Hence he who undertakes to tread the thorny pathway of reform--who,
smitten with the love of truth and justice, or indignant in view of wrong
and insolent oppression, is rashly inclined to throw himself at once into
that great conflict which the Persian seer not untruly represented as a
war between light and darkness--would do well to count the cost in the
outset. If he can live for Truth alone, and, cut off from the general
sympathy, regard her service as its "own exceeding great reward;" if he
can bear to be counted a fanatic and crazy visionary; if, in all good
nature, he is ready to receive from the very objects of his solicitude
abuse and obloquy in return for disinterested and self-sacrificing
efforts for their welfare; if, with his purest motives misunderstood and
his best actions perverted and distorted into crimes, he can still hold
on his way and patiently abide the hour when "the whirligig of Time shall
bring about its revenges;" if, on the whole, he is prepared to be looked
upon as a sort of moral outlaw or social heretic, under good society's
interdict of food and fire; and if he is well assured that he can,
through all this, preserve his cheerfulness and faith in man,--let him
gird up his loins and go forward in God's name.
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