Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-08-04

Tor the want OF right cultlvatlonI Isaiah
charged it upon his nation-history has had to
charge it upon the church for many a century.
Christianity, no less than the social, civil and
material well-being of people, depends upon
the education of each successive generation.
With these well known principles to guide
US, proceed, in the next place, to inquire in
to the condition and the permanent prosperity
Of this republic.
To go back to any other form of govern
ment we cannot; no more than the earth can
go back to chaos and lormless void. Other
nations may seek peace in monarchies. Here
such change is sheer impossiblity; certainly
til! after long periods of anarchy. We have
gone too far. No, only by the right training
of the people is there peace or safety for us.
We began with this theory and we must abide
by it.
The text points to the only plan of church
or national salvation, viz all to be instructed
and established in righteousness. Then our
temple shall stand forth in beauty. Call this
general, and no to mean that every citizen
shall be rightly educated only the great ma
l0rity. Such a portion as shall easily main
tain all good Institutions. This is practica
bic. 1t has been true, measurably, in some
of our states. 1t can be in all; and at less
cost, considering the value of every good citi-
zen to the state, than to maintain masses of
vicious and uneducated or mis- educated men,
The crime and destruction for which New
York must pay, is a heavier tax than it would
be to educate. | do not mean schools only,
but in comfortable homes, regular employ.
ment, and those constant influences for good,
which train men to love order, respect law,
and feel on interest in the general welfare.
You may say this is Herculean task. So it
is: but not as great as the task will be if this
is neglected. The work is great, and has
been every generation, to keep our New Eng.
land community up to the standard attained.
Millions of money, whole armies of faithful
men and wOmen--n families, schools, in all
the industries and professions this is the
price. Pay it. Pay it every year. Redouhle
it every generation, or pay more and suffer
more for neglect
Such are Gods terms of well-being; we
may take or we may reject them! Altered
they will not be, il all the republics and all
the churches on the globe sink into night! If
a youth does not like the conditions of being
q man, he can be less than man; Carb or
Digger Indian, or, worse still, among us,
lazy, drunken lout or loafer, that others have
to endure and support; or build gaols and
prisons to confine. He cannot be both! A
nation has the same choice. If there is not
righteousness GHOuSll 10 save IL on the terms
God has fixed, and uttered by every prophet
and sage-terms as unalterable as the uni
verse-t shall mserably perish. And to ret
rograde will cost more than to advance.
We are paying now for our un-republican
and uQrighteous practices enought to have
rightly educated every citizen OF the nation
and all for miseducati0ni There is not rebel,
nor riotcr, blackleg, thief, or scoundrel of any
sort, that, taken in childhood, taught and
trained amid all fayoring influences, might not
have been educated to good citizenship. God
didnot make them acanps. They were not born
scamps. They were miseducated into scampS.
They had their being amid practices, opin-
IONS parties, vices, crimes, false teachings,
false religion, temptations of greed and gain
and power-a whole malarious atmosphere
breathing it every day from childhood into
manhood without the controlling power of
truth and right; that has made them what
III y are-tleir hearts loving and their wills
conserving all the time.
And how thin, and how brittle too, the out
ward crust of law and virtue which the le0d-
erS OF this traltorouS hosts seemed to wear! 1t
broke through into the bottOmless pit of re-
belliOn and anarchy the moment it was tested.
1t had no strength; none Of the firnness of
long-continued training in right. Nay, it was
only assumed. All the strength was on the
wrong side. A false education may be as
strong for evil as right education is for good;
and with us it will be false if not true.
We stand aghast at the gossamer thinness
of much we call law-abding, patriotic, virtu-
GUS or religious. Like the jewellers on the
sides OF volcanoes, knowing that what looks
so solid may suddenly break through, plung-
ing us into the fiery crater.
How seemingly fair, decorous, honest, 10y
al in, ol,.,
where, while actually plotting the most dia-
bolica! of crimes. and is there sensible
man that does not know that if our army had
been beaten in Pennsylvania large class of
just such gentlemen would have led the MUIR
derous mobs in many a northern city?
There is man high in office, well-dressed
and sleek, full of professions for order and
law and country! Who would suppose that,
give him a chance, he would break every law
and plunge cities and the nation into Robes
pierre reign of terror? Yet we know thou
sands have done it, and other thousands
were ready to do it with the least chance of
success.
Give the opportunity, and Marats and Ro-
bespierres would be as plenty among us as
they were in France or in East Tennessee.
Thompson and Toucy and Cobb and Floyd, of
Buchanah'S cabinet, were every whit as
wicked and decidedly meaner in their action
than those terrorists whom all history has
eXecrated.
Is it the stability of virtue, interviewer in
every fibre of our moral nature by right edu-
cation, that gives peace to our homes and
safety to our prosperity?
Let the police of a city give license for
week for every one to do as he pleases, and
who would not send away his family and Sc
crete his goods before the sun went down?
Who believed-who could believe, three
years ago, that nearly half of all the
voters of this republic, taking all the thirty
four states, would have come to favor slave
holders rebellion, inaugurated at Montgomery
by forty-two men only, out of thirty-two mil
lion people? Yet the past is before u.s. These
daring men knew how readily their followers
would be led to ruin.
Is such il stupendous result without its ad-
eQuate causc! No! no more than the burial
of Herculaneum under the ashes and scoria
of Vesuvius. They have been educated
miseducated- this position; voluntarily
indeed, and wickedly, but most effectively.
And as certain as poison will kill, or any seed
produce its kind, so sure is it that the same
influences will give the same results again, or
as often as tried.
The two states, Massachusetts and South
Carolina, are what they are by the education
al influences of two hundred years; and as
legitimately as any harvest of wheat or of
tares. We have power over results, by our
power over causes for God has ordained that
we shall reap as we SOW.
This nation, them now tossed with tempest