Little Atoms of Justice
In human affairs, the
justice of God must work by human means. Men are the measures of God’s
principles; our morality the instrument of His justice, which stilleth alike
the waves of the sea, the tumult of the people, and the oppressor’s brutal
strength. Justice is the idea of God, the ideal of man, the rule of conduct
writ in the nature of mankind. The ideal must become actual; God’s thought a
human thing, made real in a reign of righteousness, and a kingdom—no, a
commonwealth—of justice on the earth. You and I can help forward that work. God
will not disdain to use our powers, our self-denial, and the little atoms of
justice that personally belong to us, to establish his mighty work—the
development of mankind.
—
Theodore
Parker (1810-1860)
Our Infectious Moods Hinder Others
A vexation arises, and
our expressions of impatience hinder others from taking it patiently.
Disappointment, ailment, or even weather depresses us; and our look or tone
depression hinders others from maintaining a cheerful and thankful spirit. We
say an unkind thing, and another is hindered in learning the holy lesson of
charity that thinketh no evil. We say a provoking thing, and our sister or
brother is hindered in that day’s effort to be meek, How sadly, too, we may
hinder without word or act! For wrong feeling is more infectious than wrong
doing; especially the various phases of ill temper,—gloominess, touchiness,
discontent, irritability,—do we not know how catching these are?
— Frances
Ridley Havergal (1836-1879)
The Limits of Tyrants
The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all
concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle.
... If there is no struggle, there is
no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation,
are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without
thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many
waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one;
or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It
never did and it never will. Find out just what a people will submit to, and
you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be
imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with
either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by
the endurance of those whom they oppress.
— Frederick Douglass (died February 20,
1895)
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| Frederick Douglass (c. 1818-1895) |
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