If ever hopes of seeing a perfect case of Primitive
Christian were well-founded, I think we may entertain them now."
What I chiefly object to in the general denunciation sort of reformers
is that they make no allowance for character and temperament. They wish
to repeal universal laws, and to patch our natural skins for us, as if
they always wanted mending. That while they talk so much of the godlike
nature of man, they should so forget the human natures of men! The
Flathead Indian squeezes the child's skull between two boards till it
shapes itself into a kind of gambrel-roof against the rain,--the
readiest way, perhaps, of uniforming a tribe that wear no clothes. But
does he alter the inside of the head? Not a hair's-breadth. You remember
the striking old gnomic poem that tells how Aaron, in a moment of
fanatical zeal against that member by which mankind are so readily led
into mischief, proposes a rhinotomic sacrifice to Moses? What is the
answer of the experienced lawgiver?
"Says Moses to Aaron,
''Tis the fashion to wear 'em!'"
Shall we advise the Tadpole to get his tail cut off, as a badge of the
reptile nature in him, and to achieve the higher sphere of the Croakers
at a single hop? Why, it is all he steers by; without it, he would be as
helpless as a compass under the flare of Northern Lights; and he no
doubt regards it as a mark of blood, the proof of his kinship with the
preadamite family of the Saurians.
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