The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-03-17

death, and find in learning and art a sure
panacea for his mortality = he must die!
0, yes! it is something more than the in
spiration of a poets dream that has writ
ten,
cart is long, and life is fleeing,
And our hearts though stout and brave,
Still, like muff1ed drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave"
But knowledge with all its high behests
when legitimately controlled, may in its
perversion, work death to the dearest in
terests of humanity; and the power and
sweep of its desolation will be terrific as
the mental energies are augmented by in
tellectual discipline. Its proper office is to
give us moral acumen, to quicken our per-
ceptons OF truth and the relations we sus-
tain to the Eternal mind. 1t is to give
us power over the elements of nature, and
render them all subordinate to human
happiness. 1t is to elevate the affections
to extend the range of thought-to I'M
lock the museum of nature - to subdue
unworthy ambition = to conquer igno-
rance and control pride. But alas the
perversity of human passion has turned
the blade of conquest INTO our own bow
els, and by the alchymy of sin has con-
verified the highest boon of Heaven into a
Madison of wrath. knowledge, appropri-
ately the handmade of Religion and the
minister of Truth. has too often been the
minion of sin and the pander of error.
Knowledge, that should have carried the
torch of Christianity to the benighted and
degraded, has fired the fagot at the stake
of her martyrs. knowledge, that should
have guided philosophy in her inquiries,
and irradiated the Earth with the light of
sanctified genius, has, alas too often "led
but to bewilder, and dazzled but to
blind" The history of this blood-stained
world, through all its may incidents of
policy and intrigue and carnage and death,
fearfully corroborates our position.
Who can forget that dismal era in the
history Of enlightened, educated France,
when under the frenzied impulse Of intel
lectual pride, she abjured the literature of
the Bible and the religion of the Cross,
and took counsel from the oracles of hui
man lore. Never has the sun of science
shone with more dazzling splendor upon
any nation under Heaven never has
such constellation of learning and wit
graced any regal court on Earth. In pol
itics, in poetry, in science, and literature,
and all the arts which might embellish
and dignity fallen humanity in all the at
tributes of modern genius, she stands
without parallel. But when she substi-
tuted human reason for the philosophy of
Heaven, inidelity reared her Gorgon head,
and breathed upon society a miasma fatal
to virtue and heartfelt benevolence. Pure
affection and refined sensibility withered
under its influence. Unholy ambition, too,
nourished by her principles, grew strong,
millions at her bloody shrine, and France
now stands out upon the page of History
in bold relief as, warning to other nations
and comment upon the practicability
of her principles. What though the sun
of Genius shone warmly upon her vine
clad hills, when its rays quickened into
life the eggs of the cockatrice, and the
heaven-daring creed of Voltaire and Ros-
scau, like the Siroc blast bearing moral
death-swept over the land. What tho
her civil polity acas perfect in theory
when such men as Danton and Robes
pierre and Marat swayed her national
councils. In fine, what though France
aoos educated. without religion to control
and govern it The answer is, desolation,
horror and death such as barbsrism new
er knew.
And were not her sufcrings augment
ed by her learning? Let her history, writ
ten in the likelihood of patriots, answer.
Such, then. is nation educated without
the great sileet-anehor Of piety to keep
her from being drifted and rocked by the
turbulence of cultivated but perverted
mind.
When we refer to the history of indi-
viduals whose talents and erudition have
cursed the world, the catalogue is too full
to be personal. Yet when we run the eye
along the dark line of intellectual artillery
which such men as Paine, and Gibbon,
and Salisbury, and Bulwer, have opened
upon the moral world, breathing out the
fires of hell and the mildew of death upon
the fairest portion of Gods heritage
then we understand what learning is, or
may be, without moral principle. Who
can think of Byron and not weep that his
knowledge was not sanctifed. Endowed
with capacities that an angel might covet,
he was tormented with passions that
devil might scorn. Go, open his pages,
illuminated with perpetual stream of
burning fancies, blooming in an eternal
spring of fresh-blown images, which seem
called into existence by the sudden flash
of those gloomy thoughts and overwhelm-
ing emotions that struggle for IMPRESSION
through the whole flow of his poetry
90 read all these, and then bowail the
author, who through perversion was
made so full of pride, and revenge, and
obstinacy, that he disdained both life and
death, mankind and himself, and trampled
not only upon the falsehood and formali-
ties of polished life, but also upon its
tame virtues.
All! it is dark picture, but a just ex-
emplifcation of our chosen theme.
Students, enough has been said to lead
you to draw just inference from all this;
and if you here tell me that | have cho-
sen extreme cases, | leave the subject with
this simple remark = Principles are ever
to be tested by their tendencies.
FELLOW STUDENTS: 1t now remains |
for rue to fulfil the duties appropriate to
NV rosition as the closing sneaker of the |