Yes, it was true. Society had not given me my rights. And woe unto the man on whom that idea, true or false, rises lurid, filling all his thoughts with stifling glare, as of the pit itself. Be it true, be it false, it is equally a woe to believe it; to have to live on a negation; to have to worship for our only idea, as hundreds of thousands of us have this day, the hatred of the things which are. Ay, though one of us here and there may die in faith, in sight of the promised land, yet is it not hard, when looking from the top of Pisgah into "the good time coming," to watch the years slipping away one by one, and death crawling nearer and nearer, and the people wearying themselves in the fire for very vanity, and Jordan not yet passed, the promised land not yet entered? While our little children die around us, like lambs beneath the knife, of cholera and typhus and consumption, and all the diseases which the good time can and will prevent; which, as science has proved, and you the rich confess, might be prevented at once, if you dared to bring in one bold and comprehensive measure, and not sacrifice yearly the lives of thousands to the idol of vested interests, and a majority in the House. Is it not hard to men who smart beneath such things to help crying aloud--"Thou cursed Moloch-Mammon, take my life if thou wilt; let me die in the wilderness, for I have deserved it; but these little ones in mines and factories, in typhus cellars and Tooting pandemoniums, what have they done? If not in their fathers' cause, yet still in theirs, were it so great a sin to die upon a barricade?" BOOK V _Revolt_ The struggle to do away with injustice; the battle-cries of the new army which is gathering for the deliverance of humanity. A Man's a Man for a' That BY ROBERT BURNS (Scotland's most popular poet, 1759-1796) Is there, for honest poverty, That hangs his head, and a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by, We daur be puir, for a' that! For a' that, and a' that, Our toils obscure and a' that, The rank is but the guinea's stamp-- The man's the gowd for a' that. What though on hamely fare we dine, Wear hoddin-grey and a' that; Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine-- A man's a man for a' that. For a' that, and a' that, Their tinsel show and a' that, The honest man, though e'er sae puir, Is king o' men for a' that. Ye see yon birkie, ca'ed a lord, Wha struts, and stares, and a' that; Though hundreds worship at his word, He's but a coof for a' that: For a' that, and a' that, His riband, star, and a' that; The man of independent mind, He looks and laughs at a' that.