Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1864-11-03
Chairman Dem. Central Committee.

The ELEVATION OF THE FAMILY.-The
lecture of the Rev. C. f. Smarius at the
Opera House last night upon the subject of
"The Pagan and Christian Families was
attended by an extremely large and intelli-
gent audience, attracted by the reputation
of the speaker for eloQuence and learning!
and his effort was fully equal to his fame.
The lecture was masterpiece of eloquence
and model Of literary beauty. The drift
and object of the lecture was to show the
benign and powerful influence of Christian
ity in elevating woman from condition Of
degrading servitude to her present place of
dignity and honor; and in doing this he de-
voted his eXOrdium to beautiful picture of
Eden ut the creation of the world, where
society was formed and its origin was
divine; and considered the influence of wo-
man in effecting the fall of Adam. He
then painted the condition of the family in
Pagan times and countries, when women
were degraded and despised as the original
cause of the fall of man and as only toler-
able in consideration of her services to the
State. He traced the horrible and degrad-
ed position of women among the Medes and
Persians, in Babylon, in Egypt in Greece
and in Rome, when the mother
was compelled to sacrifice her offspring to
some heather Moloch, and when the con-
stituent elements of the family were-man
the despot, woman the slave, and the child
the victim. He pictured in vivid colors the
deep degradation and depravity which the
world had reached after four thousand
years of Pagan legislation, in which wo-
man was regarded as the property of her
husband, and the child the property of the
State; and then described the reformation
effected by the Rcdeemer of the world, who
restored woman to the position Providence
intended her to occupy, and gave the child
to God, to whom it belonged. The picture
was filled out with the hand of genius
the eloquence of an inspired philosopher;
and to it was attached the moral that il
Christianity had accomplished no other
good, this elevation of the family, and the
corresponding elevation of the morality of
mankind entitled Christianity to the un-
dying gratitude of the statesman, philoso-
pher, thinkers and philanthropists of all
time.
No synopsis or outline of the lecture that
we can give would do the reverend speaker
justice, and we shall not attempt the task;
but the silence and attention with which his
discourse was received attested its great
merit and evinced the fact that the impress
sion it made was ineffaceable. The lecture
was filled with fine and brilliant antithetic
sentences, and the discourse itself was an
admirable antithesis. The voice of the
speaker is sonorous and melodious; his man.
ner easy and his delivery fluent and charm
ing. He uttered no superhuous word for
the sake of rounding off sentence, yet
every sentence was as smooth as blank
verse. Not as flattering compliment to
Mr.. Smarius-but to convey an idea of the
admirable discourse he delivered, we may
truthfully say that no lecturer, professional
or occasional, that ever addressed an audi
ence in this city, could equal his lecture last
evening in brillianoy or force.