Generosity during life is a very different thing from generosity in the hour of death; one proceeds from genuine liberality and benevolence, the other from pride or fear.
Let but the public mind once become thoroughly corrupt, and all attempts to secure property, liberty, or life by mere force of laws written on parchment will be as vain as putting up printed notices in an orchard to keep off canker-worms.
The pulpit only “teaches” to be honest; the market-place “trains” to over-reaching and fraud; and teaching has not a tithe of the efficiency of training.
Virtue is an angel; but she is a blind one, and must ask of Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal. Mere knowledge, on the other hand, like a Swiss mercenary, is ready to combat either in the ranks of sin or under the banners of righteousness: ready to forge cannon-balls or to print New Testaments; to navigate a corsair’s vessel or a missionary ship.
We go by the major vote, and if the majority are insane, the sane must go to the hospital. As Satan said, “Evil, be thou my good,” so they say, “Darkness, be thou my light.”
Wealth which breeds idleness, of which the English peerage is an example, and of which we are beginning to abound in specimens in this country (America), is only a sort of human oyster-bed, where heirs and heiresses are planted, to spend a contemptible life of slothfulness in growing plump and succulent for the grave-worm’s banquet.
When a child can be brought to tears, not from fear of punishment, but from repentance for his offence, he needs no chastisement. When the tears begin to flow from grief at one’s own conduct, be sure there is an angel nestling in the bosom.
