It was all speculation. When Socrates
walked the streets of Athens, and, questioning every-day life, struck
the altar till the faith of the passer-by faltered, it came close to
action; and immediately they gave him hemlock, for the city was turned
upside down. What the Pilgrims gave the world was not thought, but
action. Men, calling themselves thinkers, had been creeping along the
Mediterranean, from headland to headland, in their timidity; the
Pilgrims launched boldly out into the Atlantic and trusted God. That is
the claim they have upon posterity. It was action that made them what
they were.
FOOTNOTE:
[53] By permission of the publishers, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.
PRINCIPLES OF THE FOUNDERS[54]
EDWIN D. MEAD
The old Athenian life and our American life have much in common. The
resemblances between Greek character and ours are marked. Those little
Greek democracies were more like our great one than almost any
intervening states. They offer us more pertinent examples and warnings
than almost any other; and they are of peculiar value for us in this,
that their history is rounded and complete, and in it we can see the
various conflicting principles and tendencies working themselves out to
the end, and so learn the full lesson of their logic.
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