With Hope, as we
have defined it,--namely, the confident expectation of the
final triumph of righteousness,--we are but a little lower
than the angels; without it we are but a kind of vermin.
"The literature of free countries is full of cheer: the story
ends happily. The fiction of despotic countries is hopeless.
People of free countries will not tolerate a fiction which
teaches that in the end evil is triumphant and virtue is
wretched. Want of hope means either distrust of God or a
belief in the essential baseness of man or both. It teaches
men to be base. It makes a country base. A world wherein
there is no hope is a world where there is no virtue. The
contrast between the teacher of hope and the teacher of despair
is to be found in the pessimism of Carlyle and the serene
cheerfulness of Emerson. Granting to the genius of Carlyle
everything that is claimed for it, I believe that his chief
title hereafter to respect as a moral teacher will be found
in Emerson's certificate.
"But I must not detain you any longer from the business which
waits for this convention.
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