The Empire County argus., 1856-07-05
Our Social Condition.

much of the worldly wisdom they were intended to
convey, and which they undoubtedly contain. Yet if
we will examine them pilosophically and historically
we will see how strikingly they are adapted if not
also intended "lor our learning" The prophets are
all politicians. They deal with their comtrymen, or
the people among whom they sojourn in the mass and
as communities. They deal with faith chiefly as it
affects good works. They denounce dolary and the
worship of false gods less because they are false and
ignorant in Themselves than because they substitute
in the soul the incumbency Of devotion in the place
OF duty of theological faith in the Of virtuOus
practice They see around them vast populations,
great material wealth, high luxury and comparative
civilization, gigantic political power and state splcn-
DOR and the scope and tenor of their grim oracular
revelations utt red from their Businesses is this You
are gorgeous and wealthy, seeming prosperous and
progressive, luxurious, refined in material sense
lighened. But we see canker eating into your
heart; there is no pth and marrow of goodness in all
this bloated carcase of Sybarite abundance. With
all your civil bravery and state pomp, you are self
irdulgent, greedy, sensual, drunken. You oppross
the poor, you adultCratc and use false weights are
foresalers and regraters; your judges are without
mercy; you plunder the widow and the latherless;
you turn yourselves away from your own flesh = sell
fshncss, heartessness, avaricc, sorld commercial
spirit, pervades every class especially the highest
and we tell you that maugre your hosts and lcets,
your wealth and refinement, your material progress
and political achievement, you going to destruc-
ton headlong, and what now y0ndcr thrones and
palaces will be the haunt of the wolf or become the
solitary reign of the moping owl. Sodom, Gomor-
rha, Babylon Nneveh, Damascus it is all the same.
Some of them lone just man" would have saved but
they could not got solitary exception to the univCr
sal corruption and so they all ended in 'hdeous ruin.
Without going to Scripture at all, we daily come
upon the wreck of ancient cities whose solitude we
now share with the lizard or the cony, and when we
ask ourselves what could have dispersed these two
millions or those three millions Of citizens cast down
their carved columns and made wilderness of their
aqueducts and hanging gardens, the answer is the
samc-luxury, corruption, salishness avarice and
vice. The barbarian came with his sturdy virtues,
his patriarcha life and his hardy selld2nal and the
Sybarte, the schemng millionaire and the silken fools
of mere material refinement He'd like the dream of an
Arabian tale, 1t is the same now as it was long ago
All
Compound for sins they are inclined 10
BY dannlng those they have no mind to.
They take the priest and scor the prophet they
accumulate their whole religion in fdti, and look
upon the other cardinal virtues as of no account in
comparison to "sound believing And hence the
eager pursuit every man Of his own particular con
Germs; the selfshnesS even Of his religion, which is
made up of distinctions and exclusions; the practical
disregard Of ones neighbor merely as man. and the
Of our sympathies to the household OF
faith, to those who do as we do, to those only who
don't interfere with our interests or who abstain from
trenching upon our comforts or property or lancicd
rights. The stout old prophets would have none OF
these cheats these substitutes for duty these COM
poundings Of seishness with heaven. Do we cant
about our creed or our Professionalism? We are an
swered, Trust not in lying words saying, the temple
of the Lord are these For if ye thoroughly amend
your ways and doings; if ye thoroughly execute
judgment between man and his ncighbor; if ye OPP
press not the stranger, the fatheress and the widow
and shed not innocent blood then will | cause YOU to
dwall in tie an'i which cav rour fathers hr ever
and ever Do we boast Of missions, subscriptions,
fasts? "To what purpose is the multitude Of your
sacrifices to me?" Do we bid all mark our punctual
responses and regular church going? We are bid
"to cease to do evil learn to do WELL relieve the op-
pressed judge the atherless and plead for the wild
ows" Do we point to our cathedras pcaling organs,
grand oratoros? Il despis2 your solemn assemblies
Take away from me the noise Of thy songs for
will not hear the melody of your viols but let iudg
mcnt run down waters; for desire mercy and not
sacrifice Magistrates are denounced because they
break the people i'll pieces, and "sell the cause Of
the poor for pair of shoes : the "rich men, be
cause they swallow up the needy even to make the
poor of the land to fall the clergy, because they
bite with their teeth and cry peace and prepare war
against him who putteth not something into their
mouths = the retail tradesmen because they lasifv
the balances by deceit" The great are asked, If
they look down upan their servants as beings made
of another clay, Did not He that made me in the
womb make him?' That is the theology of the
prophets the creed of the elder worthes of the world
1t is clear that we have not to this yet There
is much more Of the Jew and the priest than Of the
Christian and the prophet in the eaycn Of the nation
al faith First, tbs Catholics would have no Protest
ant and no heretic-then the Protestant would not
suffer the Papist-neXt the Cmrchmen would tolerate
no diss1nt-then both Coniormst and Noncomiorm-
lists transported Unitarians and imprisoned infdas
and now the Jews the 6Onae b0ucte of Ordly eX-
clusiveness. With all pretenons to religion we
are the proudest nation in the world the least socia
BILE the most unbendmg Our distinctions of class
are endless before stranger we double ourselves up
like hedgehog, with all the briSes outward our
Princess Royal must be confirmed in state with satin
Windsor uniform, and trumpets Of the Guards as il
there precedence in salvation and Cassie were
right, when after concluding that there are souls
that must be saved, and souls that must not be
saved he adds, Eyes, but by your leave the Leutcn-
ant before the Ancient" Although our institutions
are republican, and our customs democratic, all our
tendencies are ariStOcratic and exclusive leveed on
the PLATFORM on the hustings, at the POLL we all re-
sumo our assumptions the moment we can get rid of
the lrksOme recognition of equality and fall back
into respective shells of haughtines and estrange
ment. If we possess an intellectual perception of
the fitness of equal citizenship if we acknowledge
humility meekness, and the recognition of human
equality as religious duty or moral precept we
never take kindly to them as an abiding sentiment
or as an instructive impulse of our character and a
native sympathy of our minds What is called our
. "a lpu tnaIin +lc IoI ID