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latter-day pamphlets-第38章

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In those most benighted Feudal societies; full of mere tyrannous steel Barons; and totally destitute of Tenpound Franchises and Ballot…boxes; there did nevertheless authentically preach itself everywhere this grandest of gospels; without which no other gospel can avail us much; to all souls of men; 〃Awake ye noble souls; here is a noble career for you!〃  I say; everywhere a road towards promotion; for human nobleness; lay wide open to all men。  The pious soul;which; if you reflect; will mean the ingenuous and ingenious; the gifted; intelligent and nobly…aspiring soul;such a soul; in whatever rank of life it were born; had one path inviting it; a generous career; whereon; by human worth and valor; all earthly heights and Heaven itself were attainable。  In the lowest stratum of social thraldom; nowhere was the noble soul doomed quite to choke; and die ignobly。  The Church; poor old benighted creature; had at least taken care of that:  the noble aspiring soul; not doomed to choke ignobly in its penuries; could at least run into the neighboring Convent; and there take refuge。  Education awaited it there; strict training not only to whatever useful knowledge could be had from writing and reading; but to obedience; to pious reverence; self…restraint; annihilation of self;really to human nobleness in many most essential respects。  No questions asked about your birth; genealogy; quantity of money…capital or the like; the one question was; 〃Is there some human nobleness in you; or is there not?〃  The poor neat…herd's son; if he were a Noble of Nature; might rise to Priesthood; to High…priesthood; to the top of this world;and best of all; he had still high Heaven lying high enough above him; to keep his head steady; on whatever height or in whatever depth his way might lie!

A thrice…glorious arrangement; when I reflect on it; most salutary to all high and low interests; a truly human arrangement。  You made the born noble yours; welcoming him as what he was; the Sent of Heaven:  you did not force him either to die or become your enemy; idly neglecting or suppressing him as what he was not; a thing of no worth。  You accepted the blessed _light_; and in the shape of infernal _lightning_ it needed not to visit you。  How; like an immense mine…shaft through the dim oppressed strata of society; this Institution of the Priesthood ran; opening; from the lowest depths towards all heights and towards Heaven itself; a free road of egress and emergence towards virtuous nobleness; heroism and well…doing; for every born man。  This we may call the living lungs and blood…circulation of those old Feudalisms。  When I think of that immeasurable all…pervading lungs; present in every corner of human society; every meanest hut a _cell_ of said lungs; inviting whatsoever noble pious soul was born there to the path that was noble for him; and leading thereby sometimes; if he were worthy; to be the Papa of Christendom; and Commander of all Kings;I perceive how the old Christian society continued healthy; vital; and was strong and heroic。  When I contrast this with the noble aims now held out to noble souls born in remote huts; or beyond the verge of Palace…Yard; and think of what your Lordship has done in the way of making priests and papas;I see a society without lungs; fast wheezing itself to death; in horrid convulsions; and deserving to die。

Over Europe generally in these years; I consider that the State has died; has fairly coughed its last in street musketry; and fallen down dead; incapable of any but _galvanic_ life henceforth;owing to this same fatal want of _lungs_; which includes all other wants for a State。  And furthermore that it will never come alive again; till it contrive to get such indispensable vital apparatus; the outlook toward which consummation is very distant in most communities of Europe。  If you let it come to death or suspended animation in States; the case is very bad!  Vain to call in universal…suffrage parliaments at that stage:  the universal…suffrage parliaments cannot give you any breath of life; cannot find any _wisdom_ for you; by long impiety; you have let the supply of noble human wisdom die out; and the wisdom that now courts your universal suffrages is beggarly human _attorneyism_ or sham…wisdom; which is _not_ an insight into the Laws of God's Universe; but into the laws of hungry Egoism and the Devil's Chicane; and can in the end profit no community or man。

No; the kind of heroes that come mounted on the shoulders of the universal suffrage; and install themselves as Prime Ministers and healing Statesmen by force of able editorship; do not bid very fair to bring Nations back to the ways of God。  Eloquent high…lacquered _pinchbeck_ specimens these; expert in the arts of Belial mainly;fitter to be markers at some exceedingly expensive billiard…table than sacred chief…priests of men! 〃Greeks of the Lower Empire;〃 with a varnish of parliamentary rhetoric; and; I suppose; this other great gift; toughness of character;proof that they have _persevered_ in their Master's service。  Poor wretches; their industry is mob…worship; place…worship; parliamentary intrigue; and the multiplex art of tongue…fence:  flung into that bad element; there they swim for decades long; throttling and wrestling one another according to their strength;and the toughest or luckiest gets to land; and becomes Premier。  A more entirely unbeautiful class of Premiers was never raked out of the ooze; and set on high places; by any ingenuity of man。  Dame Dubarry's petticoat was a better seine…net for fishing out Premiers than that。  Let all Nations whom necessity is driving towards that method; take warning in time!

Alas; there is; in a manner; but one Nation that can still take warning! In England alone of European Countries the State yet survives; and might help itself by better methods。  In England heroic wisdom is not yet dead; and quite replaced by attorneyism:  the honest beaver faculty yet abounds with us; the heroic manful faculty shows itself also to the observant eye; not dead but dangerously sleeping。  I said there were many _kings_ in England:  if these can yet be rallied into strenuous activity; and set to govern England in Downing Street and elsewhere; which their function always is;then England can be saved from anarchies and universal suffrages; and that Apotheosis of Attorneyism; blackest of terrestrial curses; may be spared us。  If these cannot; the other issue; in such forms as may be appropriate to us; is inevitable。  What escape is there?  England must conform to the eternal laws of life; or England too must die!

England with the largest mass of real living interests ever intrusted to a Nation; and with a mass of extinct imaginary and quite dead interests piled upon it to the very Heavens; and encumbering it from shore to shore;does reel and stagger ominously in these years; urged by the Divine Silences and the Eternal Laws to take practical hold of its living interests and manage them:  and clutching blindly into its venerable extinct and imaginary interests; as if that were still the way to do it。  England must contrive to manage its living interests; and quit its dead ones and their methods; or else depart from its place in 
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