Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/34

30 it demands manliness to make a man, but; God sent you here to do that work.

The duty of this class is quite plain. They control the wealthy, the physical strength, the intellectual vigour of the nation. They now display an energy new and startling. No ocean is safe from their canvas; they till the valleys; they level the hills; they chain the rivers; they urge the willing soil to double harvests. Nature opens all her stores to them; like the fabled dust of Egypt, her fertile bosom teems with new wonders, new forces to toil for man. No race of men in times of peace ever displayed so manly an enterprise, an energy so vigorous as this class here in America. Nothing seems impossible to them. The instinct of production was, never so strong and creative before. They are proving that peace can stimulate more than war. Would that my words could reach all of this class. Think not I love to speak hard words, and so often; say not that I am setting tho poor against tho rich. It is no such thing. I am trying to set the strong in favour of the weak. I speak for man. Are you not all brothers, rich or poor? I am here to gratify no vulgar ambition, but in religion's name to tell their duty to tho most powerful class in all this land. I must speak tho truth I Know, though I may recoil with trembling at tho words I speak; yes, though their flame should scorch my own lips, Some of tho evils I complain of are your misfortune, not your fault., Perhaps the best hearts in the land, no less than tho ablest heads, are yours. If the evils be done unconsciously, then it will be greatness to be higher than society, and with your good overcome its evil. All men see your energy, your honor, your disciplined intellect. Let them see your goodness, justice, Christianity. Tho age demands of you a development of religion proportionate with the vigour of your mind and arms. Trade is silently making a wonderful revolution. We live in the midst of it, and therefore see it not. All property has become moveable, and therefore power departs from the family of the first-born, and comes to the family of mankind. God only controls this revolution, but you can help it forward, or retard it. The freedom of labour, and the freedom of trade, will work wonders little dimmed of yet; one is now uniting all men