The whole tribe of professional agitators and miscalled reformers are men of one idea. That these men do good, sometimes directly and frequently indirectly, I do not deny; and it is equally evident that they do a great deal of harm, the worst of which, perhaps, falls upon themselves. Like the charge of a cannon, they do damage to an enemy's fortifications, but they burn up the powder there is in them, and lose the ball. Like blind old Samson, they may prostrate the pillars of a great wrong, but they crush themselves and the Philistines together. The greatest and truest reformer that ever lived was Jesus Christ; but ah! the difference between his broad aims, universal sympathies, and overflowing love, and the malignant spirit that moves those who angrily beat themselves to death against an instituted wrong! As an illustration, look at those who have been the prominent agitators of the slavery question in this country for the last twenty years. Are they men of charity? Are they Christian men? Is not invective the chosen and accustomed language of their lips? Do they not follow those against whom they have opposed themselves, whether for good cause or otherwise, into their graves with a fiendish lust of cruelty, and do they not delight to trample upon great names and sacred memories? Are they men whom we love? Do we feel attracted to their society? Teachers of toleration, are they not the most intolerant of all men living? Denouncers of bigotry, are they not the most fiercely bigoted of any men we know? Preachers of love and good will to men, do they not use more forcibly than any other class the power of words to wound and poison human sensibilities? It is not the quality of the idea which a man entertains that kills him. Freedom for every creature that bears God's image--the breaking of the rod of the oppressor and letting the oppressed go free--this is a good idea. It is so great, so broad, so full, so flowing, that a world of men might gather around it for a time as they do around Niagara, and grow divine in its majestic music and the vision of the wreath of light which heaven holds above it. If a man undertake to live upon a single idea, it really makes very little difference to him whether that idea be a good or a bad one. A man may as well get scurvy on beans as beef. I suppose a diet of potatoes would be quite as likely to support life comfortably as a diet of peaches. It is because the human soul cannot live upon one thing alone, but demands participation in every expression of the life of God, that it will dwarf and starve upon even the grandest and most divine idea.