The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-07-07

! convince them OF errors to which they
have had no temptation. they might as
well be spending their money to persuade
schoolmasters that two and two make four
or mathematicians that there cannot be
two obtuse angles in a triangle. If this
ba their notion of the way in which the
gospel is to be preached, we do not won
der that they have found it necessary to
print tract upon the improperly Of slee-
ping in church.
4 x n
The word Compromise, as far as sla-
very is concerned, has always been of IA
tai augury. The concessions of the South
have been like the "With all my world
ly goods thee endow" of a bankrupt
bridegroom, who thereby generously be-
slows all his debts upon his wife, and as
small return for his magnanilnity con-
sents to accept all her personal and life
estate in all her real property. The South
is willing that the Tract Society should
expend its money to convince the slave
that he has soul to be saved so far as
he is obedient to his master, but not to
persuade the master that he has soul
to undergo very different process SO far
rs he is unmerciful to his slave.
We Americans are very fond of this
glue of compromise. Like 50 many quack
cements, it IS advertised to make the mem
dei parts of the vessel stronger than those
which have never been broken, but, like
them, it will not stand hot water-and as
the question Of slavery is sure to plunge
all who approach it, even with the best
Intentions, into that fatal element, the
patched-up Brotherhood, which but yes
terday was warranted to be better than
new, falls once more into heap of inco-
herent fragments. The last trial of the
virtues of the Patent Red ntegrator by
the Special Committee of the Tract So
ciety has ended like all the r>st, and as
all attempts to buy peace st too dear q
rate must end. Peace is an excellent
thing. but principle and pluck are better;
and the man who sacrifices them to gain
it finds at last that he has crouched nm
der the Caudine yoke to purchase only
contemptuous liberation that leaves him
at war with his own self respect and the
invincible forces of his higher nature.
But the peace which Christ promised
to his followers was not of this world !;
the good gift he grought them was not
peace, but a sword. 1t was no sword of
territorial conquest, but that flaming blade
of conscience and selfconviction which
lightened between our first parents and
their lost Eden,-that sword of the spirit
that searcheth all things,-which sewers
one by one the ties of passion, of inter.
est, of self pride, that bind the soul to
earth,-whose implaeabIe edge may d.
vide man from family, from friends from
whatever is nearest and dearest-and
which hovers before him like the air.
drawn dagger of Macbeth, reckoning him
not to crime, but to the legitimate roy
alties of self-denial and self-sacrifce, to
the freedom which is won only by the
surrender of the WILL Christianity has
never been concession, never peace; it is
continual aggression; one province Of
wrong conquered, its phone ars are already
in the heart of another. The mile-stones
of its onward march down the ages have
not been monuments of material power
but the b!ackened stakes of martyrs, tro-
phies of individual Fl lefty to conviction.
For it is the only religion which is supe-
r;or to all endowment, to all authority -
which has bshopric and a cathedral
wherever human soul has surrendered
itself to God. That very spirit of doubt.
inquiry, and fanaticism for private judg-
ment, with which Romanists renroaeil
Professionalism, is its stamp and token OF
authenticity,-the seal of Christ, and not
of the Fisherman.
We do not wonder at the division that
has taken place in the Tract Society, MOI
do we regret it. The ideal life of q
Christian is possible to very few, bit we
naturally look for nearer approach to
it in those who associate together to dis
/ seminate the doctrines which thev believe
to be its formative essentials, and there is
nothing which the enemies of religion
seize on so gladly as any inconsistency
bstween the conduct and professon o.
such persons. Though utterly indiffer.
ent to the wrongs of the slave, the scott
er would not fail to remark upon the
hoIIowness of a Chr stianlty which wa;
horror stricken at dance, or Sunday.
drive. while it was blandly silent about
the separation of families, the putting as
sunder whom God has joined, the selling
| Christian girls for Christian harerns, ane