Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1860-04-25
Enthusiasm and Fanaticism.


These words which are often COMPOUNDED or used
INTERCHANGEABLE are rot only essentially distinct in
meaning but directly opposed in character and ten
dency motive and end Fanaticism is selfish en-
thusasm generous. Fana tcism debases, corrupts,
and contracts the soul enthusiasm exalts purifes
and expands it Fanaticism has impelled the vilest
oppressors and fercest prosecutors of the race en-
thusiasm has inspired the most gifted, the most be-
nevolent and the most useful of mankind. Torque-
mazda and Loyola were fanatics Luther and Knox
enthusiasts; Robespierre and John Brown were IA
natics Lafayette and Washington enthusiasts.
Alike as active forces of prodigious power and re-
sembling in partial external manifestations it is not
at all surprising that they should be often con-
founded, or the one mistaken for the other. We
sometimes witness the singular spectacle of the very
man at different stages of his career putting
off the one character and putting on the other
Thus Saul Of Tarsus making havoc of the church
and verify thinking all the time that he was doing
Gods service, was fanatic; and Paul the apostle
counting all things but loss for the excellency Of
acknowledge of Christ and ready not to be bound
only, but also to die at Jerusalem, for the name of
the Lord Jesus was an enthusiast. In the fanatic
there is always faint of knavery In the enthusiast
there is always tincture of heroism Fanaticsm is
akin to hypocrisy; enthusiasm is allied to candor.
Fanatlcsm is not rarely the vice of old age; enthu-
siasm is the appropriate virtue of youth.
In nations periods of fanaticsm are periods of
public corruption and ignominy; periods of enthu-
siasm are periods of public virtue and glory. The
prevalence of the one marks the rising genius and
power of people the ascendancy of the other in
dicateS their weakness and decline. Fanaticism
ragged in France in 1872 under Charles IX and
his fenesh mother, and exploded in the massacre of
St Bartholomew in which it is estimated that thir
ty thousand persons persisted in thirty days. 1t
reappeared with added fury in the closing years OF
the reign of Louis 14th-the time of the dragonades
and of the revocation of the edict of Nantes.
All the great achievements of freedom and virtue,
have been made under the sublime inspiration of
enthusiasm, individual or national 1t was this
which inhamed the eloquence of Henry and nerved
the arm of Washington. 1t was enthusiasm for a
good cause and great object which sustained that
dauntleSs hand Of devoted patriots who in the most
glorious revolution recorded in the annals of man,
achieved the independence of America. The dstinc-
more important than now and is fraught with many
fruitful and far reaching consequences to peo-
pie. 1t is painful fact that we cannot deny and
should not conceal that while anaticsm is rampant
In our own and in other lands, enthusiasm for any
thing, for art, for TRUTH for liberty if not quite
tnct, is rarely found Much of the benevoence of
our time is malignant; much of its philanthropy
selfish; much of its charity cruel. What a specta-
Gle is presented by the abolitionists of our own
country! With the seIf-complacent spirit of the
Pharsee, denouncing whole classes and communi-
Ties OF men as brutal and Godforsaken for sustain
Ing relation co-eva with human history and recog-
nlzed as legitimate by the Maker and Redeemer of
man and his inspired Apostles, while themselves
parakers of the SIM if sin it be-growing fat on the
proceeds of slave labor not merely subsistng its
products and clothed in its fabrcs-but glorying in
the wealth which this system has directly supplied
And only look at great Britain First forcing
The system on US, her reluctant colonies unwilling
10 receive it-protesting against retaining it Now
Kept from revolution from starvation from ruin by
the products of slave labor vitality connected with
the system as any portion of the South herself-as
absolutely dependent on the crops which it secures
aS any Southern State-yet stigmatizing us as saw
ages and heathens, for sustaining the hated system
AND what is of all, perhaps most inconsistent and
most Incredible, confessing that the emancipation Of
ner own slaves in the West Indies, was great
"iunaer and great evil, policy fatal not merely
the material but to the social and moral interests
g, tle slaves themselves-yet urging the Southern
states OF this confederacy to liberate every slave,
"i'nout exception and without delay, without re-
pect to consequences without regard to the lessons
Vi history, in contempt of the dictates of COM
AnOn sense and in defiance of the claims of Christian
charity
MORE AID-Our thanks to A. Dixon, ESQ.,, post
master at Elevation, Johnston county, for club Of
'en subscribers, with the cash. $50 thou and do
Gkeui.oD -