RADICALISM AND THE NATIONAL CRISIS. 9 developements of man, so far from being justly obnoxious to our suspicion or censure, is really worthy of all praise. It is one of the elements in human character, by which the mighty God makes his power felt on earth. It is one of the chosen instruments of Providence to bless and save this fallen world. The most effective men of our race have been actuated by this spirit. Such men do quite as much thinking as other men, and vastly more than some. Very often they win victories, over which, being won, the conservatives are ready to shout in terms of the highest laudation. Doubtless, there are many who glorify Luther to-day, who, if living in the sixteenth century, would have passed him by as a radical. Some people are very bold in killing dead lions; but no motive can persuade them to touch a living question, till all doubt about the issue is removed. Then their courage comes up to the mark. You can never find them when you want them; and when you do not want them, they are quite ready to help on the good cause. They are too conservative to peril any thing. Their consciences are too elastic to have much force. I really wonder what those newspapers, and those orators and those office-seekers can be thinking about, who denounce the radical spirit, as if it were the quintessence of all evil. Are they playing with words? Are they trying to deceive the people? Do they understand what they so freely denounce? Are they honest? Have they read history? I take the liberty of saying to them, that the facts do not justify the opprobrium they design. The word radical, analytically and historically expounded, is a royal term. In reference to the momentuons questions of the Revolutionary age, George Washington was a radical; Thomas Jefferson, another; John Hancock, another; and John Adams, another. They lived in a radical age, and were as radical as the age. They were the men of the future, while the Tories in this country and George 111 in England were the conservatives, the men of the present. 1 come now, my brethren, to what I had in view in the commencement of this sermon, and what the preceding remarks must have suggested,—
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