Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1864-06-01
Sober Thoughts for the Times

cicero, IN many OF MS letters and
speeches Immediately preceding the over
throw of the Republic, dwells with hon
est Indignation, not unmingled with de-
spondency, on the luxury and frivolous
amusement to which the people suffered
themselves to be addicted while the State
was convulsed by civil war and actually in
the throes of dissolution. Instead of prac
ticing virtues of self-denial and of crap
pling with the stern difficulties of the
| time in which they lived, they sought di-
version in the care of business or in the
dissipation of Roman life. Magnificent
palaces were reared while the foundation
of the State were rocked beneath the
blasts OF contending factions, and costly
fish ponds expanded in their dimensions
until they We'd with the Laucrene lake.
Such was the opticiSm and such the in
sensibility oi the people that he writes of
men who deemed themselves most happy
II Ley got tame fish to come out at
their call and eat out of their hands
fool enough" he adds, ''to believe that
if the Constitution were destroyed their
fish ponds would be safe. There was no
adequate perception ofthe duties demand
ed by the crisis, and no attempt to per-
form them by the great mass of ruling
population who gave tone to Roman so
ciety.
1t will not be denied that we are living
in times fraught with the most solemn
destinies that ever awaited any people
embrolled as we are III civil war of un-
exampled magnitude, whether regard be
had to the extent OF territory covered by
il or the number of forces brought into
fratricidal combat. AT the same time
the foundation of our civil institutions
are destroyed in eleven States, by their
unconstitutional secession from the Fed
eral Union, until the decorations of the
body polite ore no less gastly than the
wounds and scars left by the material
strife of war.
And yet, amid all these evils which call
for humiliation, or at least for soberness
and recollection of thought, what do we
witness? The increase and spead of lux
ury on every hand. A spirit of specula-
ton prevades all classes of people. The
initiation of the currency lends itself to
the delusions of those who make haste
to get rich. Our great cities, if we may
trust the representations which reach us,
are flied with the booths of Vanity Fair
All forms of popular amusements are pat
ronized beyond precedent. The very win
ter quarters of our armies are invaded by
the train of Pleasure. and ''the sounds of
reyelry by night" in ball and dance pre-
cludes the opening of the spring cam
paign.
While England was engaged in the war
of the Crimea such was the solemnity in
spired by public calamity, and so keenly
felt were the private griefs that darkened
the hearthstones of English homes, that
there was a general suspension of the or
dinary forms in which social gayety finds
Are we living in less sol
emn time, or are we less sensible of the
not 10 say the duties, enjoin-
ed by the judgments of God when they
take the most awful shape in which they
can visit any people? If frivolity and
if greed and luxury are
at all times the reproach of people, what !
shall we think Of dissipation and extrav- !
agance and corruption holding high car
nival in a time of civil war? If no higher /
motives can arrest the progress of this de- |
generacy, than such an appeal to the pas /
sions of war, it is sufficient to say that no (
war can be successfully waged which does
not beget in its prosecution the hardy |
virtues of sacrifice and devotion. while |
Heaven must frown on cause which (
Identifies iaself with social and politi- /
cal dissolution.-NatiOpai Intelliaencer.