Wrong Rules the Land, and Waiting Justice Sleeps

Image from Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub

MEN

God give us men! A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office can not buy;
Men who possess opinion and a will;
MEN WHO HAVE HONOR — MEN WHO WILL NOT LIE;
Men who can stand before a demagogue,
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking –
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, Lo! FREEDOM weeps,
Wrong rules the land, and waiting JUSTICE sleeps.

Richland County Observer (Richland Center, Wisconsin) Apr 1, 1856

Did Mohammed Believe in Himself?

Image from Zombietime

Did Mohammed Believe in Himself?

However strange it may appear, the heavenly origin of his revelations, obtained though they were from fallible and imperfect sources, appears to have been believed by Mohammed himself.

It would be against the analogy of his entire life, to suppose a continuing sense of fraud — a consciousness that the whole was a fabrication of his own mind, an imposition upon his followers, an impious assumption of the name of the Almighty. Occasional doubts and misgivings, especially when he first submitted to Jewish promting, there may have been; but a process similar to that by which he first assured himself of his own inspiration, quickly put them to flight. The absence of spiritual light and of opportunities for obtaining it which excused this marvelous self-deception in the early prophetical life of Mohammed, cannot be pleaded for his later years. Ignorance was no longer then involuntary. The means of reaching a truer knowledge lay plentifully within his reach. But they were not heeded; or rather they were deliberately rejected, because a position had been already taken up from which there could be no receding without discredit or inconsistency.

The living inspiration of God vouch-safed to himself was surely better and more safe than the recorded revelations of former prophets; it was at any rate more incomparable more authoritative than the uncertain doctrines deduced from them by their erring adherents. Thus did ignorance become wilful. Light was at hand; but Mohammed preferred darkness. He chose to walk “in the glimmerings of his own fire, and in the sparks which he had kindled.” — Muir’s Life of Mohammed.

Richland County Observer (Richland Center, Wisconsin) Jun 29, 1858

The Song of the Dollar

Image from Coinancials

THE SONG OF A DOLLAR.

I’m sovereign of the sea and land,
The haughty world I sway;
Kings, sages, beauty, grasp my hand,
Though, like themselves, but clay;
‘Tis not myself, I know, they prize,
So much as what I span,
The tide of commerce — woman’s eyes –
The carnal heart of man.

Go to the throne, and ask the crown
From whence its lustre came;
The muted saint, his jeweled gown –
The outcast in his shame;
The libertine, his victims, deeds,
The miser in his cell!
They’ll shout above the peal of creeds –
The Mighty Dollar’s spell!

Aye, go where all is might and pride,
Oppression, crime and wrong;
Thou it find me but a peerless bride,
Midst splendor, joy and song.
The trophies of the field and sea,
Sweet voices, sounding lyres,
A world of painted misery,
Heaved from ten thousand fires.

In every place where selfish mirth
O’er truth and virtue rolls,
Hell’s equipage, and where have birth
Pride’s ignominious souls;
An Idol worshipped ever, and
Shall undisputed be
The God adored, whilst mammon’s hand
Chains down humanity.

Then in my glory, demons, raise
Your requiem, and well
The tumultuous tide of jolly praise,
Throughout the realms of hell!
Leave heavenly visions — hope and love –
My slaves, the poor, and drown
The widows, orphan’s wail, with pearls,
The jingle of the crown.

Richland County Observer (Richland Center, Wisconsin) May 13, 1856