254 AMERICAN FARMS. 



some of which have ceased to exist, while others are 

 disappearing." 



Says Prof. Austin Phelps : '' Turn whichever way we 

 will — South, West, North, East — we are confronted by 

 the same element of crisis in the outlook upon the future. 

 Every thing seems, to human view, to depend on pres- 

 ent and dissolving chances. Whatever can be done at 

 all must be done with speed." 



Every thing warns us that this is no time for trifling 

 with principles. It is a time for great victories or great 

 failures. To whom and to what, then, are we to look for 

 deliverance ? 



Says the scholarly Mr. George William Curtis : " They 

 are called visionaries who hold that morality is stronger 

 than a majority." " But," says he, " the educated re- 

 former of America has faith enough in the people to 

 appeal to them against themselves, for he knows that the 

 cardinal principle of popular government is the ability 

 of the people to correct their own errors." 



It is true that the men who have led in great reforms, 

 as a rule, have been educated men ; but, they have been 

 men who have always stood out conspicously in their 

 precepts, and examples as independent self-sustaining 

 characters. They have been no parasites, but men of 

 moral courage : men who could give to the world more 

 than they expected to receive from it. We have such 

 to-day scattered all over our land — in our colleges, in 

 our school-rooms, in our editorial chairs, in our pulpits, 

 and in our courts of justice. But it is not with such only 

 that loyalty to high principles is recognized as the true 

 monitor in the decision of matters pertaining to family, 

 to society, to the state. It is found strong in the rank 

 ^nd file, and nowhere stronger than with our rural 



