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INTERVIEW WITH COBDEN.
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which it possesses by the right of primogeniture, and leaving it alive, that it may bleed to death by degrees, make itself one with the people, and yield its power without violence when its weakened hands can no longer manage it. Since the days of Jesus Christ, this simple method of propagating a doctrine by the mere use of speech, had not been put in practice. The Catholics who came after Christ continued preaching, it is true, but from time to time they burned their opponents, and the wars of religion have inundated the earth with blood. The principles of liberty had not till now gone forth from that sad soil, liberty and the guillotine, emancipation of the people and conquest. Cobden rehabilitated ancient preaching, the apostleship without the martyrdom. Some millions of pounds sterling, collected by subscription, supported that war of words for eight years. Nine million tracts did those batteries of logic and argument throw out in 1843, alone, and some two thousand meetings as sham-fights, and sixteen monster-meetings, field battles that threw into the shade by the brilliancy of their results the useless ones of Jena, Austerlitz, and Marengo, ended in delivering up the keys of the English parliament to Cobden, who dictated from that Kremlin to the aristocracy the capitulation which suffered it to remain with its baggage, ammunition, flags, and positions, provided it would let as much wheat enter England as the people needed for bread. With Cobden began a new era for the world; the word again made itself flesh, producing of itself alone the greatest effects, and henceforth when men wish to know if it is possible to destroy an abuse protected by power, defended by riches, rank, and corruption, when they ask if there is any hope of overthrowing such abuse by means of persevering efforts and sacrifices, the name of Cobden will be remembered, and the work will be undertaken.