t is
said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But as
soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me I feel as one that
lies unprotected before his enemies. In general, every evil to which we
do not succumb is a benefactor. As the Sandwich Islander believes that
the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we
gain the strength of the temptation we resist.

The same guards which protect us from disaster, defect, and enmity,
defend us, if we will, from selfishness and fraud. Bolts and bars are
not the best of our institutions, nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of
wisdom. Men suffer all their life long under the foolish superstition
that they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be
cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at
the same time. There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The
nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfilment
of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If you
serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in your debt.
Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer The payment is withholden, the
better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate
and usage of this exchequer.

The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to
make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand. It makes no difference
whether the actors be many or one, a tyrant or a mob. A mob is a society
of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason and traversing its
work. The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast.
Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole
constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a right; it would
tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses
and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys,
who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the
stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers.
The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of
fame; every prison, a more illustrious abode; every burned book or house
enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates
through the earth from side to side. Hours of sanity and consideration
are always arriving to communities, as to individuals, when the truth is
seen and the martyrs are justified.