short of death. Accursed be he who sins in ignorance, if that
ignorance be caused by sloth.

We sicken no less at the pomp than the strife of words. We feel that
never were lungs so puffed with the wind of declamation, on moral and
religious subjects, as now. We are tempted to implore these
"word-heroes," these word-Catos, word-Christs, to beware of cant
[Footnote: Dr. Johnson's one piece of advice should be written on
every door: "Clear your mind of cant." But Byron, to whom it was so
acceptable, in clearing away the noxious vine, shook down the
building. Sterling's emendation is worthy of honor:

"Realize your cant, not cast it off."]

above all things; to remember that hypocrisy is the most hopeless as
well as the meanest of crimes, and that those must surely be polluted
by it, who do not reserve a part of their morality and religion for
private use. Landor says that he cannot have a great deal of mind who
cannot afford to let the larger part of it lie fallow; and what is true
of genius is not less so of virtue. The tongue is a valuable member,
but should appropriate but a small part of the vital juices that are
needful all over the body. We feel that the mind may "grow black and
rancid in the smoke" even "of altars." We start up from the harangue
to go into our closet and shut the door. There inquires the spirit,
"Is this rhetoric the bloom of healthy blood, or a false pigment
artfully laid on?" And yet again we know where is so much smoke, must
be some fire; with so much talk about virtue and freedom, must be
mingled some desire for them; that it cannot be in vain that such have
become the common topics of conversation among men, rather than schemes
for tyranny and plunder, that the very newspapers see it best to