40 PROLEGOMENON. 



with prosperity, or even hold guiltless, sinners who give 

 themselves exclusively to the affairs of their neighbors,) 

 having no ambition to improve the " sayings of the Seven 

 Wise Men of Greece" or " the similitudes of Demophilus," 

 having no patent-extension reforms to suggest to the 

 morals or maxims of Confucius, including the " eighteen 

 sacred edicts of the Chinese" no hydrostatic force or ele- 

 ments of gravity and decorum to offer to the oracles of 

 Zoroaster, or special wrinkles of sanctity to impose upon 

 the theology of the Phoenicians, or even scientific critiques 

 to make on the "Cosmogony of Sanchoniatho," or poetical 

 splurges on "the moral grandeur and sublimity of the 

 Bhagvat-Geeta," and especially no additional wailings to 

 affix to the "Lamentations of Jeremiah," much less " Odes 

 to Dejection to compose," not to speak of alligators' eggs 

 either to break or hatch, or rats to pet or poison, but only 

 a few RESPONSIVE SHOUTS to make from the Alleghany 

 Mountain top in answer to numerous inquiries : Where 

 are you ? what are you about ? HOW did you GET THERE ? 

 what ENDS do you propose? what have you DONE? what 

 particular landing does the Infinite expect to make 

 through YOUR manipulations on the Appalachians ? and 

 how do you THINK, really, you are making out yourself? 



Let it be resolved that dogs, as it is their nature too, 

 " shall delight to bark and bite;" that Satans shall howl their 

 rages out; that because things are so they shall be so, and not 

 otherwise; that ancient feminines shall continue to drink 

 tea and say what they please about their neighbors; and 

 that "little men with little souls shall still say, Little souls, 

 let us try, try," not forgetting that, " till you hedge in 

 the sky, starlings will fly, and evil tongues will not refrain 

 from God himself." 



And, further, let it be resolved that there is a wide dif- 

 ference between the heaven-intoxicated victim of a beauti- 

 ful dream full of benign promises and good ends to man, 

 and efforts to carry them out by the organization and con- 

 struction of hospitals and institutions of learning, and 



