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

"heh they have come to regard nothing
as lnviolabie. 1t is thus, that individual
worthlessness burns up the hopes of soci-
ety-that public anarchy treads fast on
private infidelity-and that 1the;sns
starves itself to death, BY the whitening
and scorching and drowning pestilerce,
which it ever breathes out in advance Of
It's coming. Take away the Deity from
the thoughts of men, and thus extinguish
the principle of reverence from their
hearts, and you render them at once OF
ants in crime. Thus it was that the Athe-
istical fathers of the French Revelation
poured such a food of death and desola-
ton overthe land. Banishing the Deity
from their minds, they forthwith deifed
Their own roason-pride sprung up hom
the very ashes of reverence, and rendered
the nation at once the terror apd scorn of
the world. Their apothesis Of man trans
formed themselves into homicides-their
universal beneyolence expressed itself in
the most hellish ferocity their philosoph-
ical millennium drowned itself in rivers of
human blood-and their collaboration
led them through the triumphs of guilt,
to a crown of deathless intamy. ST.
That these remarks are applicable at
the present time, hardly need be said. -
A want Of reverence, both for human and
divine things, is, most emphatically, the
crime Of this nation and age. haa
Except their own interests and their
own opinions, men are getting to respect
scarce anything in heaven, or on earth.-
Difference to the wisdom of age or the
counsels ofexpericncc, is becoming proof
of weakness-and contempt for any light
but that which springs from our own
minds, is becoming the test of WISDOM
What we cannot see oper we boldly pro-
nounce to be infinite-and what we can
not see at dive boldly promo unce not
to be, at all. How often doth the sue
cessful demagogue tickle our fancies with
the notion that we are wiser than all the
world before us, and if we had not been
so, we should never have appreciated, and
of course never have promoted himself
A spirit of dissertation and sacrilege seems
to have fallen upon us. The sky-smiting
giant-Profanity, stalks abroad all over
our land-ruthlcssly tearing open the
shrines, and putting his iron hoof on the
very household Gods of our nation. The
consecrated form of law and government,
embodying the national honor, and the
national majesty, has come to be regar-
rs little more than huge machine to grind
out emolument for lis. Indeed, l know
not how [ can better characterize this AGE
than by calling it the "golden age." But
let me not here be misunderstood. call
this the golden age-not merely in dis
tinction from the silver, or brazen, or iron
or pewter ages, that ever have been or
ever may be-but from all those its illus
trious predecessors, which have borne the
same name by way of eminence. 1t is
not like other golden ages-far from it.
1t is golden-not in an old igurative sense
but in a new peculiar, significant
straightforward, fair and square, appro-
pirate sense. 1t is golden, not because it
is very much ike gold, but because it very
much likes gold. 1t is golden, not be-
cause it has a golden disposition, or a gol
den character, but because it has dispo-
sition only for gold. Thus it is an age Of
golden passions, golden appetites, golden
affections, golden virtues, golded inven-
tions, golden prospects, golden hopes, gol-
den expectations and go,r,,en money. It
has golden wisdom, golden morality,
a golden literature, golden philosophy,
a golden education, and golden currency.
Its thoughts, desires, dreams, are all of
gold, gold, gold. Gold is the representa-
tive of all its Objects the satisfer of all its
wants, the synonym Of all wealth, the
measure of all good, the reward of all
effort. Whatever object gold will not
buy. is not worth having, whatever pursuit
will not bring gold is not worth following.
We labor, study, think plan, execute for
gold; one man for gold teaches how to
get gold, another man for gold teaches
how to keep gold, and already the dark
ness that has brooded so long over the
world, is fast being dissipated by the
golden cxhalations of this new DAWN
With gold, and for gold, we live and act
and do and suffer all things. A life that
gold will not sustain, is not worth living
an act that gold will not reward is not
worth attempting. All wisdom but that
which opens golden treasures, is but a
baseless vision, all virtue, but that which
bears golden fruit, is but an empty dream,
and whoever has not been baptized into
thefaith of Jupiter 1Meus, or the Gold
God, is but the child Of darkness, and heir
ofcontempt. In short, having abandoned
the vain search for that mysterious some
thing, which was to translnute everything