Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/69

Rh whom the world treats as Ishmael and the Gibeonites got treated: now their land is stolon from them in war; their children, or their persons, are annexed to the strong as slaves. The civilized continually preys on the savage, re-annexing their territory and stealing their persons-owning them or claiming their work. Esau is rough and hungry, Jacob smooth and well fed. The smooth man overreaches the rough; buys his birthright for a mess of pottage; takes the ground from underneath his feet, thereby supplanting his brother. So the elder serves the younger, and the fresh civilization, strong, and sometimes it may be wicked also, overmasters the ruder ago that is contented to stop. The young man now a barbarian will come up one day and take all our places, making us seem ridiculous, nothing but timid conservatives!

All these three, the reputed pests of the family, society, and the world, are but loiterers from the march, bad boys, or dull ones. Criminals are a class of such; savages are nations thereof—classes or nations that for some cause do not keep up with the movement of mankind. The same human nature is in us all, only there it is not so highly developed. Yet the bad boy, wno to-day is a curse to the mother that bore him, would perhaps have been accounted brave and good in the days of the Conqueror; the dangerous class might have fought in the Crusades, and been reckoned soldiers of the Lord whose chance for heaven was most auspicious. The savage nations would have been thought civilized in the days when "there was no smith in Israel."

David would make a sorry figure among the present kings of Europe, and Abraham would be judged of by a standard not known in his time. There have been many centuries in which the pirate, the land-robber, and the murderer were thought the greatest of men.

Now it becomes a serious question, What shall be done for these stragglers, or even with them P It is sometimes a terrible question to the father and mother what they shall do for their reprobate son who is an offence to the neighbourhood, a shame, a reproach, and a heart-burning to them. It is a sad question to society, What shall be done with the criminals—thieves, housebreakers, pirates, murderers? It is a serious question to the world, What