Yeast: a Problem by Charles Kingsley
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page 8 of 369 (02%)
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maxims of the market, and leaving him full liberty to supplant his
brother by all methods lawful in that market. No longer can it embrace and explain all known facts of God and man, in heaven and earth, and satisfy utterly such minds and hearts as those of Cromwell's Ironsides, or the Scotch Covenanters, or even of a Newton and a Colonel Gardiner. Let it make the most of its Hedley Vicars and its Havelock, and sound its own trumpet as loudly as it can, in sounding theirs; for they are the last specimens of heroism which it is likely to beget--if indeed it did in any true sense beget them, and if their gallantry was really owing to their creed, and not to the simple fact of their being--like others--English gentlemen. Well may Jacob's chaplains cackle in delighted surprise over their noble memories, like geese who have unwittingly hatched a swan! But on Esau in general:--on poor rough Esau, who sails Jacob's ships, digs Jacob's mines, founds Jacob's colonies, pours out his blood for him in those wars which Jacob himself has stirred up-- while his sleek brother sits at home in his counting-house, enjoying at once 'the means of grace' and the produce of Esau's labour--on him Jacob's chaplains have less and less influence; for him they have less and less good news. He is afraid of them, and they of him; the two do not comprehend one another, sympathise with one another; they do not even understand one another's speech. The same social and moral gulf has opened between them, as parted the cultivated and wealthy Pharisee of Jerusalem from the rough fishers of the Galilaean Lake: and yet the Galilaean fishers (if we are to trust Josephus and the Gospels) were trusty, generous, affectionate- -and it was not from among the Pharisees, it is said, that the Apostles were chosen. |
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