They have expurgated Shakespeare, they have
fought the theater, they are always ready for the moral battle. They
know what God wants better than anybody. In a sense they are hounds in
pursuit of a lot of things in the great hunt of life. They are a
stubborn lot. It will be hard to take away from them anything that is
their own, and also to keep them from destroying anything that they
don't want."
"Well, now don't you see," I asked, "that Douglas is against all these
people and that he has all these influences to fight? For example, these
Puritans cannot rule if popular sovereignty is adopted everywhere. They
are numerically too inferior. How, for example, can you stop the
railroads on Sunday if you let communities, states, control the matter?
But if these fanatics get into control of the Federal government, they
can do it. Don't you see the point? This is what Douglas is thinking
about. He knows that you can have freedom about life only where every
man has a say."
Then we began to talk of the religious revival. Periodicals were noting
the great turn of the public mind to religion. "Fruits of the spirit"
were extolled. Great and glorious works of divine grace were wrought in
Maine. A village in Massachusetts had enjoyed "a heavenly refreshing
from the presence of the Lord." In Cincinnati there was "an outpouring
of the spirit.
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