Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/446

206 THE CRATER; to restrain the false reasoning and exaggerations of the demagogue and his deluded, or selfish followers. Nothing would be easier than to demonstrate that their notions of the rights of numbers was wrong, to demonstrate that were their theories carried out in practice, there could be, and would be nothing permanent or settled in human affairs ; yet not only did each lustrum, but each year, each month, each week, each hour, each minute demand its reform. Society must be periodically reduced to its elements, in order to redress grievances. The governor did not deny that men had, their, natural rigrrtsr at the very fflgnrem hf> insisted that these rights were just as much a portion of the minority as of the majority. He was perfe ctljTwilling that equal laws should prevail, as equal laws did prevail in the colony, though he was not disposed to throw every thing into confusion merely to satisfy a theory. For a long time, therefore, he opposed the designs of the new- school, and insisted on his vested rights, as established in the fundamental law, which had made him ruler for life. But " it is hard to kick against the pricks." Although the claim of the governor was in every sense connected with justice, perfectly sacred, it could not resist the throes of cupidity, selfishness, and envy. By this time, the news paper, that palladium of liberty, had worked the minds of the masses to a state in which the naked pretension of possessing rights that were not common to everybody else was. to the last degree, " tolerable and not to be endured." To such a height did the fever of liberty rise, that men assumed a right to quarrel with the private habits of the governor and his family, some pronouncing him proud be cause he did not neglect his teeth, as the majority did, eat when they ate, and otherwise presumed to be of different habits from those around him. Some even objected to him because he spat in his pocket-handkerchief, and did not blow his nose with his fingers. All this time, religion was running riot, as well as poli tics. The next-door neighbours fiated each other most sincerely, because they took different views of regenera tion, justification, predestination and all the other subtle ties of doctrine. What was remarkable, they who had the most clouded notions of such subjects were the loudest in