. The strongest men in Boston, taken as a body, are not lawyers, doctors, clergymen, book-wrights, but merchants. I deny not the presence of distinguished ability is each of those professions; I am now again only speaking of the general rule. I deny not the presence of very weak men. exceedingly weak in this class; their money their only source of power.

The merchants, then, are the prominent class; the most respectable, the most powerful. They know their power, but are not yet fully aware of their formidable and noble position at the head of the nation. Hence they are often ashamed of their calling; while their calling is the source