Willard(1839-1898), 全名為 France Elizabeth Caroline Willard, 美國的慈善家和社會活動家. 本文是她 1890 年發表的演說. (商務出版名人演說一百篇 p.300)
I wish we were all more thorough students of the mighty past, for we should thus be rendered braver prophets of the future, and more cheerful workers in the present. History shows us with what tenacity the human race survives. Earthquake, famine, and pestilence have done their worst, but over them rolls a healing tide of years and they are lost to view; or sweeps the great procession, and hardly shows a scar. Rulers around whom clustered new forms of civilization pass away, but greater men succeed them. Nations are rooted up; great hopes seem blighted; revolutions rise and rivers run with the blood of patriots; the globe itself seems headed toward the abyss; new patriots are born; higher hopes bloom out like stars; humanity emerges from the dark ages vastly ahead of what it was on entering that cave of gloom, and ever the right comes uppermost; and now is Christ's kingcom nearer than when we first believed.
我希望我們對氣勢磅礡的過去歷史研究得更徹底, 這樣, 我們對未來就敢於作更美好的預言, 對當前的工作就更樂觀, 歡快. 歷史告訴我們, 人類有著何等堅韌的生存力量. 地震, 饑饉, 瘟疫可以肆虐一時, 但隨後流過的歲月又治癒一切的創傷, 使它們消失不見; 又或偉大的歷史進程橫掃大地, 把一切傷痕都抹去. 新形式的文明圍繞著顯赫的帝王建立起來, 這些帝王逝世後, 又有更偉大的人物興起. 有些民族被滅絕殆盡, 殷切的希望化為泡影; 革命一次又一次發生, 愛國志士血流成河; 地球好像就要掉入深淵; 然而新的愛國者又湧現出來, 更好的希望像繁星般閃現; 人類大步走出了黑暗時代, 比當初進入那陰森洞穴中時大大地進步了. 從此, 公理成為至高無上. 現在, 基督的國比我們最初預期的更為臨近了.
Only those who have not studied history lose heart in great reforms; only those unread in the biography of genius imagine themselves to be original. Except in the realm of material invention, there is nothing new under the sun. There is no reform which some great soul has not dreamed of centuries ago; there is not a doctrine that some father of the church did not set forth. The Greek philosophers and early Christian Fathers boxed the compass once for all; we may take our choice of what they have left on record. Let us then learn a wise humility, but at the same time a humble wisdom, as we remember that there are but two classes of men - one which declares that our times are the worst the world has seen, and another which claims our times as best - and he who claims this, all revelation, all science, all history, witnesses is right and will be right forevermore.
只有那些不懂歷史的人在巨大的變革中灰心喪氣, 只有那些不讀天才人物傳記的人會自以為是首創者. 除了物質領域裏的發明之外, 太陽底下沒有什麼新鮮事. 沒有一種改革不是早在幾個世紀以前就有偉大的心靈憧憬過, 沒有哪一種教義不是某位神父早就訂立過的. 希臘哲學家和早期的神父早己一勞永逸地為後人指明了方向, 我們盡可以在他們留下的記載中去任意挑選. (這點我不太贊同, 江山代有才人出, 雖然很多時候會是中外古人和今人英雄所見略同, 但也有很多時候, 確是創見創舉. 太陽底下沒有新鮮事, 但對我們這些活在現在的人來說卻是很新鮮的) 因此, 讓我們學會明智的謙虛, 也同時學會謙虛的智慧. 讓我們記住, 世上只有兩類人: 一類人宣稱我們的時代是這世界歷來最壞的時代, 另一類人卻認為這是最好的時代. 一切新發明, 一切科學和全部歷史都證明了持後一種意見人是正確的, 而且永遠, 永遠正確.
The most normal and the most perfect human being is the one who most thoroghly addresses himself to the activity of his best powers, gives himself most thoroughly to the world around him, flings himself out into the midst of humanity, and is so preoccupied by his own beneficent reaction on the world that he is practically unconscious of a separate existence......
最正常, 最完美的人就是徹底獻身於自己最擅長的活動的人, 是那徹底投身周圍世界和眾人當中去的人. 他完全專心致志於他對世界的善行, 以致幾乎意識不到自己與世界還有什麼距離......
(世界總是有希望的. 我們或許會倒下, 但我們不會是最後的, 總會有人接手守護.)
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