An American historian says of the Constitution of the United States: “Our Constitution in its spirit and legitimate utterance is doubtless the noblest document which ever emanated from the mind of man. It contains not one word hostile to liberty.... But yet ingloriously, guiltily, under sore temptation, we consented to use one phrase susceptible of a double meaning, ‘held to service or labor.’ (Article IV Section 2.) These honest words at the North mean a hired man, an apprentice. At the South they mean a slave, feudal bondage. So small, apparently so insignificant, were those seeds sown in our Constitution which have resulted in such a harvest of misery.”
(814)
DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS
Charles Wagner, in “The Gospel of Life,” remarks thus on the double nature of men:
Duplicity, rending apart, partition of the will and of the heart, lamentable division—that is our life! It is not a continuous chain; it is only links broken and dispersed. We are peace-loving, just, truthful, sober, chaste, disinterested; but we are also malicious, unjust, cunning, intemperate, impure. We are like those ships that carry to the colonies, along with the Bibles and religious tracts, cannon, alcohol, and opium; or those poets full of contrary talents, who play turn by turn on the sacred lyre and on the strident conch-shell.
(815)
DOUBT ISSUING IN PEACE
The peace of God descends more softly shed
Than light upon the deep,
And sinks below the tumult of my years