The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 55, May, 1862 by Various
page 24 of 277 (08%)
page 24 of 277 (08%)
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--the relation between them will be reversed,--this must increase, that
decrease,--the Material, although the first in time, the first in the world's interest, and the first in the world's effort, will be found to be only an ordained forerunner, preparing the way for Something Else, the latchet of whose shoes it is not worthy to unloose. There is that in man--also wrapt up and sealed within his inscrutable brain--which provides for his inner as well as outer life; which insures his highest development; which shall protect, cherish, warm, and fertilize his nature now, and perpetuate and exalt his soul forever. It is a commission which begins, but does not end, in time. It is a commission which makes him the agent and builder of an immense moral work on the earth. Under its instructions he shall add improvement to improvement in that social fabric which is already his shelter and habitation. He has found it of brick,--he shall leave it of marble. He shall seek out every contrivance, and perfect every plan, and exhaust every scheme, which will bring a greater prosperity and a nobler happiness to mankind. He shall quarry out each human spirit, and carve it into the beauty and symmetry of a living stone that shall be worthy to take its place in the rising structure. This is the work which is given him to do. He must develop those conditions of virtue, and peace, and faith, and truth, and love, by which the race shall be lifted nearer its Creator, and the individual ascend into a more conscious neighborhood and stronger affinity to the world which shall receive him at last. All this must that other department be, and this other capacity achieve or there is a fatal disproportion in the progress of man. The beauty of this as a dream perhaps all men will admit; but they question its possibility. "It is the old Utopia," they say, "the impracticable enterprise that has always baffled the world." Some will |
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