Very good, Sir,--he answered.--When have there been most people killed
and wounded in the course of this century?
During the wars of the French Empire, no doubt,--I said.
That's it! that's it!--said the Little Gentleman;--where the battle of
intelligence is fought, there are most minds bruised and broken! We're
battling for a faith here, Sir.
The divinity-student remarked, that it was rather late in the world's
history for men to be looking out for a new faith.
I did n't say a new faith,--said the Little Gentleman;--old or new, it
can't help being different here in this American mind of ours from
anything that ever was before; the people are new, Sir, and that makes
the difference. One load of corn goes to the sty, and makes the fat of
swine,--another goes to the farm-house, and becomes the muscle that
clothes the right arms of heroes. It is n't where a pawn stands on the
board that makes the difference, but what the game round it is when it is
on this or that square.
Can any man look round and see what Christian countries are now doing,
and how they are governed, and what is the general condition of society,
without seeing that Christianity is the flag under which the world sails,
and not the rudder that steers its course? No, Sir! There was a great
raft built about two thousand years ago,--call it an ark, rather,--the
world's great ark! big enough to hold all mankind, and made to be
launched right out into the open waves of life,--and here it has been
lying, one end on the shore and one end bobbing up and down in the water,
men fighting all the time as to who should be captain and who should have
the state-rooms, and throwing each other over the side because they could
not agree about the points of compass, but the great vessel never getting
afloat with its freight of nations and their rulers;--and now, Sir, there
is and has been for this long time a fleet of "heretic" lighters sailing
out of Boston Bay, and they have been saying, and they say now, and they
mean to keep saying, "Pump out your bilge-water, shovel over your loads
of idle ballast, get out your old rotten cargo, and we will carry it out
into deep waters and sink it where it will never be seen again; so shall
the ark of the world's hope float on the ocean, instead of sticking in
the dock-mud where it is lying!"
It's a slow business, this of getting the ark launched.
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