Chapter 18

are all getting our farms, while our own folk seem to think that a precarious existence as a rich man's slave in the city, is a more sensible thing than to take advantage of opportunities for which the people of other worlds tear out their heart-strings, leave native climate, language, habits, government, everything, and hurry hitherward. For shame upon ourselves!

My lord rides through his palace gate; My lady sweeps along in state; The sage thinks long on many a thing And the maiden muses on marrying; The minstrel harpeth merrily, The sailor plows the foaming sea, The huntsman kills the good red deer, And the soldier wars without a fear; _Nevertheless, whate'er befall_, _The farmer he must feed them all_.

TEMPERANCE

O thou invisible spirit of wine; if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee--devil.--Shakspeare.

Society has much to attend to. The whole wonderful mechanism by which those citizens who now do measurably right, can have blessings far beyond the totals of luxuries enjoyed by Kings a few centuries ago--this whole mechanism, I think, has been perfected by one law, the self-interest of the class wielding the force necessary to compel the change desired. To-day, among the evils which we suffer,--not as results of the new civilization, but as vestiges of the old barbarism,--is the abuse of stimulants. The effects of this abuse are, perhaps, next to atrocious crime, the most discouraging which menace the march of progress, and

EVEN THE ANNALS OF ATROCIOUS CRIME

so closely link the curse of strong drink with deeds of violence as to totally extinguish the mark of difference in the minds of many good men. Society as to-day organized, commits the keeping of a woman to the hands of a man, who in turn, is legally free to condemn her to the horrors of companionship with a man (that man being himself) bereft periodically or continuously of his moral motives of conduct. He is entitled by law to return to his wretched home with murder in his heart, and to vent upon a woman from whom he fears no defense, the anger which

IT WOULD BE UNSAFE TO MANIFEST

toward the person who may have originally inspired the passion. The point at which this cruelty becomes practically illegal is that limit which the wife puts to her own endurance, which in turn, is generally gauged not by her own powers, but by the personal safety of her children. So long as her own life seems to be alone in jeopardy, she waits to be killed--as in the notable case at Minneapolis, Minn.,--and Society permits itself to be called in simply to attend the funeral of the murdered woman, who, however, is often buried as a victim of some hypothetical disease, invented to take the blame off the prevailing order of things. Now while this is

ENTIRELY HORRIBLE IN THE ABSTRACT,

the abstract is notoriously a false way of getting the general drift of things. The abstract philosopher, the moment he is charged with the practical conduct of an affair, as a general rule, fails ignominiously, even in his own opinion. With regard to drunkenness, for instance, let us ask ourselves: "Is drunkenness less prevalent now than in olden times?" Yes. "Is the condition of the woman better, in addition to the improved habits of the man?" Yes. Therefore, it is evident Society,

THE GRAND MACHINE

(let us never say "Society" when we mean spike-tailed coats), has an eye on the scourge of Rum, and will eventually stamp it out. "But why," asks the Impracticable, "does not Society stamp it out at once?" "Why does not the sun shine twenty-four hours in America on the Fourth of July?" Simply because America is not the whole world. Neither is the subject of the murder of wives and the degradation of offspring the whole affair with which Society deals.

THE FIRST GREAT DUTY OF SOCIETY

is to feed and clothe her individuals. This burden is just beginning to sit on her shoulders without galling weight. The next effort is to protect the more industrious against the forays of the wicked and the mistakes of the unwise. This is the problem with which the past century has had most to deal. It is an immeasurably greater question than is that of drunkenness, and it is immeasurably far from solution. For instance, a foolish statesman can to-day plunge fifty millions of people into

WAR

--a thing represented among words by three letters, but which among events entirely fails to find complete expression, from the lack of any other misfortune worthy of comparison. An angry statesman, acting like a boy, may stop, not a game of marbles, but ten thousand grain-laden ships. But, notwithstanding, as an attendant in the betterment of her condition, Society is advancing rightly toward the rum-bottle. She does not hearken always to the voice of

THE PROFESSIONAL TEMPERANCE "WORKER"

because a betterment in Society is naturally and rightly the result of self-interest. The man who spends his time altogether in the bettering of others does not establish reforms on the surest basis. Society usually has to do his work after him, with considerable delay and additional cost. He is all right in the abstract, but he delays matters. What I would illustrate is this: The place for the reformer to deal with drink on a fair battle field is in the city. The place where the professional reformer finds it profitable to go is in the country, where the youth wear

THE BADGE OF TEMPERANCE

in their cheeks--not in the button-hole of their coats. In the country, surrounded by circles of persons as free from stimulants or the need of them as is their snow from the smut of soft-coal, they swear eternal "conversion" to the views of a man--usually a former victim of intoxication,--often a subsequent wallower in his same old gutters. Society sometimes looks upon this Peter the Hermit with little pleasure. The excitements, the passions and the commotions which he sometimes foments are pitiable from the very fact that

NO RUM CAN BE BLAMED

as having fired the unhappy brains that rush into the vortex of public confusion, like ships into the whirlpool. All the practical laws would be passed (and at a date earlier than that at which the public finally accept them in reality) without the sacrifices of the man who proudly calls himself a "horrible example" of the power of strong drink. How does Society do it? I am sure I do not know. All I know is this:

ON THE REAL BATTLE-GROUND,

in the city, where stimulant is often needed--whisky, iron, quinine, coffee, tobacco, opium, or tea--the men who waste the most nerve-tissue are more rigidly required to abstain from the abuse of stimulants than was the case fifteen years ago. To put it plainer, fifteen years ago, a smart man would be employed on a newspaper to "write" or "report". If he were brilliant, he was entitled almost by custom to "go on the war-path" once a week--that is, to be drunk that often, and to be totally unable or unwilling to do the current day's work.

NOW-A-DAYS,

if a man in the same position were to get drunk once a year he would be superseded. No matter how brilliant he may be, the drunkard at once sinks to the bottom. The "fat jobs" are filled by men as steady as clock-work. How has Society done this wonderful thing? Hard to tell. She has constantly tempted the steady man. In fact, she inclines to treat him a shade the better if he can drink some stimulant each day without unbalancing himself--some alcohol, some coffee or some tea--but

WOE TO HIM

if he transgress her limits. In the country it is asked "Does he drink?" In the city it is asked "Does he get drunk?" The two methods are essentially the results of two conditions. The mistake of the one locality is to apply its own preliminary to the other. Now, again, to this frightful question of woman-torture: Society knows all about woman. It knows that the wife must be the arbiter of her own sufferings. Her brother, being less wise than Society, separates the wife from

THE OCCASIONAL BRUTE

who married her, takes her ills and her children to his house, kicks the brute on the street, and, for all his pains, is eventually either assassinated by the wretch or anathematized by the wife. Having made matters much worse (by unanimous opinion), he abandons his reform, and then, with his valuable experience, joins Society and becomes a wave in the tide of events, instead of a presumptuous pebble rolling in small opposition on the beach of time. How will Society approach the wife-beater? Nobody knows. Probably she will exterminate the breed. The woman, like the newspaper proprietor, will at last awake. The man who gets drunk will not gain her affections--above all, he will not keep them. The "old soak" will be wifeless. Monsters will cease to propagate their species. When once the strong hand of Bread-and-Butter gets hold of Whisky, then whisky will be as useful for good as it now is powerful in evil. Society however deals with the affections cautiously, and wisely, because her experience is inconceivably great.

TRY PLAYING ON HEARTSTRINGS YOURSELF

to hear the music you make! Let us then pray for the day when the "drop too much" with the bottle will be as nefarious as a cut too much with the razor or a blaze too much with the torch.

A GOOD NAME.

Virtue maketh men on the earth famous, in their graves illustrious, in the heavens immortal.--Chilo.

Perhaps there is no man so well known and yet so little thought about in any one community as he who, in the universal opinion, bears a good name. Upon his brow he wears the modern laurel, the highest emblem of his worth, yet the simplest tribute of his fellow citizens.

There are certain exigencies in the histories of all groups of people when the ordinary machinery of life will not operate. The citizens require the utmost letter of the bond; they look with suspicion on all who have usually given satisfaction by their services. A great man is needed. It is then that the people, with one voice, cry out for succor from him of of whom, in days of greater prosperity, they had no imploring need; and it is then astonishing to what a degree the voice of the people at once becomes the voice of God.

A bank which, owing to its high-sounding title, had attracted the savings of the people, fell into the hands of a clique of scoundrels and was compelled to suddenly suspend, the President flying to a distant land to escape the penalties of his crimes. When thirteen thousand depositors were thus confronted with total or partial ruin, there was but one man in a great city whom they would trust to enter the desecrated temple of their hopes and set to rights the treasure yet unstolen. This man came

LIKE CINCINNATUS FROM HIS FARM--

like a father to his children--and from the hearts of plundered widows and orphans there breathed relief in every sigh. In peaceful times this great man was seldom heard of; rogues could be elected over him to places of usual trust; but, in a crisis, his whole biography seemed embossed upon the people's hearts, rising forth like muscles in an agony.

Again a city--itself an exhalation, rising like Milton's hall of Pandemonium--perished in a night. Where, in one week, there had been one hundred "leading candidates" for Mayor, in the next week there was none so rash as to offer himself. A stricken city--the pity of a Christlike world--cast its eyes upon one citizen; and he, as an act of supreme duty, took the perilous post of helmsman through a storm that unsettled the deeps of credit and prosperity all over the earth.

In each of these illustrations party politics played no part. Tall masts were needed for the great ships, and these two men, like red wood patriarchs, touched hard against the zenith of the people's vision. Admirable tributes! Magnificent rewards of life-times of virtue and high character!

THE SILENT GROWTH OF REPUTATION.

How does a man become so great that malice and envy and utter hatred cannot by their constant stings infect his blood? How can a man silently amass a capital of virtuous renown which, when the clear vision of adversity is given to the people, will show with unerring certainty his assets and liabilities of character? It is hard to say. Accidents and circumstances so surround us all that we are the clay, baked either in fair moulds or foul. When the mould is made we have the least judgment; yet when the clay is baked we must abide.

Josh Billings has said that, "after the age of forty, a man cannot form new habits; the best he can do is to learn to steer the old ones." Yoke, therefore, the ox you call Firmness with the one you call Contentment. When you come to drive them down the road the neighbors may laugh at the hawing and jeeing, and jee-hawing, but keep on until you break your oxen in. No man ever got so he could handle that team but had

A HIGH STANDING ON THE ROAD OF LIFE.

Never discuss other folks' affairs except with the common-sense view of doing the folks good. Never start out to do a thing which is impossible of execution. Never start back after you have started out. Never pay the slightest attention to the criticism of persons who are trying to do what you are trying to do. When he who has ever done you a kindness gets angry and addresses you angrily, ponder on every word he says. Pearls then drop from his mouth. Live in no great regard of the passing fashion; it may be a very foolish one, and people who are foolish have a surprising power of perception in pointing to folly in others. Owe no man other than your good office. Have no pride above your fellow mortal; he is essentially like you.

THE BAG OF THINGS

in which ye are alike (if each thing were a grain of wheat) would freight a ship; the things in which you are better than he could be put into your vest-pocket. Gold does not tarnish, and good names do not soil easily, though herein custom has something to do with the affair. "The soul's calm sunshine" however, should spread abroad. It often reflects hidden beauty in other faces. "Be just, and fear not." You may stand apparently without honor when you have it most. If you are the man of good name in your community, you are on the high hill where your people will gather in time of need, as did the ancients to the rocky acropolis.

WORSHIP.

Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, He wales a portion with judicious care; And "Let us worship God," he says, with solemn air.--Burns.

The good and holy custom of family prayers is, I fear, dropping into disuse. Our lives are so full of business that a season of God's service in the morning and in the evening is almost thought to be an excuse of sloth. But what a sad effect do we see on our youth! They have quick eyes for cant and hypocrisy. They follow us to church on Sunday less and less willingly, until finally there is rebellion in their hearts and irreligion in their souls. Family worship is a fount of piety pure enough for even the young, who are pure themselves. Into its depths they look and see only a chastity of spirit reflected. The machinery and the ambition that adulterate the true faith at the church have not had their birth at the fireside of a good man. At that fireside the child grows up religious, because he loves religion. It is kind and good to him. His shrine is at home. And where can we ever build

SO HOLY AN ALTAR

as at that sweet spot where life has come in upon us, and love been wrapped around us! Burns sees the humble cotter finish his family service in the presence of his little ones, and then, to show a further duteous regard for the souls intrusted to his care, kneel again with the wife:

The parent-pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, That he who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride. Would in the way his wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide; But chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside.

"From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs," sings the sweet poet, and this very poem has touched a chord in the hearts of all humanity, in every clime, and nearly every tongue, that has almost doubled that Scotia's fame. "A house without family worship," says Mason, "has neither foundation nor covering." "Measure not men by Sundays," says Fuller, "without regarding what they do all the week after." "Educate men without religion," said the Duke of Wellington, "and you make them but clever devils."

THE IRON DUKE

was forced to fight one of the cleverest of this kind, and his victory was earned so hardly that he remembered it. "The dullest observer must be sensible," says Washington Irving, "of the order and serenity prevalent in those households where the occasional exercise of a beautiful form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the key-note to every temper for the day, and attunes every spirit to harmony." "It is for the sake of man, not of God," says Blair, "that worship and prayers are required; not that God may be rendered more glorious, but that men may be made better--that he may acquire those pious and virtuous dispositions in which his highest improvement consists." How can religion bear fruit so well as by daily instruction from God? How can the family bear its burdens more easily than with God's help?

HOW CAN THE BROOD BE GATHERED TOGETHER

at night so surely as when there is an engagement with the Creator at the hearth where life began? In all views, from all sides, this holy custom is seen to be founded in divine wisdom--and divine wisdom includes human wisdom "as the sea her waves."

I have prefaced this subject of worship with the matter of family services, on account of its vital importance. Without the reading of the Bible and the praise of God at home, worship appears to the young like the grinding of the corn, the shoeing of the horses, or the aid of the physician--a matter to be paid for rather than to be done by one's self.

SOME OF THE HAPPIEST AND BEST FAMILIES,

who have turned out into the world the strongest, bravest men, have not limited their worship to stated hours, even, but upon occasions of unusual peril or unusual gladness have poured out to God their prayers or their gratitude. Charnock, in his "Attributes," says: "As to private worship, let us lay hold of the most melting opportunities and frames. When we find our hearts in a more than ordinary spiritual frame, let us look upon it as a call from God to attend Him; such impressions and notions are God's voice, inviting us into communion with Him in some particular act of worship, and promising us some success in it. When the Psalmist had a secret notion

'TO SEEK GOD'S FACE'

and complied with it, the issue is the encouragement of his heart, which breaks out into an exhortation to others to be of good courage, and wait on the Lord: 'Wait on the Lord and be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thy heart; wait, I say, on the Lord.' One blow will do more on the iron when it is hot, than a hundred when it is cold; melted metals may be stamped with any impression; but once hardened, will, with difficulty, be brought into the figure we intend."

THE WISEST AND THE BEST.

We have in religion the experience of the wisest and the best minds before us. Their guarantee in all else is of the very highest human standing and degree. We must, therefore, in reason, profit by their knowledge. In this, also, we are aided by our own development. Behold the truth of this from the mouth of Colton: "Philosophy is a bully that talks very loud when the danger is at a distance, but the moment she is hard pressed by the enemy she is not to be found at her post, but leaves the brunt of the battle to be borne by her humbler but steadier comrade Religion, whom, on most other occasions, she effects to despise." There died in Paris, not long ago, a man named Emile Littre, as well known in France for his infidelity as is Colonel Ingersoll in this country. Over there

THEY CALL ATHEISM POSITIVISM,

which is a good name. It signifies that a man is positive he knows more about the future state than God! Upon his death-bed this Monsieur Littre,--although he had been the means of sending thousands of other souls before their Maker, rebellious and unredeemed--this same Monsieur Littre dared not to meet God with his Positivism on his soul, and embraced the offices of the Church with great relief. Men, before entering upon a course which flings away the only hope a man has,

SHOULD LOOK WELL TO IT

that they know what they are doing. I wandered in the terror-stricken streets of burned Chicago. The multitudes--nearly two hundred thousand--were eating in gratitude; the mothers with babes were under shelter. Was the unburned temple of the atheist open? Oh, no! He had none. Who was cutting the meats and breaking the bread? The wives and daughters of the parishes which had been spared from the hot flames. It was a solemn lesson. I said: "I will not, Colonel Ingersoll, throw away the hope I have." By their works shall ye know them! 'Tis as true upon the field of blood as in the track of fire, but we must pass on. "When I was young," said

THE GREAT NEWTON,

the ornament of his race, "I was sure of many things; there are only two things of which I am sure now: one is that I am a miserable sinner; and the other, that Jesus Christ is an all-sufficient savior." The closing pages of Dr. Johnson's works are filled with simple little prayers to his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. "I have lived long enough to know what I did not at one time believe--that no society can be upheld in happiness and honor without the sentiment of religion." This is the language of La Place, the author of "La Mecanique Celeste," one of the greatest books of the world. He spoke from real experience. He had seen religion "abolished by law." He had seen the "worship of Reason" established with the decapitation of seven thousand innocent citizens of France. He had heard one of the apostles of Reason arise in the Constituent Assembly and demand two hundred and ninety thousand corpses instead of seven thousand. Then this man who had grasped the machinery of the heavens, who had shown the absolute accuracy of Newton's great discovery, wrote, in the same spirit of absolute knowledge: "I have lived long enough to know what I did not once believe." Magnificent testimony! Almost as valuable as the teachings of our own hearts! The same statement comes from

THE ROCK OF ST. HELENA.

Victor Hugo, with a mind like that of Shakspeare, says: "I believe in the sublimity of prayer." "If we traverse the world," says Plutarch, "it is possible to find cities without walls, without letters, without Kings, without wealth, without coin, without schools, without theatres; but a city without a temple, or that practiceth not worship, prayers, and the like, no one ever saw." "Wonderful!" cries Montesquieu, "that the Christian religion, which seems to have no other object than the felicity of another life, should also constitute the happiness of this!"

SAYS GEORGE WASHINGTON:

"Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion." "Religion is a necessary, an indispensable element in any great human character," says Daniel Webster. "Nothing," says Gladstone, "can be hostile to religion which is agreeable to justice." "It is the property of the religious spirit," admits Emerson, "to be the most refining of all influences. The writers against religion," says Edmund Burke, "whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own." "I fear God," says Saadi, "and next to God, I chiefly fear him who fears him not." "Space is the statue of God," cries Joubert. "Truth is his body and light his shadow," says Plato.

There is almost a revelation of God in the cries upward to Him, of some of his human souls. Says Wordsworth: