Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1848-03-29
For the Portage Sentinel.

L
| Mr. Sentinez:-Will you please give the
following article an insertion in your paper,
it will no doubt be read with interest by O
great portion of your readers. Il find ii
in the "Univercelum," paper published
in New York, devoted to General inquiry,
Philosophers Theology, and an position
and Inculcation of the PrinciplesoE Nature
in the Application to individual las3d Social
Life. Yours, "a 8.
The Wants Of the Age.
What our age demands is positive and
practical remedies for existing Social Evils
lis efficient means for improving the con-
dltion of Mankind. The hungry must be
fed; the naked must be clothed; the igno-
rant must be educated; the homeless must
be sheltered; the toil-worn masses must be
freed from poverty and pecuniary depend
ence; and the slave must be liberated from
his chains. These and other things must
be done for the suffering and disinherited
portions Of our fellow-creatures. But
while we labor for them, we must labor
for other classes in society-for the rich,
ior whom nearly as much is to be accom-
plished, Without mental pleasures of q
high order, without noble aims, without
much elevation Of heart; deveured often by
ennui, monotony and lassitude; they plunge
into material pleasures of all knds-often
of the coarsest and most pernicinus char
acter. Society opens to them very few
in fact, scarcely any spheres Of spiritual
activity and enjoyment, but wide spheres
in material pleasures, from the gambling
table and the bowl to every variety of de-
bauchery; and they have the means-the
wealth--which enables them to engage in
the latter; whereas, they possess, with rare
exceptions, peither the culture of the mind
nor the heartthat would enable them to en-
ter intor and enjoy, the former.
Thus the two great extremes of society
call for improvement-for edacation; and
this demonstrates to us that the whole of
humanity, without regard to wealth, posi-
ton, race or nationality, must be redeemed
from the social degradation that now curses
the world. This is our aim; this our hope
and it is our faith that it can and will be
accomplished. Who can doubt, for a mo-
t'AoSt3 ~
kind higher destiny on earth!-a condi-
ton far above the present!
When we see the great majority of our
fellow beings bent under the burthen of
oppression and degrading toll and poverty;
when we see minority engaged in de-
frauding, spoliating and enslaving their
destitute and helpless fellow creatures; ;when
we behold the discord and commotions in
society, from wars and revolutions to that
fierce, selfish and heartless strife, which
prevails almost universally, under the name
of free competition, and which is nothing,
in truth, but the most anarchical license in
trade and industry, real industrial avar-
fare; when we consider the utter uncer-
tainty in all human affairs-the reverses,
unforeseen ruin, hopes blasted, wearing
anxieties in the business world; when we
see servitude, ignorance, degradation and
vice, and crimes Of one. kind, affecting a
greater portion of the race, and folly, sell
hshness, extravaganza, and vices and
crimes of another kind, which disgrace
the so-called higher classes-when we look
upon all this, and hundred fold more
evils of society, which we cannot even re-
fer to here, it is surely impossible to think,
for moment, that this state of things is
the DESTINY OF MAN the destiny marked
out for him by the Allwise Power that cre-
ated the planet, and placed Humanity upon
1t! The moment we ask the question, we
feel the conviction that higher and happi-
er destiny is reserved for mankind, and that
great Improvements are possible in the con-
dition oil ALL classes of society. $.
Here, then, are both our faith and our
aim. Our faith is a High Destiny for
Mankind, our aim the progressive improve.
ment OF the condition OF all classes in So
cety, jointly and simultaneously. But to
accomplish this great work, positive and
practacM means are required. The SUI
perfclal and impotent political reforms,
heretofore put in operation, can produce
no permanent benefit; this our experience,
a hundred fold repeated, demonstrates, be-
yond doubt, to those who are not blinded
by their interests or prejudices. 2ei
Of what great use, for example, are all
our political nostrums, and superficial
schemes, generated by thousand low and
selfish motives, and consummated in fraud
and ignorance? Our national Congress
once refused the Hall in the Capitol for
Fulton to lecture in, alledging, as an ex-
cuse, that he wished to discourse upon a
visionary subject. Has not Fulton's mag
nihcent discovery done more to develop the
wealth and resources of the country, than
all the controversies that have taken place
in that hall since, and all the measures the
different political parties have ever devised
and carried out? Here is an example of a
positive measure Of improvement, of real
use to mankind. I.
Again, of what practical and possts;uc
utility are all the abstract precepts of
moralists, which issue so perpetually from
the pulpit and the press? True, it may be
said that they prevent vast amount of evil,
that they stay the career of unholiness,
and are conservative principle in purity,
without which we should go to ruin
Granted that they do this, let us ask whe,h
er so powerful an organization as the
Church should be content to act asegatiuezu
to arrest only some part of the evil, instead
of acting positively, to destroy the causes
of evila Fl ew can the Church expect that
when the whole of society, its Commerce.