previous next
“ [288] you, don't look back to see if there's a man standing on your level who cannot see it; walk forward and tell what God has told you.” Christianity does n't reside in metaphysics. You won't find it in some of the most brilliant articles of The Radical, or in the stern creed of Andover; but you will find it in the Peace Society, the Temperance organization, in prison discipline, in Antislavery, in Woman's Rights, in the eight-hour movement. Some may smile at that; but the man who recognizes the right of every laboring man, and shows that he knows he has a soul, is nearer Christianity than he who can discuss all the points of the Godhead,--live he either at Concord or any where else. But there is more real, essential Christianity at Concord than sleeps under a score of steeples.

[Mr. Phillips spoke of his recent argument before the legislative committee on the Labor Question, and said that while he endeavored to show that the working-men should have better opportunities to improve themselves physically, socially, morally, and spiritually, with the aid of more leisure, and thus secure a better civilization, the only consideration that could be expected to have weight with the committee was this: You must show that a man can do as much work in eight as he can in ten hours.]

In a recent speech before an audience of three thousand people in New York, I alluded to the governor's argument that alcohol was “food,” and had nutritive properties as well as beef. Without consulting authorities, if alcohol is food, and any one will prove to me that beef causes two thirds of the pauperism and crime in the community, then I demand the prohibition of beef. One half of my audience started at the fanaticism, and even the platform trembled at the audacity of such a claim. But Paul, the ever-blessed fanatic and agitator,

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

Sort places alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Concord (Massachusetts, United States) (2)

Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.

hide People (automatically extracted)
Sort people alphabetically, as they appear on the page, by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
Wendell Phillips (1)
Paul (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: