The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1853-04-21
NO 800.

iy with deep-eeated disgust at the practical
workings OF the existing social system. This
feeling is very widely spread alike in villages
and large towns in rural and manufacturing
districts; among the most ignorant and tho
most educated portions Of the operative popu-
iatIon. The contrast Of excessive poverty and
excessive wealth which everywhere meets the
eye and presents 80 dark an enigma TO maui.
ring minds, is to them a matter Of experience
and gives them, without the aid of thinking.
principles of the most dangerous tendency
Vast masses Of the poor are socialists in feel
ing. They have been helped to no induction,
pied with no syllogism, yet there the conse-
quence exists firmly imbedded in their hearts
They are quite unconscious that the guesses in
which they shrewdly mutter their discomfort
are dignifed with phiosophic titles, and are
learnedly expounded to the world in weary
volumes it ia instinct which speaks within
them, and Instinct is incapable of being con.
futed or taught 1t may be difficult for the
manufacturer, the tradesman, the capitalist
for oil who are living in easy circumstances
and perhaps are amassing large fortunes-to
lind flaw in the system which enables them
to create wealth but no such difficulty is felt
10y the tens of thousands whose wages are
mere pittance, and whose life is reduced to a
mere parleyng with death."-Pp. SO, 80.
The picture Of cOntrasted wealth and power
~, splendor and squalor, and the religious
skepnclsm resulting, is afterwards drawn more
wildly:
Our merchants are literally princes-they
hold the empire of the East, their sceptre SWANS
the financial world. At home, what glitter
ing and costly fabric has been reared What
colossal afiluence bcstrides the land! Luxury
revels in u thousand halls the gilded forms Of
pomp and power are daily fitting before the
peoples eyes. Meanwhile, what are the scenes
which might be contemplated in the cellars,
the garrets, the cottages, of the poor There
life and death contend in uncertain struggles
Obscurity covers there, from the worlds eye
many scene Of misery which would shame
and sicken it. There the laborer, denied the
boon ct toll, endeavors to cheer bis pining fam
lily with hopes which no does not feel There
the seamstress plies her i'll. paid work, snatch
ing from life itself the means of sustaining its
existence; happier, even in her poverty than
those in whose bosoms all hope has become ex-
tinct, and who, in that desperate crisis, when
reason almost fails have deemed death less
terrible than dshOnor Such are the extremes
OF British society-what must be the moral
effect OF their proximate co-existence! What
can we suppose will be the theology and the
tried his last resource, and returns without
success to the bosom Of his anxious family,
what will he be tempted to think of the equal
ity Of that Providence which has poured thou
sands upon thousands into the Golfers of his
neighbor! 1t is our happiness to be acquaint-
ed with some to whom the want of the bread
which perisheth has been made the means Of
communicating the richest spiritual blessings.
and who, when charity Unexpectedly opened
the door of their dwelling have been found,
surrounded with weeping family, upon their
knees. But such cases are very rare poverty
more frequently hardens than softens the man
who is extremely poor is exposed far more than
| they whose circumstances are easy, to contract
edness Of feeling, TO that combination of envy,
hatred, and suspicion, which are the chief ele-
ments of religious skepticsm. Talk to him Of
tho Divine goodness he is slow to believe it
He listens more readily to the counsel of Jobs
wife. His dark imagination sees no justice in
the world, and therefore no moral government
it indeed God. The sentiments which sap
his faith in the doctrines of natural religion
make still easier work with his Christianity.
Tho greater goodness which the plan of re-
demption unfolds is still more repugnant to his
belief. The spiritual wants which it promises
to supply, take no hold upon his deadenod sym
pathies The system which offers him spiritual
blessings seems deaf and dumb in reference to
his temporal necessities. Christianity, as he
beholds it, is the guardian of property, the
companion Of senators and princes the nurs-
ing OF wealth and fashion but for him she
has shed no tear, to him she has vouchsafed no
smilc in the hour of his need she extended to
him no helping hand. Infidelity whispers that
her claims are uniounded, her piety an impos-
turc, her chief business to secure lucrative
income to the priesthood and rivet moro
closely the chains of political power. There is
sweetness in tho lie-its very malignity soothes
his cankercd soul, He henceforth broods over
it, as if in revenge for his fanoied wrongs it
lmperceptiby becomes a part Of himself, till at
length the Gospel is instinctively hated as the
symbol, and its ministers rs the agents Of op-
preston Cruel falsehoOd Cruel the circum-
stances which have produced it PIP 1896.
Here (p 94) follow some fertile suggestions
respecting that sort Of religion whose humanity
is unequal to its picty but we have quoted
enough under this head. To that other i'm
pOrtant half of the truth which in social re-
forms Christians do and must insist upon, but
of which VIC fear our American Tract Society
is making half truth, our author does ample
justice:
"The real evil with which we have to deal
lies not in the popular manifestations Of ire
hgion, but in the principles from which they
cmanate--in impiety, not as it is evinced in the
conduct, but as it is throned upon the heart
An external reformation would DO q poor
achievement, If it did not spring from purified
sources Of action; it would be useless, were it
possible, to exact larger measure of outward
respect for Christianity or any Of its nstitu-
tions, while the Same sentiments Of bitter en-
-. laI ..,.Nk l..
morals as well as in physics, it il a mercful
arrangement that morbid symptoms usually
indicate the presence Of disease In both cases,
it is infinitely better that the countenanco
should be disfgured, or that some limb should
be- deprived awhile Of its healthy action, than
that a fatal disorder should secretly prey upon
the vtals, and give no signal that 1t had com
menoed its ravages, but the death of the vic
tim. What our working classes are, that may
they appear to be; whatever evil exists among
them may that evil be presented to tho public
eye with q vvidness of coloring fully equal 10
its intrinsic benousnessl External symptoms
are harmless in themselves, while they act as
a useful guide in applying the remedy. The
great question which lies for solution before
tho Church Of Christ and which presses for
solution with increasing urgency, is, not how
this or that instance Of impiety may be correct
cd, but how impiety itself may be eItinguiShed;
not how n more strict observance may be Sc
cured 10 any Of the institutions of Christianity,
but how Christianity itself, in its lifs-giving
power, as the sovereign channel of pardon, pu-
rity, and happiness, may be made the welcomed
inmate Of every cottage in the land"-Pp.
90, 81.
Which is in perfect keeping with what he
had said on page 80.
ave would not prescribe the highest RENE
dial agencies let oil DO set in motion, for all
will help ON the desired result; but the pecu-
liar evils which VIC have been reviewing arc Of
q social kind, and the motives required to re-
move them are such as humanity alone ought
to inspire. II Christianity possessed that power