n, of
irresponsible authority. The despotic objectivity of Asia--where
religion is submissiveness, and manhood is crushed by obedience--has
been partially withstood in Europe. The emancipation therefrom of the
Indo-Germanic race is completed in Anglo-America. Through this
manifold emancipation we are to be, in all the high departments of
human achievement, preeminently creative, because, while equipped with
the best of the past, we are at the same time preeminently subjective;
and, therefore, high literature will, with us, necessarily take the
lyrical, and especially the dramatic, form.

More than our European ancestors, we mold, each one of us, our
own destiny; we have a stronger inward sense of power to unfold and
elevate ourselves; we are more ready and more capable to withstand the
assaults of circumstance. Here is more thoroughly embodied the true
Christian principle, that out of himself is to come every man's
redemption; that the favor and help of God are only to be obtained
through resolute self-help, and honest, earnest struggle. In
Christendom we stand alone as having above us neither the objectivity
of politics nor that of the church. The light of the past we have,
without its darkness. We carry little weight from the exacting past.
Hence, our unexampled freedom and ease of movement which, wanting the
old conventional ballast, to Europeans seems lawless and reckless.
Even among ourselves, many tremble for our future, because they have
little faith in humanity, and because they cannot grasp the new, grand
historic phenomenon of a people possessing all the principles,
practices, and trophies of civilization without its paralyzing
incumbrances.

But think not, because we are less passive to destiny, we are
rebellious against Deity; because we are boldly self-reliant, we are,
therefore, irreligiously defiant. The freer a people is, the
nearer it is to God. The more subjective it is, through acquired
self-rule, the more will it harmonize with the high objectivity of
absolute truth and justice. For having thrown off the capricious
secondary rule of man, we shall not be the less, but the more, under
the steadfast, primary rule of God; for having broken the force of
human, fallible prescription, we shall the more feel and acknowledge
the supremacy of flawless, divine law; for having rejected the tyranny
of man's willfulness, we shall submit the more fully to the beneficent
power of principle.

Our birth, growth,