美国语文第六册 第198期:教育的必要性(4)（在线收听）

I would add, as a motive to immediate action, that if we do fail in our great experiment of self-government,

我还要补充一下，作为直接采取行动的动机，如果我们未能在自治上获得重要经验，

our destruction will be as signal as the birthright abandoned, the mercies abused, and the provocation offered to beneficent Heaven.

那么我们的失败将如同放弃生育权，滥施仁慈一样，成了向仁慈的上帝挑衅的标志。

The descent of desolation will correspond with the past elevation.

沦落到被遗弃是与过去的提升相一致的。

No punishments of Heaven are so severe as those for mercies abused;

对于滥施仁慈而言，没有什么比上帝的惩罚更严厉的了；

and no instrumentality employed in their infliction is so dreadful as the wrath of man.

在导致他们的原因中，没哪种施加的手段同人的愤怒一样骇人。

No spasms are like the spasms of expiring liberty, and no wailing such as her convulsions extort.

没有什么样的痉挛堪比濒临死亡的自由所产生的痉挛，没有哪种哀号堪比对国家灾变的曲解。

It took Rome three hundred years to die;

罗马帝国历经三百年的痛苦才寿终正寝；

and our death, if we perish, will be as much more terrific as our intelligence and free institutions have given us more bone, sinew, and vitality.

如果我们消亡的话，我们的死差不多与我们的智慧和自由的体制所给予我们的骨骼、肌肉和生命力的消亡一样可怕。

May God hide from me the day when the dying agonies of my country shall begin!

但愿上帝不让我看到，我的国家遭受的置她于死地的极大痛苦开始发作的那一天！

O thou beloved land, bound together by the ties of brotherhood, and common interest, and perils! live forever — one and undivided!

啊，你们深爱的这片土地，由同胞之爱这个纽带和共同利益将大家连在一起的这片土地，处于极大的危险之中！永远屹立不倒——一个整体永不分开！