it would be very natural and proper
that they should exclude all questions which would introduce controversy,
and that, however individually interested in certain reforms, they should
not force them upon others who would consider them a bore. But a society
of professing Christians, united for the express purpose of carrying both
the theory and the practice of the New Testament into every household in
the land, has voluntarily subjected itself to a graver responsibility, and
renounced all title to fall back upon any reserved right of personal
comfort or convenience.

We say, then, that we are glad to see this division in the Tract Society,
--not glad because of the division, but because it has sprung from an
earnest effort to relieve the Society of a reproach which was not only
impairing its usefulness, but doing an injury to the cause of truth and
sincerity everywhere. We have no desire to impugn the motives of those who
consider themselves conservative members of the Society; we believe them
to be honest in their convictions, or their want of them; but we think
they have mistaken notions as to what conservatism is, and that they are
wrong in supposing it to consist in refusing to wipe away the film on
their spectacle-glasses which prevents their seeing the handwriting on the
wall, or in conserving reverently the barnacles on their ship's bottom and
the dry-rot in its knees. We yield to none of them in reverence for the
Past; it is there only that the imagination can find repose and seclusion;
there dwells that silent majority whose experience guides our action and
whose wisdom shapes our thought in spite of ourselves;--but it is not
length of days that can make evil reverend, nor persistence in
inconsistency that can give it the power or the claim of orderly
precedent. Wrong, though its title-deeds go back to the days of Sodom, is
by nature a thing of yesterday,--while the right, of which we became
conscious but an hour ago, is more ancient than the stars, and of the
essence of Heaven. If it were proposed to establish Slavery to-morrow,
should we have more patience with its patriarchal argument than with the
parallel claim of Mormonism? That Slavery is old is but its greater
condemnation; that we have tolerated it so long, the strongest plea for
our doing so no longer. There is one institution to which we owe our first
allegiance, one that is more sacred and venerable than any other,--the
soul and conscience of Man.