them deeper in it, in order that they may perpetuate their slavery to themselves,—and to destroy any one who should venture to enlighten or improve them. No attempt at amelioration can anywhere be made without rousing up from slumber a host of selfish interests, and exciting them to war against it; without uniting together the most varied and opposite opinions in a common hostility. The good cause is ever the weaker, for it is simple, and can be loved for itself alone; the bad attracts each individual by the promise which is most seductive to him; and its adherents, always at war among themselves, so soon as the good makes its appearance, conclude a truce, that they may unite the whole powers of their wickedness against it. Scarcely, indeed, is such an opposition needed, for even the good themselves are but too often divided by misunderstanding, error, distrust, and secret self-love; and that so much the more violently, the more earnestly each strives to propagate that which he recognises as best, and thus dissipates by internal discord a power, which, even when united, could scarcely hold the balance with evil. One blames the other for rushing onwards with stormy impatience to his object, without waiting until the good result shall have been prepared; whilst the other blames him that, through hesitation and cowardice, he accomplishes nothing, but allows things to remain as they are, contrary to his better conviction; and that for him the hour of action never arrives:—and only the Omniscient can determine whether either of the parties in the dispute is in the right. Every one regards the undertaking, the necessity of which is most apparent to him, and in the prosecution of which he has acquired the greatest skill, as the most important
