The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1863-04-01
ERREVEREECE.

One of the most serious evils of life in
this country is want of reverence The
most precious, the most delicate, and even
the most sacred interests are generally
dealt with in an easy, of. hand style which
has habit of falling, not unfrequently
into downright profanity. The vice is
restricted to no particular sphere, it per-
vades the nation in all its forms of life
whether public or private. With what
absence of all eersmony do our legisla.
tors seize and belabor principles as old as
liberty, and constitutional provisions sa.
cred as the blood of our martyred faith.
ers. We are not speaking particularly
of the present times, when war may be
expected to give tinge of unusual feroc-
ity to the RIGHTEOUSNESS of parliamentary
debate, but the general spirit of the
country.
The same evil meets US even In the
family. The girls are premature women,
and the boys try to distend themselves
into gentlemen, precisely because there
is but little reverence for parental or any
other authority to repress them 1t
seems to matter nothing at all that parents
are, by natural law, despots in their
own houses. Taking advantage of the
well-known principle, that love descends
more strongly than it ascends, that par
ents love their children more ardeutly
than the children love them, the urchins
give full swing to the national animuS Of
disrespect for authority, criticise the
house law as freely as senators the Con-
stitution, talk fippantly of the old man
and the old woman and violently con-
tend for the sacred rights of staying out
late at nights, of sleeping late in the
morning, and of snubbing all who attemp,
to make them less Tree. They love father
and mother, of course they do; but they
prove how warm and real love may be
without the slightest admixture of rev.
erence.
If we enter the sacred precnts of the
church, even there the predominant ma
tlonal characteristic is not wanting. The
pulpit is not the unconditional dispenser
of opinion and sentiment to the pews.-
The people may respect the character of
the individual clergyman, they may admit
his learning and eloquence, they may
look to his ministry for edifcation, but
he is far from being, as in other coun.
tries, an authority whose dicta are to set
tie the disputes of the hearers The
preaching, indeed, is reciprocal between
rostrum and seats. Before the preacher
prepared his sermon end while he was
toiling OH it, he felt The power of his con.
gregation, and found himself recasting
sentences, toning down his expressions of
opinion, and softeuing his blows to meet
the invisible princes In his study. In
short, he finds himself, even while lie CON-
poses, sitting in the presence of his con-
gTegratloa, not as an authority, but rath-
er as secretary, to write down what
their multiform judgments, prejudices,
and fortunes may dictate. If he does not
always yield to such silent and powerful
dictation, it is not because he does not
feel the force of the demand, but rather,
perhaps, because be has caught the pop
ular spirit of insubordinatioD, and will
not reverence this new and strange au-
thority. He is irreverent to irreverencs.
Further than this, the prevailing lack
of reverence is not only shown toward the