66 save their country from its chronic disgrace and impotence for good. Our thinkers are intent each upon his little home-republic, or engaged in realizing his fools-cap Utopia, and does not apply his mind to public duties. During the height of the storm, all hands came out and worked at the pumps or ropes; but now that the wind abates a little, each returns to his separate affair, and cannot even keep up with the progress of events. We have seen Beecher and many another lose the elan which they had during the war, and the enemy sewing the old tares whilst the husbandmen are nodding. In a word there is among our best men a lack of spirit and pluck for their public duties. "All nations," said Dr. South, "that grew great out of little or nothing, did so merely by the public-mindedness of particular persons." There is in America enough brain-power and heart-power to build and guide for grand human results the great machinery of a Republic; but it is now engaged in conducting sectarian churches or reviews. There is a sad lack of public-mindedness amongst our ablest men and best hearts. From this comes the weakness resulting from the serious disagreements of these men, who united, might be irresistible. Why should there be such grievous differences between Phillips and Beecher, Curtis and Greeley, Sumner and Bryant? "Men," said Socrates, "agree in respect to what they know." There is some fact or sign of the time recognized by one which the other has not seen. All men amenable to Reason must agree about principles, and about the events and facts which practically represent principles, where they equally perceive and comprehend such events and facts. It is therefore but a trick which prevents our real men in America from seeing eye to eye on the great and formidable issues before us, and consequently prevents their combining to form a power. That which should be settled with all reasonable persons is thus surrendered to be the subject of discussion, when by a little more knowledge, it would be no more a subject of discussion than the sum of two and two. Now it seems to me that there should be at some central point of the Union,say Cincinnati, or St. Louis, a convention of unofficial liberal men, and the more literary and thinking men in it the better, whose business it should be to come to an understanding as to the position, duty, and prospects of America at present. What does Reason show to be essential; what does Justice demand; what does Experience prove to be wrong? Let these questions with their applications be discussed; let every argument be met, every doubt entertained, every popular impression or prejudice be analyzed ; and let an impregnable organon of Reason and Justice be put forth before the world. The first revolution wrote with pen of fire the “flaming ubiquities" of the Declaration of Independence; before the fire of this second revolution sinks into ashes it should publish for us a purer law than that. Let every town, village, neighborhood, send a representative to this congress of Reason; but let us not imitate the bad system of our government and leave at home the true representative because he is not associated with a special locality. Wendell Phillips might all the better represent St. Louis, because he is not connected with its petty interests: we need the congressmen of universal laws. There is no reason why representatives should be even confined to the nation; but in such a convention, Mill, Gasparin, Mazzini, and other sworn supporters of the constitution of the universe, and independent of transient dynasties, might well have seats. Nor should ́men alone engage in such a consultation. It is doubtful if we should ever have been cursed with Slavery or War, had the high intuitions and inspired faith of woman been adequately represented in government; and no Senate of Humanity could begin by ostracising one half of Humanity. Let delegates be chosen without reference to sex. No true American Congress will ever sit, unless Lucretia Mott, Lydia Child, Mrs. Chapman, Anna Dickinson, or the women who shall shall be in -- follow them, if the true congress is yet to be postponed, it as equals. What power would the enactments of such a congress have? Let us not make the ballot-box, nor the policeman, nor the soldier our fetish. The democrats voted, the abolitionists did not; which proved stronger? Brooks wielded the bludgeon, Sumner did not; which has prevailed? Let such a congress as I speak of call forth a standing army of clear ideas; let them make justice so plain that only the criminal can demur; let them set forth simple truth, so that the denier can only reveal his long ears. There are scattered through the woods and fields of America millions of men and women in every heart of whom God hath set His witness and friend; they are now hearing uncertain and discordant bugle-calls on every side; they run now with Doolittle, now with Wade, now with the Evening Post, now with the Tribune; and thus the very army of God in America is demoralized, and may presently be utterly routed. Commercial selfishness, political ambition, sentimental compromises, - by all these have the people been deceived, and they have ended in giving to each house its dead: on the funeral hush, and anxious questioning of millions of honest men and women, let the breath of all true spirits sound the trumpet of God, and these will know which is the true Government of America, and none other will be able to resist it. THE `HE worst evil of the past year has been our not knowing who were our friends, and who were our enemies. The best result of this winter's discussion has been the discovering where the line runs between the two camps. No intelligent observer of events needs to doubt that to-day the Head-quarters of the Rebellion are in the White House at Washington. Andrew Johnson is the leader of the present Southern effort to regain by political management what the South lost in the battle-field. He is therefore to be watched and opposed as the most efficient servant of the still unchanged and rebellious South. No fair words no specious promises are to lull again to sleep this tireless and indispensable vigilance. Any journal or man that tries to persuade us to trust him, must be branded as treason's ally or tool. In Congress, as representing the National sentiment and purpose, is now our hope. While that stands, we have political machinery to work with. Should that succumb to the Administration, we are thrown back upon mere public discussion, and compelled to wait till other elections have replaced such treacherous leaders. While holding office and representing their party, members of Congress are the Nation's political voice and teachers, whether in session or at home. Meanwhile we are to remember that the North is already so far instructed and convinced, that had the Administration stood by us, the whole perfect fruit of this National Victory might have been saved; and the nation remodelled, with absolute justice for its basis. As it is, we have the result perilled, if not lost, by the treachery of the Administration by Mr. Johnson planning and straining every nerve, using all his power, and usurping more, to reconstruct the South as nearly as possible, just as she was before the war. In such circumstances our effort should be to avoid any settlement. We should rejoice to recognize that the epoch is not ended, and that we have not yet reached dry, solid land. Some men are in haste to compromise in order to end this transition state. From Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, bred in the superficial and timid school of the Whig party nothing else could have been expected. No child of such a school could understand this era, much less be fit to lead in it. Mr. Wilson of Massachusetts, has studied for twenty years the history of slavery, and slavery compromises under this government; and his last speech shows that his twenty years study has taught him exactly nothing. No compromise has ever been made, even in our dullest and weakest times, which has not hindered truth, postponed justice, and weakened freedom. Our fathers, in 1789, counted the slave as three-fifths of a man, affecting to believe,—perhaps believing, that the selfish wish of the South to count the other two fifths would hasten Our true policy is this. Let Congress plainly announce its belief, that no state lately in rebellion, is fit to be readmitted to Congress. Let it lay down the principle that no one shall ever be admitted except it establishes universal or at least impartial suffrage: and then let Congress adjourn. Every day it continues in session jeopards this great cause. It may be bought, bullied, or deceived. All tends that way while it is in session, exposed to Administrative influence. Once adjourned, 7 let the lines be distinctly drawn, and go to work to meet 1868 in earnest; the interval between now and the next elections, State, National, and Presidential, is none too long for the work. The treason of President Johnson and the impossibility of impeaching him, leaves no hope of any earlier settlement. It is just as well, and much safer to acknowledge this. To adjourn and go to the people on this issue is saving time. In this way, spite of the President, the whole fruit of the war may yet be saved. With the lines distinctly drawn; the fight above-board and acknowledged the issue fairly presented, and every Congressman stumping his own State, the nation may yet be founded and built up on impartial and absolute justice. Our New England air will save some of our Senators at least from the compromise malaria of Pennsylvania Avenue. Any other course, - drifting about in a storm of Constitutional Amendments, pilot blinded or drugged, and rudder unshippedallows timid and heedless senators, to put us bound hand and foot into the hands of the enemy, under pretence of being practical statesmen. Any other course runs the risk of giving us another ten years of just such dislocated, discordant, and perilous national life as we have passed through since 1856. Adjourn Congress then. Let every member turn himself into witness, teacher, and drill master, and let our bugle call be, No State admitted at present, and none ever admitted which has the word " WHITE," or the recognition of race in its Statute WENDELL PHILLIPS. JESUS THE SUBLIME RADICAL. From a Discourse by HENRY WARD BEECHER, delivered in Plymouth Church, Oct. 1, 1865, and published in “ The Independent" of Nov. 16. W HEN Jesus reached the age appointed for the priesthood- the age of thirty- he entered upon a career of public teaching. And you will take notice that he did not put himself under the care of official teachers. He was not appointed to teach by custom or any authority. By the right of the individual he began to be a public teacher; and not officially or ecclesiastically, but morally and substantially, he was a priest among the Jews during the three years that he pursued that course of teaching and work which we have recorded in part in the New Testament. Then he was cut off as a malefactor, suffering the indignity of the most ignominious execution. But the things which he taught in this brief period, caught up and only partially reported as they were, have since that time been the radical revolutionary forces of the world. A man came into the world obscurely and ignobly; he was unknown for thirty years; then for three years he taught; and his teachings, not reduced by himself to writing, and only in part by his disciples, have from that time to this been the marrow of thought, and the source and fountain of moral influence on the globe, and have revolutionized it. ..... ..... And who were the Pharisees? They were those who sought to lift men above their ordinary condition, and bring them under moral restraints, and impose upon them spiritual duties. They were ignorant of the right methods of doing these things, as we shall see. The Pharisee has been called the Puritan of the Jews. He was. If you contrast the Pharisee with the Greek and the Roman, they seem transcendently nobler than he in moral aspirations and endeavors. . . . . . Relatively to Christ, they were low and even despicable. Their chief sins were selfishness, bigotry, narrowness in religious duties and views. It was not charged against them that they were not religious or ethical. It was charged against them that they were too much so. Their fault was on the side of excessive zeal. It was a zeal that laughed at compassion and kindness. It was a zeal that sprang from a selfish and bigoted adhesion to religious views. They had no true pity and humanity in their religion. The religion of the Pharisees was a religion of ecclesiastics. And they confounded religion itself with the instruments or institutions by which the religious spirit or feeling acts. They came to regard religious forms and religious ordinances as sacred. They forgot that they were the mere vehicle of feeling, and that, therefore, they could not be sacred, since nothing that is material can be sacred. Sacredness belongs to moral qualities, and not to physical, to spirit, and not to matter. There is no such thing as a sacred foundation-stone, or a sacred wall, or a sacred place, except in poetic or popular language. That which is sacred must be in the living thing. It is mind-quality, soul-quality, that is sacred. And they have drifted far from |