see, that if the single man plant himself indomitably on his instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to him.  Patience,—­patience; with the shades of all the good and great for company; and for solace the perspective of your own infinite life; and for work the study and the communication of principles, the making those instincts prevalent, the conversion of the world.  Is it not the chief disgrace in the world, not to be an unit; not to be reckoned one character; not to yield that peculiar fruit which each man was created to bear, but to be reckoned in the gross, in the hundred, or the thousand, of the party, the section, to which we belong; and our opinion predicted geographically, as the north, or the south?  Not so, brothers and friends,—­please God, ours shall not be so.  We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds.  Then shall man be no longer a name for pity, for doubt, and for sensual indulgence.  The dread of man and the love of man shall be a wall of defense and a wreath of joy around all.  A nation of men will for the first time exist, because each believes himself inspired by the Divine Soul which also inspires all men.

COMPENSATION.[93]

    The wings of Time are black and white,
    Pied with morning and with night. 
    Mountain tall and ocean deep
    Trembling balance duly keep. 
    In changing moon, in tidal wave,
    Glows the feud of Want and Have. 
    Gauge of more and less through space
    Electric star and pencil plays. 
    The lonely Earth amid the balls
    That hurry through the eternal halls,
    A makeweight flying to the void,
    Supplemental asteroid,
    Or compensatory spark,
    Shoots across the neutral Dark.

    Man’s the elm, and Wealth the vine,
    Stanch and strong the tendrils twine;
    Through the frail ringlets thee deceive,
    None from its stock that vine can reave. 
    Fear not, then, thou child infirm,
    There’s no god dare wrong a worm. 
    Laurel crowns cleave to deserts,
    And power to him who power exerts;
    Hast not thy share?  On winged feet,
    Lo! it rushes thee to meet;
    And all that Nature made thy own,
    Floating in air or pent in stone,
    Will rive the hills and swim the sea,
    And, like thy shadow, follow thee.

Ever since I was a boy, I have wished to write a discourse on Compensation:  for it seemed to me when very young, that on this subject life was ahead of theology, and the people knew more than the preachers taught.  The documents,[94] too, from which the doctrine is to be drawn, charmed my fancy by their endless variety, and lay always before me, even in sleep; for they are the tools in our hands, the bread in our basket, the transactions of the street, the farm, and the dwelling-house, greetings, relations, debts and credits,