"The People In General Throughout
The State," It Is Written, "Are Professors Of The Christian
Religion In Some Form Or Other.
There is, however, a sort of
_wise men_ who pretend to reject it; but they have not yet been
able to substitute a better in its place."
The other voyageur, perhaps, would in the mean while have seen
a brown hawk, or a woodchuck, or a musquash creeping under the
alders.
We occasionally rested in the shade of a maple or a willow, and
drew forth a melon for our refreshment, while we contemplated at
our leisure the lapse of the river and of human life; and as that
current, with its floating twigs and leaves, so did all things
pass in review before us, while far away in cities and marts on
this very stream, the old routine was proceeding still. There
is, indeed, a tide in the affairs of men, as the poet says, and
yet as things flow they circulate, and the ebb always balances
the flow. All streams are but tributary to the ocean, which
itself does not stream, and the shores are unchanged, but in
longer periods than man can measure. Go where we will, we
discover infinite change in particulars only, not in generals.
When I go into a museum and see the mummies wrapped in their
linen bandages, I see that the lives of men began to need reform
as long ago as when they walked the earth. I come out into the
streets, and meet men who declare that the time is near at hand
for the redemption of the race.
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