The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863, page 199 by Various Authors
<< Return to Title Details & Download200
erce, everywhere looked up to as the type of the executive mind, and, by the tacit consent of Christendom, intrusted with the guidance of every enterprise requiring pluck, perseverance, and ceaseless activity. And theirs will still be the brains to control the destinies of our race, however isolated they may become, however they may be made the objects of distrust and contempt. Ay! shut them out if you will, and from that moment New England becomes the Switzerland of America, the home of great ideas and great men, the temple where Freedom shall take up her everlasting abode, and the altar fires of Liberty shall never die away. And her people will become the priests of that great religion which, taking its rise in a lofty appreciation of the true end of human existence, is already bursting out all over the Christian world, in fitful flames, which shall yet become the devouring element that shall wither and consume away oppression and kingcraft from the face of the earth. Shut her out, then, if you will, but you cannot shut out the flame which she shall kindle; you cannot shut out the tones of her trumpet voice, proclaiming to the world the doctrines of eternal truth. Self-reliant, possessing within themselves every element of success, her people can and will make their way, as heretofore, alone and unaided. Asking no favors of the world, they will pursue the even tenor of their way, undisturbed by the mutterings and growlings of their impotent foes, while their little republic, like a city set upon a hill, continues to reflect from her glittering pinnacles the sunlight of heaven to all quarters of the earth. The petty vengeance which the disunionists of to-day are attempting to wreak upon her will recoil upon their own heads, and they themselves may yet be forced some day to look to little New England as their redeemer from anarchy. A purely commercial people, her interests are not circumscribed by her narrow geographical limits, but are, as well as her tastes and sympathies, cosmopolitan. She stretches out her fe