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For as with individuals, so with races, nations, societies, schools of thought youth is the time of free fancy and poetry; manhood of calm and strong induction; old age of deduction, when men settle down upon their lees, and content themselves with reaffirming and verifying the conclusions of their earlier years, and too often, alas! with denying and anathematising all conclusions which have been arrived at since their own meridian.

Rodomont treated this declaration of the old prophet with scorn, and it would probably have been held of little weight by the council, had not the aged king, oppressed by the weight of years, expired in the very act of reaffirming his prediction.

What we call the American Revolution was only the reaffirming of principles which were as precious in the eyes of most Englishmen as they were in the eyes of Washington, Hamilton, and Madison, but which had been for a time and owing to peculiar circumstances, neglected or contravened. Political development in this family of nations does not, he maintains, proceed by revolution, but by evolution.

Then after solemnly reaffirming the popular rights from which these abuses of the prerogative derogated, the declaration goes on to recite that, having an "entire confidence" William would "preserve them from the violation of the rights which they have here asserted, the Three Estates do resolve that William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, be and be declared king and queen: to hold the crown and royal dignity, to them the said Prince and Princess during their lives and the life of the survivor of them; and the sole and full exercise of the royal power be only in and exercised by the said Prince of Orange, in the names of the said Prince and Princess during their lives, and, after their deceases, the said crown and royal dignity of the said kingdoms and dominions to the heirs of the body of the said Princess; and, for default of such issue, to the Princess Anne of Denmark and the heirs of her body; and, for the default of such issue, to the issue of the said Prince of Orange."

Rodomont treated this declaration of the old prophet with scorn, and it would probably have been held of little weight by the council, had not the aged king, oppressed by the weight of years, expired in the very act of reaffirming his prediction.

For the Romans this was a means of reaffirming year by year the connexion of the nation with its spiritual leadership; accordingly, they chose the time when the sun in its yearly course restores 're-clinches' the union of the world-spirit with earthly nature, for the rebirth of the fire which throughout the rest of the year was carefully guarded against extinction.

And the answer is not yet." Here I embark on the shoreless sea of metrical parody, and I begin my cruise by reaffirming that in this department Rejected Addresses, though distinctly good for their time, have been left far behind by modern achievements. The sense of style seems to have grown acuter, and the art of reproducing it has been brought to absolute perfection.

Three thousand years ago, Buddha incarnated in the celebrated Prince Sakya-Muni, reaffirming and propagating the doctrines taught by him in his twenty preceding incarnations. Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Great Soul of the World incarnated anew in Gautama, laying the foundation of a new world in Burmah, Siam and different islands.

I shall always bless the memory of this poor, timid creature for saving that dear remembrance of "Matchless Mitchel." How many, like him, have thought they were preaching a new gospel, when they were only reaffirming the principles which underlie the Magna Charta of humanity, and are common to the noblest utterances of all the nobler creeds!

We must keep reaffirming decisions if they are to hold. Even in Eden there was the germ of a new threat to degrade Adam and Eve back to innocence. When they ate the apple an amoeba in a distant corner of the Garden shuddered and began the long and difficult process of evolution. To all practical purposes John S. Sumner was already born. To us the whole theory of censorship is immoral.