St. Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (St. Charles City [Charles City], Iowa) 1857-1861, 1858-01-21
The Moral Effects of the Crisis.

hN 4IVl III l-uttlS vi tHJ N1lSiN.
When a man has for years pursued
a course of dissipation, and, with the
qualification of his appetitcs and pas
slons, has become bloated in his beast
illness, there comes with good deal
OF certainty crisis in his life. The
strained nerves rebel, and throw him
into a fever The impure blood has
overtaxed the excretory organs and
they break down with their burden.
He is sick, and takes to his bed, and
there he remains until kind nature
passes through her process of relief
and recupcration. Well, as the pa
ticnt lies weak and he lpless, after the
first gush of disappointment is over
and the first dclirium has passed away,
he begins to think. His first thought
is that wine and women do not pay, in
the long run, and, as he revolvcs the
course he has followed, with such
force of Judgment as his weakness
will permit, he becomes conscious that
pleasure is not the end of life, that
sense is something to be husbanded,
that the life is more than meat and
the body more than ramcnt, that he
has disobcycd laws obedience to which
can only insure happiness, and that he
has made an ass of himself, and has
to lose fifty pounds of ill-gottcn flesh,
more or less, to say nothing of the
nurses wages and the doctors bill
Happy for him, if the pulse returns to
its cid rythm, and as the flowers bring
back fresh memories of purity and
childhood, he forms resolutions to live
a better life, and keep Mem'
Like our patient, the nation is sick /;
and now that the first shock is over,
the thinking comes on. People every
where are beginning to think that
there really is something in the world
besides money that is worth living
for,-that there can be pleasure with
out palaces, hymencal joy without
jointures, responsibility without rent
rolls, comfort without carriages, and
even fashion without folly. 1t is
stated that in New York the morning
prayer meetings were never so fully
attended as now. Men are tlOcking
back to the old sources of consolation,
and recurring once more to first
principles"
What a course has this country run
for the last few years What "a
hcadlong haste for gold has pervaded
every class How has luxury built
it's palaces, and crowded its lardcrs,
and stocked its wine cellars, and be-
decked its throat and arms with Jewels,
and robcd itself in purple and fine
linen, and danced, and teasted, and
forsaken heaven! How has the whole
public mind been dcbauched by
schemes for sudden wealth entered in
to without conscience and perfected
by corruption! How has the tone OF
morality been depressed to meet the
acquisitions of an unhealthy trade
How has gold, gold, gold, been the
one thing sought for everywhere and
by everybody, and how with this con,
stantly kept before the eye as the
chief good, has virtue been held in low
repute, and Gods poor condemned
and learning and wisdom made 20 tax,
a dishonored seat in its presence, and
!, religion been troddcn under foot, anC
p oppression been winked at, and sue
> cessful gambler been held better thar
t a true patriot and how has gold sa
in the place Of God in counting room
senate chamber, court room, and ever
in Gods house
We cannot for moment doubt tina
the effect of the crisis will be good
good financially, and PARTICULAR,
u, good, morally. For some years t,
come, the pride of secure possession
- will be gone. The insanity of specu
lation will be quenched, and the grea
host bent only on sudden wealth will
sit patiently at the feet of immutabl
n Law, clothed and in their right mind
y As men are stripped in a moment of
= wealth which promised to be pcrpctr
n al and to increase with trade am
- usury, they will find how prcciou
g above wealth and luxury are the low
of wife, and the prattlc of anconsciou
= children, and the sweets of neighborl
y intercourse. They will find that til
, only permanent values of the world
values independent of Wall street an
VI y, the price of cotton and the wheat ha
es vesl,-are virtue ard truth, an
81 Ji character and love,-that mind
is more than matter, and God above al
We hail, therefore, with gratitud
W. the moral results which the preseI
crisis is producing, and is destined
produce. We sympathize with mi
fortune everywhere, but the "parti;
evil" will surely be universal good
'es And now, as the time has come fl
new plans and new resolutions, let |