Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/35

Rh of tho same nation; the other, some day, will weave all tribes together into one mighty family. Then who shall dare break its peace? I cannot now stop to toll half the proud achievements I foresee resulting from the fierce energy that animates your yet unconscious hearts. Men live luster than over before. Life like money, like mechanical power, is getting intensified and condensed. The application of science to the arts, the use of wind, water, steam, electricity, for human works, is a wonderful fact, far greater than tho fables of old time. Tho modern Cadmus has yoked fire and water in an iron bond. The new Prometheus sends the fire of heaven from town to town to run his errands. We talk by lightning. Even now these new achievements have greatly multiplied the powers of men. They belong to no class; like air and water, they are the property of mankind. It is for you, who own tho machinery of society, to see that no class appropriates to itself what God meant for all. Remember, it is as easy to tyrannize by machinery as by armies, and us wicked; that it is greater now to bless mankind thereby, than it was of old to conquer now realms. Let men not curse you, as the old nobility, and shake you off, smeared with blood and dust. Turn your power to goodness, its natural transfiguration, and men shall bless your name, and God bless your soul. If you control the nation's politics, then it is your duty to legislate for the nation,—for man. You may develop tho great national idea, the equality of all men; may frame a government which shall secure man's unalienable rights. It is for you to organize the rights of man, thus balancing into harmony the man and the many, to organize the rights of the hand, the head, and the heart. If this be not done, the fault is yours. If the nation play tho tyrant over her weakest child, if she plunder and rob the feeble Indian, the feebler Mexican, the Negro, feebler yet, why the blame is yours. Remember there is a God who deals justly with strong and weak. The poor and the weak have loitered behind m the march of man; our cities yet swarm with men half-savage. It is for you, ye elder brothers, to lead forth the weak and poor! If you do the national duty that devolves on you, then are you the saviours of your country; and shall bless not that alone, but all the thousand million sons of men. Toil,