Not always will cold philosophy, and
erratic enthusiasm, and fanaticism fierce and malignant, conspire to
corrupt and pervert the gospel itself, turning even the streams from the
fountain of life into waters of bitterness and poison. No, no; the time
will come when the sun, in his daily journey round the renovated world,
shall waken with his morning beam in every human dwelling the voice of
joyful, thankful, spiritual worship. Then shall the boundless soul of
Immanuel, who once travailed in the agony of the world's redemption, "be
satisfied" with his victories over death and sin. The ransomed of the
Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs, and with garlands of
everlasting joy; and from the earth, no longer accursed for the sake of
man, sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
* * * * *
From the New Englander.
=_33._= THE BENEFITS OF CAPITAL.
What wealth can be created without capital? Robinson Crusoe, on his
lonely island, was a capitalist as well as a laborer and a land-holder.
Put him down there without any capital--simply a naked, featherless,
two-legged and two-handed, animal, without clothes, without a gun or a
fish-hook, without hoe, or hatchet, or knife, or rusty nail, without a
particle of food to keep him from fainting, and what will become of him?
He gathers perhaps some wild fruits from the bushes; he picks up perhaps
some shell-fish from the water's edge; he surprises a fawn or a kid, and
throttles it and tears it to pieces with his fingers; he kindles a fire
perhaps by rubbing two dry sticks together till they ignite with the
friction; and so he keeps himself alive for a few days; but how little
progress does he make! But let him by any means have a little to begin
with in the shape of implements and materials; give him an axe or a
spade, a jack-knife, or only a fragment of an iron hoop, give him a gill
of seed wheat, or a single potato, or no more than a grain of maize, for
planting; and how soon will his condition be changed! He has begun to
be, even in this small way, a capitalist; and his labor, drawing
something from the past, begins to reach into the future.
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