I saw a minister of state, sitting in his closet; and, round about him, rising from the country which he governed, up to the Eternal Heavens, was a low, dull howl of Ignorance. It was a wild, inexplicable mutter, confused, but full of threatening, and it made all hearers' hearts to quake within them. But few heard. In the single city where this minister of state was seated, I saw thirty thousand children, hunted, flogged, imprisoned, but not taught—who might have been nurtured by the wolf or bear, so little of humanity had they, within them or without—all joining in this doleful cry. And, ever among them, as among all ranks and grades of mortals, in all parts of the globe, the Spirit went; and ever by thousands, in their brutish state, with all the gifts of God perverted in their breasts or trampled out, they died.
The minister of state, whose heart was pierced by even the little he could hear of these terrible voices, day and night rising to Heaven, went among the priests and teachers of all denominations, and faintly said,
"Hearken to this dreadful cry! What shall we do to stay it?"
One body of respondents answered, "Teach this!"
Another said, "Teach that!"
Another said, "Teach neither this nor that, but t'other!"
Another quarreled with all the three; twenty others quarreled with all the four, and quarreled no less bitterly among themselves. The voices, not stayed by this, cried out day and night; and still, among those many thousands, as among all mankind, went the Spirit, who never rested from its labor; and still, in brutish sort, they died.
Then, a whisper murmured to the minister of state,
"Correct this for thyself. Be bold! Silence these voices, or virtuously lose thy power in the attempt to do it. Thou canst not sow a grain of good seed in vain. Thou knowest it well. Be bold, and do thy duty!"
The minister shrugged his shoulders, and replied, "It is a great wrong—BUT IT WILL LAST MY TIME." And so he put it from him.