Various

“ Now, if there be one feature of American republicanism which is supremely characteristic, it is universal suffrage. This interpenetrates our political system as veins run through a block of marble. The patriots and sages who framed our Constitution grouted it with this principle. They believed and declared that it was safe to trust men with self-government. They recognized, of course, the fact that in every community there would be an element of ignorance and inefficiency. ”

“ It must not be ignored that a startling proportion of our great business men are what are termed self-educated. So will it be in the future; but it is far from visionary to believe that university extension will open paths whereby the solitary student need no longer employ an expensive tutor nor waste his time, groping in the labyrinth paths of knowledge, without a thread, at least, to direct his wanderings to pleasanter fields of light and learning. ”

“ He shows in more than one place that he believes private property to be only the result of human labor, but when he comes to apply his ideas, he admits of its extension to land and other monopolies, without realizing that because such monopolies are not the creation of human labor they cannot therefore be rightfully considered as private property. He is like the man who would divide the human race into men, women, and poets, or in enumerating the New England States would include Boston after having mentioned Massachusetts. ”

“ However, in spite of their abhorrence of the Western people, the Western ideas and customs, in spite of all their efforts to shut them out, the appearance of some formidable men-of-war, floating the flags of different nations, compelled Japan to enter into the terms of treaty with them. Twenty years have passed since then, and within that short period, the nation has undergone a marvellous transformation under the magic touch of progress. ”

“ Suspects are numerous, and, as in the days of the worthy Council of Ten in Venice, no prominent person, especially a teacher, is beyond surveillance. If he adventures just a little from the beaten path, even though it may be to gather a thought, which, like a wild field daisy, given by the bounty of the Infinite One for the delight of his creatures, he has found growing on the wind-swept plain of natural religion, honored possibly by heathen seers and philosophers, he is likely to be summoned before the black draped, gloomy councillors and familiars of modern inquisitorial conservatism. ”

“ A mother whose thoughts have voluntarily or involuntarily been held in the atmosphere of the physical nature, necessarily imparts to her child a legacy of animality which, like the corpse of a dead being, clings to the soul throughout its pilgrimage. Terrible as have been fashion's ravages on woman's physical health, the curse which she has exerted when the ethical aspect of the case is entertained, far transcends it. ”

“ But we cannot lay aside our pen without expressing our fondest anticipation, and most earnest desire, that guided by statesmen of genius, and supported by the prudent and patriotic people, this first institution ever founded on the Asiatic soil for the development of political liberty, may be crowned with brilliant success, not only for the sake of Japan, but for the sake of all Asia, whose myriad sons it is her noble duty, as well as privilege, to rescue from the yoke of ever-detestable bondage. ”

“ If the quid-nuncs, instead of railing at universal suffrage, would combine to help shut that door, republicanism would speedily lose its reproach. The constituency of the grog seller is the ready made tool of the demagogue. A true democracy can only exist on the basis of sobriety. A drunken people cannot be trusted with the dearest rights and most vital possessions of freemen. Better the merciless tyranny of the Czar, or the military despotism of the Kaiser, far better the class rule of England, than the staggering, hiccoughing, bedevilled government of the groggery! ”

“ The significant fact is that it is not the people who are indifferent to politics. This indifference is found among merchants who are too busy making money to attend to the public weal; among scholars buried alive in their books, with no interest in any question that is not musty; among men of leisure, aping old world aristocracy, and out of touch with democracy; among those who say that all men are equal and are afraid they will be,—never among the people. ”

“ He rules in the world of mind as well as in the globe of matter, and eighteen centuries ought to convince us that truth slowly emerges from warring opinions, conflicting theories, and especially from pathetic longings of the human soul to discover its hidden meanings and its widest and grandest applications. Alas! perhaps our ignorance and intolerance may render it necessary that now, as in the past, the prophets of God must first be stoned to death before we will give heed to their message or commemorate their greatness by the homage of our mind. ”

“ We cannot conceive of them, seated around a camp-fire, discussing the merits of two chambers system, or defining the rights and duties of a citizen, while their vile lips are stained with the blood of their fellow-man, whose flesh they have just devoured. Not to expatiate further on this self-evident fact, it is certain that the Japanese people were sufficiently intelligent to understand and appreciate the Western ideas, when they were thrust to their notice. ”

“ They fear that any radical change will exert an immoral influence. Their minds are swayed by ancient thought which throughout all ages has cast its baleful shadow over the brain of the world. They are held under the spell of a conservatism which unquestioningly tolerates established institutions and existing orders, but has no confidence in aught that proposes to break with these, even though the new has reason and common sense clearly on its side. ”

“ It is unfortunate that the Pope through a desire to uphold the just rights of property should have been led to maintain the privileges of monopoly, and still more unfortunate that so many Catholics will consider his blunder an article of faith and feel it binding upon their consciences to oppose all further efforts to impair private ownership of land by taxation—the only way in which individual possession can be reconciled with the common right of all mankind to the earth. ”

“ To sell one house and move into another; to leave one city and seek settlement in another, is now the rule and not the exception; and it is mainly this inter-migration, stirring up the masses, to which is due our increased prosperity and our progress in all branches of knowledge. Inter-migration keeps us from stagnation; it removes shyness and fear at the sight of a stranger, accustoms us to an intercourse with different people, removes prejudices and superstitions, and facilitates the exchange of thoughts and ideas. ”

“ Another very essential point is the proper education of the girls of to-day, for to them will fall, in its richest fruition, the blessings of this splendid reform if it be properly carried on, and if they be everywhere instructed to set health above fashion, and seek the beauty of Venus de Medici rather than the pseudo beauty of the wretched, deformed invalid, who at the dictates of the modern Babylon has trampled reason and common sense, health and comfort, the happiness of self and the enjoyment of her posterity under foot. ”

“ True individualism requires equality of opportunity. The instant the idea of monopoly enters, equality of opportunity becomes impossible, and individualism is destroyed. It is through want of seeing this fact that the Pope, in common with most political economists, goes floundering round in a sea of contradictions, now proclaiming principles almost like those of the anarchists, and again favoring extreme socialism, while all the time imagining himself an individualist. ”

“ Health, posterity, and all the instincts of the higher self are ruthlessly sacrificed to the fickle folly of fashion's criminal caprice. And we must not forget that even now the sweeping train is coming in vogue and correctly attired ladies must consent to carry the germs of death with quantities of filth from the streets of our metropolitan cities into their homes of wealth and refinement. The corset and high-heeled shoes, the two most deadly foes to maternity and posterity, are also seen at the present time, on every hand. ”

“ All human subsistence is not derived either from labor on one's own land or from some laborious industry. Some human subsistence, as the Pope says, is derived from labor on one's own land. Some human subsistence is derived from laborious industry on the land of others. And—what the Pope seems to ignore—some human subsistence is derived by owning land and letting others work upon it, taking from them part of the fruits of their labor in exchange for the mere permission to labor.466 By no construction can such ownership be classed as a "laborious industry." ”

“ If the people were opposed to the Shogun's usurpation, they were still more opposed to his new policy, simply because it was new. They were blind to the innumerable advantages that could be derived from international commerce and communication. As a hermit nation, the people looked down upon the foreigners with mingled distrust and disdain. Knowing nothing of the Western civilization they were determined that no "savage strangers" should step upon the "sacred land of gods." ”

“ Surely no mind accustomed to think broadly and view problems on all sides, and unaccustomed to revel in the sewer of sensualism would see in the attire of these estimable ladies aught but costumes at once graceful, refined, and apparently infinitely more comfortable and healthful than those represented in any of the fashion plates I have reproduced, and which millions of women of good sense have under the stress of conventionalism been compelled to wear. ”

“ He seems to be ignorant of the fact that taxing land, unlike a tax upon any product of labor, makes it cheaper and easier to obtain for possession and use.
More than all does he forget that what labor needs is not the protecting arm of Church or State, but equal opportunity and the fullest possible freedom of access to Nature's bounties. He is untrue to himself and talks like the veriest socialist when he says: "Among the purposes of a society should be to try to arrange for a "continuous supply of work at all times and seasons." ”

“ Why we should suppose their statements are to be regarded as infallible, and why thinkers of our times should be strictly held to their formulas, is something that no one yet has had courage or intelligence sufficient to explain. What right has any body of men to insist on conformity to a creed prepared by beings like themselves, even though it has been venerated for a century or two? ”

“ Tight corsets grudgingly loosened a quarter of an inch at a time, heavy skirts, and all the evil conditions we are so familiar with, are still retained as the months pass, bringing ever nearer what should be the very happiest hour of woman's existence—that in which she is to be intrusted with the keeping, training, and guidance of a new human soul. ”

“ For generations woman's condition has been like that of the plant, the wealth of her nature has been dwarfed, the marvellous richness of her life has been marred by the imprisoned conditions of her body, and infinitely more sad and far-reaching have been the baleful consequences upon millions of her offspring, dwarfed, weakly, sickly, enfeebled in body and soul. ”

“ The fact that this world's congress, representing the most thoughtful, conscientious, and broad-minded women of our age, has taken up this subject with a firm determination to accomplish a revolution which shall mean health and happiness to the oncoming generation, is itself a prophecy pregnant with promise of a substantial and enduring reform. ”

“ Newman has taken his way; other men, let us trust, with the root of piety in them as truly as it was in him, have taken theirs; the ways are far apart—which is truer, time, the future, perhaps the ages alone can tell. ”

“ The less the raw material can be used in its natural state, and the more our refinement demands a long process of converting it into a commodity, the more does it require systematic, organized, skilled labor to perform that conversion. With sufficient land a few people can raise such an abundance of raw material that the labor of thousands of people will be called for to change it into useful articles. It is the system, the developed social organization, which draws the villager to the city, and as an illustration I shall point to the sudden and unparelleled growth of the city of Berlin. ”

“ Modern scholarship is simply leading us to recognize a more rational criticism than was possible to our fathers; a mode of criticism which almost every Sunday-school teacher, in his humble way, adopts, and which is common, and has been in the most orthodox pulpits for unnumbered years, every man bringing the passage he is discussing to the test of knowledge that he has acquired and, in a sense, to the test even of his reason. ”

“ Truth is truth, and all the bad captains that ever sailed that bark, and all the bad navigators that ever misdirected its course, have never been able to run it on the lee shore, or bring it to final shipwreck, and never can; for over and above all human devices and guidings there is a divine hand that upholds and shields that which, next to his Infinite Self, is the most precious blessing yet conferred upon the human mind. ”

“ The unemployed energy of the nation, like an unemployed human muscle, is losing its vitality. Unable to go backward, unwilling to go forward, the nation is at standstill, and its civilization is stagnant with vices of the worst sort, the growth of which is checked by no iron hands of heroic reformers. ”

“ Are women ignorant of the mischief they do to their offspring, or are they indifferent to consequences? Has the true maternal love become extinct, in this age of advanced civilization, that women ignore all the laws of nature while anticipating the glory of motherhood? ”

“ Let Berlin cease to be the capital of Germany, through any unforeseen event, and its population will melt away at once. Like iron filings hanging on a magnet, in which one particle attracts and holds the other, thus are people attracted to and held in places where society, and with it labor, is organized.
Another and weighty reason to account for inter-migration, and especially for the increase of population in cities, is that agriculture, too, has undergone a change. ”

“ We need in this country a revival of republicanism. There is a tendency to flunkeyism at the bottom of human nature. Most men "dearly love a lord," as Burns affirmed. Hence, a full-fledged aristocrat attracts flunkies as a magnet draws iron filings. Lucian tells of an exhibition in Rome in which monkeys had been trained to play a human part; which they did perfectly, before the beauty and fashion of the city—until a wag, in the midst of the performance, flung a handful of nuts upon the stage, and straightway the actors were monkeys again. Some of our republicans are monkeys in human attire. ”

“ But, if we believe that education means the quickening of a man's nature so that he will investigate, and if we really believe that God has more light yet to break in upon the world, through the casements and windows of holy scriptures, then, in his Divine Name, let us not be alarmed when, here and there, after infinite weariness and labor, a little ray penetrates the darkness of the ages and promises to give us a noonday view of the origin and influence of God's Word. ”