Whatever may have been the evils, the agitation has only come through men, not from them.
Henry Ward Beecher
The Public Record
Henry Ward Beecher was an American Congregationalist clergyman, social reformer, and speaker, known for his support of the abolition of slavery, his emphasis on God's love, and his 1875 adultery trial. His rhetorical focus on the love of Christ has influenced mainstream Christianity through the 21st century.
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Mariners might as well blame you for the swing and toss of their craft when tides troop in or march out of your harbor, as us, for heaving to that tide which God swells under us.
The conflict which is going on springs from causes as deep as the foundations of our institutions.
It will go on to a crisis; its settlement will be an era in the world's history, either of advance or of decline.
There have been, from the earliest period of the world, two different, and oppugnant, doctrines of man--his place, rights, duties and relations.
And the theory of man is always the starting point of all other theories, systems, and Governments which divide the world.
Outside of a Divine and Authoritative Revelation, men have had but one way of estimating the value of man.
They did not know enough of his origin, his nature, or his destiny, to bring these into account, in estimating man.
Accordingly they could do no better than to study him in his developments and rank him by the POWER which he manifested.
If the power of producing effects is the criterion of value, the few will always be the most valuable, and the mass relatively, subordinate, and the weak and lowest will be left helplessly worthless.
Right would be a word as much out of place as among birds and beasts.
If he must stand by what he is, how surely must he be given over to weakness, to abuse, to oppressions.