which is entitled to grasp any other member's hand, by that vile
degradation wherein guilty error has buried all alike. The foul
fiend to whom it properly belongs must relieve us of our
loathsome task. Let the bond servants of sin pass on. But neither
man nor woman, in whom good predominates, will smile or sneer,
nor bid the Rogues' March be played, in derision of their array.
Feeling within their breasts a shuddering sympathy, which at
least gives token of the sin that might have been, they will
thank God for any place in the grand procession of human
existence, save among those most wretched ones. Many, however,
will be astonished at the fatal impulse that drags them
thitherward. Nothing is more remarkable than the various
deceptions by which guilt conceals itself from the perpetrator's
conscience, and oftenest, perhaps, by the splendor of its
garments. Statesmen, rulers, generals, and all men who act over
an extensive sphere, are most liable to be deluded in this way;
they commit wrong, devastation, and murder, on so grand a scale,
that it impresses them as speculative rather than actual; but in
our procession we find them linked in detestable conjunction with
the meanest criminals whose deeds have the vulgarity of petty
details. Here the effect of circumstance and accident is done
away, and a man finds his rank according to the spirit of his
crime, in whatever shape it may have been developed.

We have called the Evil; now let us call the Good. The trumpet's
brazen throat should pour heavenly music over the earth, and the
herald's voice go forth with the sweetness of an angel's accents,
as if to summon each upright man to his reward. But how is this?
Does none answer to the call? Not one: for the just, the pure,
the true, and an who might most worthily obey it, shrink sadly