Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 Part 8

And we, who think we stand, let us take heed lest we fall. Let us accept, in modesty and in awe, the responsibility of our freedom, and remember that that freedom can be preserved only in one old-fashioned way. Let us remember that the one condition of a true democracy is the same as the one condition of a true aristocracy, namely, virtue. Let us teach our children, as grand old Lilly taught our forefathers 300 years ago-'It is virtue, gentlemen, yea, virtue that maketh gentlemen; that maketh the poor rich, the subject a king, the lowborn n.o.ble, the deformed beautiful. These things neither the whirling wheel of fortune can overturn, nor the deceitful cavillings of worldlings separate, neither sickness abate, nor age abolish.'

Yes. Let us teach our children thus on both sides of the Atlantic. For if they-which G.o.d forbid-should grow corrupt and weak by their own sins, there is no hardier race now left on earth to conquer our descendants and bring them back to reason, as those old Jews were brought, by bitter shame and woe. And all that is before them and the whole civilised world, would be long centuries of anarchy such as the world has not seen for ages-a true Ragnarok, a twilight of the very G.o.ds, an age such as the wise woman foretold in the old Voluspa.

When brethren shall be Each other's bane, And sisters' sons rend The ties of kin.

Hard will be that age, An age of bad women, An axe-age, a sword-age, Shields oft cleft in twain, A storm-age, a wolf-age, Ere earth meet its doom.

So sang, 2,000 years ago, perhaps, the great unnamed prophetess of our own race, of what might be, if we should fail mankind and our own calling and election.

G.o.d grant that day may never come. But G.o.d grant, also, that if that day does come, then may come true also what that wise Vala sang, of the day when G.o.ds, and men, and earth should be burnt up with fire.

When slaked Surtur's flame is, Still the man and the maiden, Hight Valour and Life, Shall keep themselves hid In the wood of remembrance.

The dew of the dawning For food it shall serve them; From them spring new peoples.

New peoples. For after all is said, the ideal form of human society is democracy.

A nation-and, were it even possible, a whole world-of free men, lifting free foreheads to G.o.d and Nature; calling no man master-for one is their master, even G.o.d; knowing and obeying their duties towards the Maker of the Universe, and therefore to each other, and that not from fear, nor calculation of profit or loss, but because they loved and liked it, and had seen the beauty of righteousness and trust and peace; because the law of G.o.d was in their hearts, and needing at last, it may be, neither king nor priest, for each man and each woman, in their place, were kings and priests to G.o.d. Such a nation-such a society. What n.o.bler conception of mortal existence can we form? Would not that be, indeed, the kingdom of G.o.d come on earth?

And tell me not that that is impossible-too fair a dream to be ever realised. All that makes it impossible is the selfishness, pa.s.sions, weaknesses, of those who would be blest were they masters of themselves, and therefore of circ.u.mstances; who are miserable because, not being masters of themselves, they try to master circ.u.mstance, to pull down iron walls with weak and clumsy hands, and forget that he who would be free from tyrants must first be free from his worst tyrant, self.

But tell me not that the dream is impossible. It is so beautiful that it must be true. If not now, nor centuries hence, yet still hereafter. G.o.d would never, as I hold, have inspired man with that rich imagination had he not meant to translate, some day, that imagination into fact.

The very greatness of the idea, beyond what a single mind or generation can grasp, will ensure failure on failure,-follies, fanaticisms, disappointments, even crimes, bloodshed, hasty furies, as of children baulked of their holiday.

But it will be at last fulfilled, filled full, and perfected; not perhaps here, or among our peoples, or any people which now exist on earth: but in some future civilisation-it may be in far lands beyond the sea-when all that you and we have made and done shall be as the forest-grown mounds of the old nameless civilisers of the Mississippi valley.

LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET

Footnotes:

{71} Black, translator of Mallett's _Northern Antiquities_, Supplementary Chapter I., and Rafn's _Antiquitates Americanae_.

{91} On the Fiftieth Birthday of Aga.s.siz.