well that every other citizen is likely to be under an equal sacrifice.
Natural, individual liberty, without law, is only barbarism. Where every
man is free to do whatever his worst passions prompt, there is in fact no
freedom; there is tyranny; for the strong will subdue the weak, bone and
muscle will govern mind and conscience. In laws and governments men have
their best thoughts; human _law_ is likely to be better than human
nature. Men feel the need of restraint--are convinced of the necessity of
law. They therefore make laws in self-defence; if thereby they would _not_
restrain their own selfishness, they _would_ restrain the selfishness
of others; but that which is made a barrier to _one_ bad subject is
also a defence against all;--thus men do restrain themselves by their
defences against others. Thus it is that, with healthful convictions, men
may control diseased passion; with a right _ideal_ is intimately
joined a safe actuality; with good law, a comparatively good condition.
Even in the worst administration, and when the public mind is most
demoralized, there may remain the purity of law; the sublime thought.
If the mind finds itself sinking into lawlessness and disorganism, and
borne away by the pressure of evil, it can look upward, and, catching new
energy from the unquenched light--

"Spring into the realm of the ideal."

Our destiny is ideal. We are on our way to the Unseen. The ideal draws us
upward,--_real_ now, to the spirits of just men made perfect--to be real
to us when we are perfect--_once_ ideal to them, as now to us. We must
keep above us the model of life and of law which we have not yet attained.
Let it never be dim. It is a star shining through time's night! A banner
waving from the throne of God. It tells us of the goal. It points out our
futurity--the altitude of our virtue, our exaltation, our bliss.