dgery!
Only long experiment could teach a doctrine contrary to the logical
presumption arising from weakness. There could be no doctrine of human
_rights_. It would be simply a doctrine of human _forces_. _Right_
would be a word as much out of place as among birds and beasts.
Authority would go with productive greatness, as gravity goes with
mass in matter. The whole chance of Right, and the whole theory of
Liberty, springs from that part of man that lies beyond this life.

As a material creature, man ranks among physical forces. Rights come
from his spiritual nature. The body is of the earth, and returns to
earth, and is judged by earthly measures. The soul is of God, and
returns to God, and is judged by Divine estimates. And this is the
reason why a free, unobstructed Bible always works toward human
rights. It is the only basis on which the poor, the ignorant, the
weak, the laboring masses can entrench against oppression.

What, then, is that theory of man which Christianity gives forth?

It regards man not as a perfect thing, put into life to blossom and
die, as a perfect flower doth. Man is a _seed_, and birth is
_planting_. He is in life for cultivation, not exhibition; he is here
chiefly to be _acted on_, not to be characteristically an agent. For,
though man is also an actor, he is yet more a recipient. Though he
produces effects, he receives a thousand fold more than he produces.
And he is to be estimated by his capacity of receiving, not of doing.
_He has his least value in what he can DO; it all lies in what he is
capable of having done TO him._ The eye, the ear, the tongue, the
nerve of touch, are all simple receivers. The understanding, the
affections, the moral sentiments, all, are primarily and
characteristically, recipients of influence; and only secondarily
agents. Now, how different is the value of ore, dead in its silent
waiting-places, from the wrought blade, the all but living engine, and
the carved and curious utensil!

Of how little value is a ship standing helpless on the stocks--but
half-built, and yet building--to one who has no knowledge of the
ocean, or of what that helpless hulk will become the moment she slides
into her element, and rises and falls upon the flood with joyous
greeting!

The value of an acorn is not what it is, but what it shall be when
nature has brooded it, and brought it up, and a hundred years have
sung through its branches and left their strength there!

He, then,