‘No,’ piped the party of reform,
’All great results are ta’en by storm;
Fate holds her best gifts till we show
We’ve strength to make her let them go;
The Providence that works in history,
And seems to some folks such a mystery,
Does not creep slowly on incog.,
But moves by jumps, a mighty frog;
No more reject the Age’s chrism,
Your queues are an anachronism;
No more the Future’s promise mock,
But lay your tails upon the block,
Thankful that we the means have voted
To have you thus to frogs promoted.’

The thing was done, the tails were cropped. 
And home each philotadpole hopped,
In faith rewarded to exult,
And wait the beautiful result. 
Too soon it came; our pool, so long
The theme of patriot bull-frog’s song,
Next day was reeking, fit to smother,
With heads and tails that missed each other,—­
Here snoutless tails, there tailless snouts;
The only gainers were the pouts.

MORAL

From lower to the higher next,
Not to the top, is Nature’s text;
And embryo Good, to reach full stature,
Absorbs the Evil in its nature.

I think that nothing will ever give permanent peace and security to this continent but the extirpation of Slavery therefrom, and that the occasion is nigh; but I would do nothing hastily or vindictively, nor presume to jog the elbow of Providence.  No desperate measures for me till we are sure that all others are hopeless,—­flectere si nequeo SUPEROS, Acheronta movebo.  To make Emancipation a reform instead of a revolution is worth a little patience, that we may have the Border States first, and then the non-slaveholders of the Cotton States, with us in principle,—­a consummation that seems to be nearer than many imagine. Fiat justitia, ruat coelum, is not to be taken in a literal sense by statesmen, whose problem is to get justice done with as little jar as possible to existing order, which has at least so much of heaven in it that it is not chaos.  Our first duty toward our enslaved brother is to educate him, whether he be white or black.  The first need of the free black is to elevate himself according to the standard of this material generation.  So soon as the Ethiopian goes in his chariot, he will find not only Apostles, but Chief Priests and Scribes and Pharisees willing to ride with him.

  ’Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se
  Quam quod ridiculos homines facit.’

I rejoice in the President’s late Message, which at last proclaims the
Government on the side of freedom, justice, and sound policy.