ar, which will drown out all our muskrats. It
was not always dry land where we dwell. I see far inland the banks
which the stream anciently washed, before science began to record its
freshets. Every one has heard the story which has gone the rounds of New
England, of a strong and beautiful bug which came out of the dry leaf of
an old table of apple-tree wood, which had stood in a farmer's
kitchen for sixty years, first in Connecticut, and afterward in
Massachusetts--from an egg deposited in the living tree many years
earlier still, as appeared by counting the annual layers beyond it;
which was heard gnawing out for several weeks, hatched perchance by
the heat of an urn. Who does not feel his faith in a resurrection and
immortality strengthened by hearing of this? Who knows what beautiful
and winged life, whose egg has been buried for ages under many
concentric layers of woodenness in the dead dry life of society,
deposited at first in the alburnum of the green and living tree, which
has been gradually converted into the semblance of its well-seasoned
tomb--heard perchance gnawing out now for years by the astonished family
of man, as they sat round the festive board--may unexpectedly come forth
from amidst society's most trivial and handselled furniture, to enjoy
its perfect summer life at last!

I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is
the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to
dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day
dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a
morning star.

ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

I heartily accept the motto,--"That government is best which governs
least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and
systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I
believe,--"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when
men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they
will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments
are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. The
objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are
many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought
against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the
standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which
the people have chosen to