Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is
delayed, there is no justice, but an accidental one, here below.
Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some
century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death! In the
center of the world-whirlwind, verily now as in the oldest days,
dwells and speaks a God. The great soul of the world is _just_. O
brother, can it be needful now, at this late epoch of experience,
after eighteen centuries of Christian preaching for one thing, to
remind thee of such a fact; which all manner of Mahometans, old pagan
Romans, Jews, Scythians and heathen Greeks, and indeed more or less
all men that God made, have managed at one time to see into; nay which
thou thyself, till "red-tape" strangled the inner life of thee, hadst
once some inkling of: That there _is_ justice here below; and even, at
bottom, that there is nothing else but justice! Forget that, thou hast
forgotten all. Success will never more attend thee: how can it now?
Thou hast the whole Universe against thee. No more success: mere
sham-success, for a day and days; rising ever higher,--towards its
Tarpeian Rock. Alas, how, in thy softhung Longacre vehicle, of
polished leather to the bodily eye, of red-tape philosophy, of
expediencies, clubroom moralities, Parliamentary majorities to the
mind's eye, thou beautifully rollest: But knowest thou whitherward? Is
it towards the _road's end_? Old use-and-wont; established methods,
habitudes, _once_ true and wise; man's noblest tendency, his
perseverance, and man's ignoblest, his inertia; whatsoever of noble
and ignoble Conservatism there is in men and Nations, strongest always
in the strongest men and Nations; all this is as a road to thee, paved
smooth through the abyss,--till all this _end_. Till men's bitter
necessities can endure thee no more. Till Nature's patience with thee
is done; and there is no road or footing any farther, and the abyss
yawns sheer!...
Parliaments and Courts of Westminster are venerable to me; how
venerable; gray with a thousand years of honorable age! For a thousand
years and more, Wisdom, and faithful Valor, struggling amid much Folly
and greedy Baseness, not without most sad distortions in the struggle,
have built them up; and they are as we see. For a thousand years, this
English Nation has found them useful or supportable: they have served
this English Nation's wants; been a road to it through the abyss of
Time. They are venerable, they are great and strong. And yet it is
good to remember always that they are not the venerablest, nor the
greatest, nor the strongest! Acts of Parliament are venerable; but if
they correspond not with the writing on the "Adamant Tablet," what are
they? Properly their one element of venerableness, of strength of
greatness, is, that they at all times correspond therewith as near as
by human possibility they can. They are cherishing destruction in
their bosom every hour that they continue otherwise....
Enforce it by never such statuting, three readings, royal assents;
blow it to the four winds with all manner of quilted trumpeters and
pursuivants, in the rear of them never so many gibbets and hangmen, it
will not stand, it cannot stand. From all souls of men, from all ends
of Nature, from the Throne of God above, there are no voices bidding
it: Away, away! Does it take warning; does it stand, strong in its
three readings, in its gibbets and artillery-parks? The more woe is to
it, the frightfuller woe. It will continue standing for its day, for
its year, for its century, doing evil all the while; but it has One
enemy who is Almighty; dissolution, explosion, and the everlasting
Laws of Nature incessantly advance towards it; and the deeper its
rooting, more obstinate its continuing, the deeper also and huger will
ruin and overturn be.
In this God's-world, with its wild-whirling eddies and mad
foam-oceans, where men and nations perish as if without law, and
judgment for an unjust thing is sternly delayed, dost thou think that
there is therefore no justice? It is what the fool hath said in his
heart. It is what the wise, in all times, were wise because they
denied, and knew forever not to be. I tell thee again, there is
nothing else but justice. One strong thing I find here below; the just
thing, the true thing. My friend, if thou hadst all the artillery of
Woolwich trundling at thy back in support of an unjust thing; and
infinite bonfires visibly waiting ahead of thee, to blaze centuries
long for thy victory on behalf of it,--I would advise thee to call
halt, to fling down thy baton, and say, "In God's name, No!" Thy
"success?" Poor devil, what will thy success amount to? If the thing
is unjust, thou hast not succeeded; no, not tho bonfires blazed from
North to South, and bells rang, and editors wrote leading-articles,
and the just thing lay trampled out of sight, to all mortal eyes an
abolished and annihilated thing. Success? In a few years thou wilt be
dead and dark,--all cold, eyeless, deaf; no blaze of bonfires,
ding-dong of bells or leading-articles visible or audible to thee
again at all forever: What kind of success is that!