These are the men who, in all ages, have built barriers against heaven, the cowards, the faithless, the unbelieving. They dare not trust truth because it is truth, and good because it is good, leaving consequences with Him whose special business it is to take care of consequences. No, it is not love for the lie, but want of faith in the truth, that blocks the chariot wheels of the golden year.
For men do not love the lie after all. There's comfort in that. They do not like being cheated. They never get quite used to it, as, they say, eels do to skinning. They sometimes turn on the man, or the system, that tries it on them, in a very terrible and savage manner, with fury as of a mad lion, and take swift, fearful vengeance. The big, dumb heart of humanity, in the long, run, can be trusted. It is often imposed upon, its blind trust shamefully abused. Scoundrels exist and prosper on its patience and credulity. But only for a time. There is a reckoning for all such deceptions, if need be, in blood and fire. The dull heart throbs, the dull eyes open, the great brain stirs in its sleep, and humanity, true to its origin, rises to crush the lie with its million arms of power. And earth-born Briareus, when his thousand hands turn to right his wrongs, is not delicate in their handling. The echoes of a French Revolution will ring for some generations yet.
The man who turns to combat error needs the assurance of the true instincts of his race, for he enters on a task that must seem hopeless often.
'Truth crushed to earth will rise again;'
so Mr. Bryant tells him, and he is much obliged to Mr. Bryant. But will not error do just the same? He killed a lie yesterday, and buried it decently. He finds it alive again and prosperous to-day. Cut a man's head off, and he dies. There's no help for it, unless he is a St. Denis, and then he can only take a walk with his head in his hand. But, if he is not a St. Denis, he dies. That is the law. Cut the head off a lie, it does not die at all. It rather seems to enjoy the operation. You will meet it, like fifty St. Denises, on every morning walk, during your lifetime. They have a marvellous vitality. I meet lies every day that, to my certain knowledge, were put to death a hundred years ago, by master hands at the business, too. They ought, in decency at least, to look like pale ghosts 'revisiting the glimpses of the moon,' but they don't. They are smug, comfortable, and somewhat portly, as from good, solid living.