When the press is gagged, liberty is besieged; but when the press assumes the liberty to lie, it discounts clemency, mocks morality, outrages humanity, breaks common law, gives impulse to violence, envy, and hate, and prolongs the reign of inordinate, unprincipled clans. At this period those quill-drivers, whose consciences are in their pockets, hold high carnival. The newsdealer shouts for class legislation; and decapitated reputations, headless trunks, and quivering hearts are held up before the rabble, in exchange for money, place, and power! The vox populi is suffocated, individual rights are trodden under foot, and the car of the modern Inquisition rolls along our streets besmeared with blood. Would not our Master say to the chief actors in scenes like these, "Oh ye fools and blind!" Oh tardy human justice, would you take away even woman's trembling faith in divine power? Who can roll away the stone from the door of this sepulchre? Who, but God's avenging angel!
In times like these it were well to lift the veil on the sackcloth of home, where weepeth the faithful but stricken mother, and the bruised father bendeth his aching head, where the bereft husband, silent and alone, gazes in dull despair at the vacant seat, and his motherless little ones, wondering, huddle together, and repeat with quivering lips words of strange import.
Father, we thank Thee that Thy light and Thy love reach earth, open the prison to them that are bound, console the innocent, and throw wide the gates of Heaven. The Springfield Union, which I have not read, is alleged to have published in substance this falsehood: "Mrs. Eddy habitually employs a physician in Boston, but is not willing to have his name known." I have neither called nor consulted a physician for myself for over twenty years, and have averaged, for the past twenty years, twelve hours' work per day, with only two weeks' vacation during this time. With few exceptions, when I have called on students to help bear the burdens laid on me,—even the burdens they themselves have imposed,—I have found my task increased, and my only remedy was to help those students, and seek my rest in God. It has reminded me of this Scripture: "They bind heavy burdens and grievious to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers."
