W. Thou seest a change in nature. Thou seest not the change which nature produces, until it is produced. The wisdom of God in nature works great changes. The blossom is not as the fruit, nor the seed as the blossom. The voice which nature utters, is a voice thou wilt not deny. It is the voice of God to thee. Dost thou hear it, and dost thou feel it? The young ravens cry, and their cry is heard. The wail of want finds a response in the supply which sympathy affords. That sympathy is natural; and, in its exercise, the unfledged wing becomes invigorated, and change gives support to the dependent. So, in thy weakness, thou hast received aid from sympathy, until change gave thee strength to aid others. Sympathy is the divinity of nature. It controls even animals. It will control enemies. It is a divinity that no enemy can resist. It will conquer. It will change the old into new. The barren field will become the fruitful vineyard. The dormant energies will be quickened. The inactive powers will become active, and change will make all things new.
M. If all things become changed by progress, will not all things lose their original identity?
W. The change is not external, but is internal. The change is pure. The grossness of impurity, being removed, allows a work of refinement to take place, so that the divinity of sympathy may be exercised without obstruction. In its progress, the refinement will expand the charity of the soul, and divest it of all wrong. When it is divested of all wrong, it will feel inspired with benevolence. This benevolence will become extended, until all nature smiles with the love of God, and all minds are linked together forming a chain of affinity co-extensive with the whole world, in heaven and on earth, and united by an immortal tie which no change will dissolve, but strengthen, forever and ever.
On arriving at the designated place, there were many minds conversing about the motives of works. One said, that no motive could be pure, unless a mind realized some good to itself; another said, all good of self should be overlooked; and a third said, no mind could overlook the good of itself. We heard the conversation, when William asked, “How can self be overlooked, when self is a part of the body, of which all are members?”
“Ought not selfishness to be overcome, so that others’ good may be advanced?” said a mind.
W. Thou wilt understand, that no mind can be disinterested in its welfare, however much it may desire to overcome the nature which is selfish, and consults selfish good. The good of self is well, and what is well should not be overcome. It is necessary to the good of all. Self is a part of all. If a part be not well, the whole can not be, as the whole is made up of parts. When one part is neglected, the other parts will suffer. Thy mind is a part of the great body of mind. It is dependent on the body, and the body is dependent on it. These parts embrace the whole family of mankind. There can be no joy without all the parts participate in it, neither can there be sorrow, without all sympathize in it. Thou wilt see that minds are united by the law of sympathy in one body. The sympathy is natural, and when one part monopolizes the control of the other to its disadvantage, it must sympathetically suffer for its folly. It will not be happy in any disturbance of the rest.
M. Then, are not minds disturbing their own happiness, when they neglect those with whom they are united?
W. Thou wilt see that governments and societies, in the rudimental world, deny the law of God, which should govern all his works. They unite in compacts for the purpose of promoting the public good; but the compacts do not seem to understand that sympathy is not a law which grants favors to one and withholds them from another. In all human governments, you will find that the few who control, make slaves of the many who are controlled. The ruler should fare as the ruled, and know that injuries inflicted upon the latter, will result in his injury. There should be no favoritism of one part over another. Governments study to govern; and, in order to govern, coercive measures are adopted. The governed must submit, and pay the expense of their own folly. They must not disobey their rulers, because their rulers will enforce either the law or their own authority, to induce submission. No matter what the cost may be; it must be borne by the ruled. When the ruled consent to be ruled, they should not refuse the cost; but when rulers ask submission to rules which are obnoxious to the good of one part for the support of another part, they are wanting in wisdom, and their demands will be rejected, when the ruled understand their own wants, and the means which are essential to their gratification. The wisdom of the ruler consults his own supposed good. He wants what will make him respected and happy. But, being aided only by a narrow and limited wisdom, he sees not the wisdom of nature’s laws. He sees not the dependence of one part upon the other; and, consequently, he rules in wisdom of self, or in the wisdom of ignorance of the relation on which enjoyment depends. Now, he should love self, and he should neglect no means which are necessary to produce his own happiness; but, when he rules over others, he should understand that, if he injure them, he injures himself; or, if he benefit them, he does good to himself. An injury done to one person by a ruler, is an injury to all. Hence, no government is as pure as it should be, which wrongs one to govern the many. I have seen men, educated in crime by law ordained, condemned and wronged by law. I have seen a mind who had been taught the law of death for death, wronged by the instruction. It was a mind who once resided in Philadelphia. I knew the mind when he was in his childhood. I have often wondered, that my adopted commonwealth should have engrafted upon their criminal code, so barbarous and cruel a law as the death penalty. I saw that young man in his childhood taught the doctrine of revenge. I heard his parents justify death for death, and express even gratification, when some poor criminal had expiated the death penalty. The child imbibed the horrid teaching. The parents verily believed the lesson salutary upon their son. But the son felt the malice, the wrong, the wrangling in his mind, struggling against sympathy, until sympathy yielded to the wrong. I saw him again. The gallows was his death bed. The parents had taken the farewell interview. The executioner inquired of the criminal, if he wished to say any thing to the spectators. The young man made a brief speech. He said: “The sentence of the law is about to be executed upon me. I have sinned against God, but I hope for mercy in Christ. I have no ill will to any one. I acknowledge that my sentence is just. I hope this may be a warning to all, not to do as I have done. May God have mercy on my soul.” He was killed. The people said, “It was just.” But when the mind reached this sphere, it was corrected. It was disabused of its malignity. It was educated in the knowledge of nature. It was disrobed of its cruel garments. It was taught the divinity of natural justice. It was inspired with the sympathy of united brotherhood, and wretchedness departed.
The wrong instruction had made his sympathetic mind callous to benevolence. He was chilled with the malignity of cruel instruction. The noble aspirations of his soul were blighted with notions, which made him unfeeling and brutal, and which prepared him for the worst crime of which society makes a record. The wrong which he committed was the work of ignorance. It was ignorance on the part of the parents, which led them to inculcate the cruel sentiment of death for death. It was ignorance on the part of legislators, which induced them to make laws that sought the correction of one wrong by requiring another to be done. It was ignorance on the part of the instructed in the wrong, which led him to deny the right of life to one to whom nature had given birth. Ignorance taught wrong, legislated wrong, and made one wrong to justify another wrong. It made both, but not directly. It will not be otherwise, until ignorance is removed from power.
The are some countries in which you will not find a gallows. There are some minds in which you will not find a sentiment favorable to cruelty. Such minds can not be cruel while those sentiments remain; and, when a mind can not be cruel, cruelty can not be done by it. Hence, thou seest that what is the misfortune of one, is often the fault of many. Governments are what the governed make them. No human government can exist without the consent of the governed, or a majority thereof. It is the ignorance of mind, that submits to wrong, and wrong is the father of misery. It is the father of crime. Make wrong laws, and inculcate them among minds; let them take possession of the hearts of the people; and wrongs will germinate abundantly. The cruel creeds of minds, overshadowed with ignorance, have made cruel souls, and cruel souls have made cruel laws to correct the cruelty. This is the origin of evil. Go where ignorance of nature reigns, where the sympathies of a common brotherhood are not felt, nor encouraged by the voice of philosophy and reason, and there thou mayest find crime multiplied with itself. I have heard the mother teach the cruel lesson to her dear children. I have seen the child writhe over the recital. I have watched the progress of medicine forced into the heart of sympathy. I have seen its awful workings at the seat of virtue. I have seen its operations on the social affections. I have watched its icy chains, as they wound their cold links of cruelty around the expanding charities of the soul, and saw the death of progress, in the divinity of heaven. I saw the death wound where the cruel wrong remained. It remained through long years to tantalize its victim, and mock the aspirations of the soul. It wearied the mind with its wrong, never aiding it in the path of right, but often in the way of evil. It was cruel; and its cruelty is a shame on decency. It is a shame on humanity. It is a libel on nature, and a disgrace to civilization. The brute will not often wrong a brute where no good is attainable, and yet human folly and ignorance have smiled at the sacrifice.