th the
public interest, with public affairs. We cannot--no man can separate
himself and stand apart, and insist upon being ignorant and indifferent.
It lies within our own will to say, whether we will meet and endeavor to
answer the claims which the welfare of the whole has upon us, whether we
will take a lively interest in the public interest; but it is not a
matter of our own will whether we shall suffer or not. We may choose
whether or not we will act; but the consequences, and they may be most
deadly,--the consequences of our action or our no-action we cannot
escape. They may fall upon us with a crushing power at our very
firesides, and ruin our private and domestic peace for ever. So long as
we live in society, and build our houses near our neighbors, we may or
may not take an interest in the public provision which is made against
fire, but we cannot avoid the danger and the consequences of a
conflagration. Because a man keeps himself retired, never reading, never
thinking about what is going on on the public theatre of the world, he
has no security against being shot down like a dog in the streets, as
the case of those unfortunate citizens of Paris shows.

Certainly then, since we are liable to suffer from public affairs taking
a wrong direction, whether we take an interest in them or not, it is
worth our while to suffer for a cause. There is small comfort in
incurring danger and in losing one's life for nothing. If we must
suffer, when public events go wrong, it is best by far to suffer for
something. For in times of universal alarm and disorder, when property
and life are put in peril, they suffer the least, though they lose
everything, who are inspired by the conviction that they have tried to
be faithful and to do their duty. They have a life in them which bullets
and bayonets and cannon-balls cannot reach. When men perish for a cause
to which they were utterly indifferent, for which they cared nothing, of
which they knew nothing, then they perish as the brutes perish. Then
death comes to them as a fatal accident; and the only moral that can be
drawn from their fate, is that it is folly for men to think to live unto
themselves. No glory shines from their graves; no renown immortalizes
their memories. But when men suffer and die for a cause, into which they
have thrown their whole souls, when they perish for a principle, then
their death is noble, and they do not die like the brutes, but like men.
Then they are