Passages from an Old Volume of Life | Page 8

Let our brave dead come back from the fields
where they have fallen for law and liberty, and if you will follow them
to their graves, you will find out what the Broad Church means; the
narrow church is sparing of its exclusive formulae over the coffins
wrapped in the flag which the fallen heroes had defended! Very little
comparatively do we hear at such times of the dogmas on which men
differ; very much of the faith and trust in which all sincere Christians
can agree. It is a noble lesson, and nothing less noisy than the voice of
cannon can teach it so that it shall be heard over all the angry cries of
theological disputants.
Now, too, we have a chance to test the sagacity of our friends, and to
get at their principles of judgment. Perhaps most, of us, will agree that
our faith in domestic prophets has been diminished by the experience
of the last six months. We had the notable predictions attributed to the
Secretary of State, which so unpleasantly refused to fulfil themselves.
We were infested at one time with a set of ominous-looking seers, who
shook their heads and muttered obscurely about some mighty
preparations that were making to substitute the rule of the minority for
that of the majority. Organizations were darkly hinted at; some thought
our armories would be seized; and there are not wanting ancient women
in the neighboring University town who consider that the country was
saved by the intrepid band of students who stood guard, night after
night, over the G. R. cannon and the pile of balls in the Cambridge
Arsenal.
As a general rule, it is safe to say that the best prophecies are those

which the sages remember after the event prophesied of has come to
pass, and remind us that they have made long ago. Those who, are rash
enough to predict publicly beforehand commonly give us what they
hope, or what they fear, or some conclusion from an abstraction of their
own, or some guess founded on private information not half so good as
what everybody gets who reads the papers,--never by any possibility a
word that we can depend on, simply because there are cobwebs of
contingency between every to-day and to-morrow that no field-glass
can penetrate when fifty of them lie woven one over another. Prophesy
as much as you like, but always hedge. Say that you think the rebels are
weaker than is commonly supposed, but, on the other hand, that they
may prove to be even stronger than is anticipated. Say what you
like,--only don't be too peremptory and dogmatic; we know that wiser
men than you have been notoriously deceived in their predictions in
this very matter.
Ibis et redibis nunquam in bello peribis.
Let that be your model; and remember, on peril of your reputation as a
prophet, not to put a stop before or after the nunquam.
There are two or three facts connected with time, besides that already
referred to, which strike us very forcibly in their relation to the great
events passing around us. We spoke of the long period seeming to have
elapsed since this war began. The buds were then swelling which held
the leaves that are still green. It seems as old as Time himself. We
cannot fail to observe how the mind brings together the scenes of
to-day and those of the old Revolution. We shut up eighty years into
each other like the joints of a pocket- telescope. When the young men
from Middlesex dropped in Baltimore the other day, it seemed to bring
Lexington and the other Nineteenth of April close to us. War has
always been the mint in which the world's history has been coined, and
now every day or week or month has a new medal for us. It was
Warren that the first impression bore in the last great coinage; if it is
Ellsworth now, the new face hardly seems fresher than the old. All
battle-fields are alike in their main features. The young fellows who fell
in our earlier struggle seemed like old men to us until within these few

months; now we remember they were like these fiery youth we are
cheering as they go to the fight; it seems as if the grass of our bloody
hillside was crimsoned but yesterday, and the cannon-ball imbedded in
the church- tower would feel warm, if we laid our hand upon it.
Nay, in this our quickened life we feel that all the battles from earliest
time to our own day, where Right and Wrong have grappled, are but
one great battle, varied with brief pauses or hasty bivouacs upon the
field of conflict. The issues seem to vary, but it is always a right