the eagle’s flight towards the sun, is left
to skim in darkness along the ground, like the course
of the mousing owl. We have all seen another
thing, which baffles our philosophy, while it proves
the truth of the theory of which I am speaking.
We have seen men, and see them every day, who, from
no quality of heart or mind seem fitted to rise in
the world, occupying commanding positions to which
accident has lifted them; whose genius commands no
admiration, whose virtues are of a doubtful character,
and who possess no one quality which entitles them
to our respect or the respect of the world. As
the former are the victims of circumstance, these
latter are its creatures. Both are the sport
of fortune; the one class its victims, and the other
its favorites. How is all this to be accounted
for? And where rests the responsibility of failure,
and where the credit of success? Are there accidents
floating about among the paths marked out on the chart
of life by the Deity, which jostle his creatures from
the destiny intended for them? Or were men thrown
loose upon the currents of life, to take their chances
of good and evil, to be virtuous or vile, according
to the influences among which they were floating, to
be fortunate or otherwise, as the means of advancing
themselves drifted within their reach? If so,
where rests the responsibility, I ask again, of failure,
and where the credit of success? Children are
born into the world under strangely different influences.
One first sees the light in the haunts of vice and
crime, amidst the corruptions which fester away down
in the depths of a great city. The influences
which surround it are only and always evil. They
are such in infancy, in childhood, in youth, and in
manhood. Another is cradled under the influence
of intelligences, piety, virtue; having around it always
the safeguards of refined and Christian civilization.
What is the difference in the degree of responsibility
attached to the future of these antipode beginnings?
Can you tell me where, and how these wide, terribly
wide distinctions are to be reconciled? When and
where the career of these germs of being, starting
from points so wide asunder, are to meet, and how
the balances of good and evil, of suffering and enjoyment
of sinning and retribution, are to be adjusted at last?
I have been asking myself, too, while listening to
the speech of these men, so thoughtlessly uttered,
where these profane epithets, these impious expressions,
are to rest at last? Who can tell whether they
do not go jarring through the universe, marring the
music of the spheres, throwing discord into the anthems
of the morning stars when they sing together, a wail
among the glad voices of the sons of God, when they
shout for joy? In this world, and to the dulness
of human perception, when the sound of the impious
words has died away, or a smile comes back to the
face clouded by the angry thought, the effect seems
to have ceased; but it may not be so. The word
or the thought may be wandering for ages, vibrating
still, away off among the outer creations of God.
The angel that bore them at the beginning from the
lips or the heart, may be flying still, and generations
and centuries may have passed, before his journeying
with them shall have ceased.