An English Seventy-four,if you look merely at the articulate law and methods of it,is one of the impossiblest entities.The captain is appointed by preeminent merit in sailorship,but by parliamentary connection;the men [this was spoken some years ago]are got by impressment;a press-gang goes out,kks men down.on the streets of sea-towns,and drags them on board,--if the ship were to be stranded,I have heard they would nearly all run ashore and desert.Can anything be more unreasonable than a Seventy-four?Articulately almost hing.But it has inarticulate traditions,ancient methods and habitudes in it,stoicisms,lenesses,true rules both of sailing and of conduct;egh to keep it afloat on Nature's veridical bosom,after all.See;if you bid it sail to the end of the world,it will lift anchor,go,and arrive.The raging oceans do beat it back;it too,as well as the raging oceans,has a relationship to Nature,and it does sink,but under the due conditions is borne along.If it meet with hurricanes,it rides them out;if it meet an Enemy's ship,it shivers it to powder;and in short,it holds on its way,and to a wonderful extent does what it means and pretends to do.Assure yourself,my friend,there is an immense fund of truth somewhere or other stowed in that Seventy-four."More important than the past history of these Offices in Downing Street,is the question of their future history;the question,How they are to be got mended!Truly an immense problem,inclusive of all others whatsoever;which demands to be attacked,and incessantly persisted in,by all good citizens,as the grand problem of Society,and the one thing needful for the Commonwealth!A problem in which all men,with all their wisdoms and all their virtues,faithfully and continually co-operating at it,will never have done egh ,and will still only be struggling towards perfection in it.In which some men can do much;--in which every man can do something.Every man,and thou my present Reader canst do this:Be thyself a man abler to be governed;more reverencing the divine faculty of governing,more sacredly detesting the diabolical semblance of said faculty in self and others;so shalt thou,if govern,yet actually according to thy strength assist in real governing.And k always,and even lay to heart with a quite unusual solemnity,with a seriousness altogether of a religious nature,that as "Human Stupidity"is verily the accursed parent of all this mischief,so Human Intelligence alone,to which and to which only is victory and blessedness appointed here below,will or can cure it.If we knew this as devoutly as we ought to do,the evil,and all other evils were curable;--alas,if we had from of old kn this,as all men made in God's image ought to do,the evil never would have been!Perhaps few Nations have ever kn it less than we,for a good while back,have done.Hence these sorrows.
What a People are the poor Thibet idolaters,compared with us and our "religions,"which issue in the worship of King Hudson as our Dalai-Lama!They,across such hulls of abject igance,have seen into the heart of the matter;we,with our torches of kledge everywhere brandishing themselves,and such a human enlightenment as never was before,have quite missed it.
Reverence for Human Worth,earnest devout search for it and encouragement of it,loyal furtherance and obedience to it:this,I say,is the outcome and essence of all true "religions,"and was and ever will be.We have kn this.loud as our tongues sometimes go in that direction,we have true reverence for Human Intelligence,for Human Worth and Wisdom:e,or too little,--and I pray for a restoration of such reverence,as for the change from Stygian darkness to Heavenly light,as for the return of life to poor sick moribund Society and all its interests.Human Intelligence means little for most of us but Beaver Contrivance,which produces spinning-mules,cheap cotton,and large fortunes.Wisdom,unless it give us railway scrip,is wise.
True nevertheless it forever remains that Intellect is the real object of reverence,and of devout prayer,and zealous wish and pursuit,among the sons of men;and even,well understood,the one object.It is the Inspiration of the Almighty that giveth men understanding.For it must be repeated,and ever again repeated till poor mortals get to discern it,and awake from their baleful paralysis,and degradation under foul enchantments,That a man of Intellect,of real and sham Intellect,is by the nature of him likewise inevitably a man of leness,a man of courage,rectitude,pious strength;who,even because he is and has been loyal to the Laws of this Universe,is initiated into discernment of the same;to this hour a Missioned of Heaven;whom if men follow,it will be well with them;whom if men do follow,it will be well.Human Intellect,if you consider it well,is the exact summary of Human Worth ;and the essence of all worth-ships and worships is reverence for that same.This much surprises you,friend Peter;but I assure you it is the fact;--and I would advise you to consider it,and to try if you too do gradually find it so.With me it has long been an article,of "faith"only,but of settled insight,of conviction as to what the ordainments of the Maker in this Universe are.Ah,could you and the rest of us but get to k it,and everywhere religiously act upon it,--as our Fortieth Article,which includes all the other Thirty-nine,and without which the Thirty-nine are good for almost hing,--there might then be some hope for us!In this world there is but one appalling creature:the Stupid man considered to be the Missioned of Heaven,and followed by men.He is our King,men say,he;--and they follow him,through straight or winding courses,I for one k well whitherward.