Times," having nothing higher
than avaricious commerce and national pride to consult, in a conspicuous
centre of affairs has thus become the great weathercock of the world,
splendidly gilded, lifted very high in the air, but, like some other
stupid chanticleers, crowing at false signals of the dawn, and well
called the "Times," as in its columns nothing eternal was ever evinced.
Everywhere exist these agents of custom and convention, wielded by a
power behind them, and holding long no one direction, but varying in
every wind. Some breeze of general policy, however, prescribes the law
of these alterations, while only a weak and brainless sensibility,
blowing from every source, commonly occasions the continual veering of
our private word. Through what manifold phases _a good conversationist_
has dexterity to pass! Quarterings of the uncertain moon, the lights
that glance blue, silver, yellow, and green from the shifting angles of
the gems that move with their wearers, or the confused motions of some
of our inferior fellow-creatures that flutter from side to side of the
road as intimidating objects fail on the eyes planted on opposite sides
of their heads, feebly symbolize these human displays of unstable
equilibrium. We must adapt our method to circumstances; but the
apostolic rule, of "All things to all men," should not touch, as in Paul
it never did, the fundamental consistency of principle which is the
chief sign of spiritual life. The degree of elevation in the scale of
being is marked by the approximation of the sight to a focus of unity.
But, judging from the pictures they give us of their interior states, we
might think many of our rational companions as myriad-eyed as
naturalists tell us are some insects. Behold the wondrous transformation
undergone by those very looks and features that give the natural
language, as sentiments contrary to each other are successively
presented, and Republican or Democrat, Pro-Slavery man or Abolitionist,
walks up! In truth, a man at once kindly and ingenuous can hardly help
in most assemblies coming continually to grief. He knows not what to do,
to be at once frank and polite. The transverse beams of the cross on
which he is crucified are made of the sincerity and amiability which in
no company can he quite reconcile. Happy is he who has discovered
beneath all pleasant humors the unity at bottom of candor with goodness,
in an Apostle's clause, "speaking the truth in love"! No rare an