Page:Munera pulveris.djvu/185

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
IV.—GOVERNMENT.
147

these again will issue naturally from true recognition of deserving, and the just reverence and just wrath which follow instinctively on such recognition.

121. I say, "follow," but, in reality, they are part of the recognition. Reverence is as instinctive as anger;—both of them instant on true vision: it is sight and understanding that we have to teach, and these are reverence. Make a man perceive worth, and in its reflection he sees his own relative unworth, and worships thereupon inevitably, not with stiff courtesy, but rejoicingly, passionately, and, best of all, restfully: for the inner capacity of awe and love is infinite in man; and only in finding these, can we find peace. And the common insolences and petulances of the people, and their talk of equality, are not irreverence in them in the least, but mere blindness, stupefaction, and fog in the brains,[1] the first sign of

    punishment of deep vice is hating and crushing, not merely hindering.]

  1. Compare Chaucer's "villany" (clownishness).

    Full foul and chorlishe seemed she,
    And eke villanous for to be,
    And little coulde of norture
    To worship any creature.