A new heaven and new earth, so it seemed, was to be created by this virile young generation who had rid themselves of the useless lumber of the past. The period was one of universal emotion, exhibiting itself in every form: in iconoclastic rages against wrong--rages that could only be exhausted by the destruction of all the customs, laws, and religions that had bound the western world for two thousand years; it showed itself in sanguinary furies against oppression--furies which could be satiated only by seas of blood; in floods of sympathy for the weak that ofttimes swept away both strong and weak in one general ruin. It was displayed in convulsions of philanthropy so violent that a man might not refuse the offered brotherhood and kindness save at the price of his life. The cold dictates of the head were ignored. The heart was the only guide. Is it any wonder that driven by the wind of feeling and with the rudder thrown overboard the ship pursued an erratic and contradictory course. Seen in this way one is no longer surprised at the lack of consistency of the _Declaration des Droits de l'Homme_, that declared "All men are born and continue free and equal in rights"--that "Society is an association of men to preserve the rights of man"--that "freedom of speech is one of the most precious rights," and yet that France, crying aloud these fine phrases, slaughtered even the most silent and humble who were supposed to maintain secret thoughts opposed to the opinions of the majority. It is no longer astonishing to read the generous sentiments of our own Declaration and to remember the persecutions, confiscations, and burnings that drove thirty thousand of those not in sympathy with the Revolution over the borders of the New England States into Canada, and hunted a multitude from the South into Spanish Louisiana. One is no longer amazed to hear de Tocqueville declare that in no place had he found so little independence of thought as in this country during the early years of the Republic. By liberty--his adored liberty--the revolutionary sentimentalist meant only liberty to think as he himself did, and the whole history of man records that there is nothing crueller than a tender heart ungoverned by a cooler head. It is in this same spirit that the inquisitor, yearning in noble anguish over souls, burns the recalcitrant. It is plain to him that such as are so gross and vicious as to refuse to fall in with his admirable intentions for their eternal welfare can be worthy of nothing gentler than fire.