Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/232

228 gets, covered up or grown over; vows of celibacy are no more binding than dicers' oaths; allegiance to the State is in transferable us a cent, and may bo alienated by going over the border; church-communion may be changed or neglected; as men will, they sign off from Church and State; only the dollar holds its own continually, and is the same under all administrations, "safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne." Obstinate money continues in. office spite of the prescriptive policy of Polk and Taylor; the laws may change, South Carolina move out of the nation, the Constitution be broken, the Union dissolved, still money holds its own. That is the only peculiar weapon which the old has wherewith to repel the new.

Here, too, the scholar has as much freedom as he will take; himself alone stands in his own light, nothing else between him. and the infinite majesty of Truth. He is free to think, to speak, to print his word and organize his thought. No class of men monopolize public attention or high place. He comes up to the Genius of America, and she asks: "What would you have, my little man?" "More liberty," lisps he. "Just es much as you can carry," is the answer. "Pay for it and take it, as much as you like, there it is." "But it is guarded!" "Only by gilded flies in the day-time; they look like hornets, but can only buzz, not bite with their beak, nor sting with their tail. At night it is defended by daws and beetles, noisy, but harmless. Here is marble, my son, not classic and famous as yet, but good as the Parian stone ; quarry as much as you will, enough for a nymph or a temple. Say you wisest and do your best thing: nobody will hurt you!" Not much mere is the scholar impeded by the ignorance of the people, not at all in respect to the substance of his thought. There is no danger that he will shoot over the heads of the people by thinking too Ugh for the multitude. We have many authors below the market; scarce one above it. The people are continually looking for something better than our authors give. Kb American author has yet been too high for the comprehension of the people, and compelled to leave his writings "to posterity, after some centuries shall have passed by." If he has thought with the thinkers/ and has something to say. and can