East Saginaw courier., 1866-04-25
WHOLE. i NO. 35l.

7 o.
prof,,se distribution of money 80, sud-
denly among the people, is braring
it's Legitimate fruits, improvidenc,',
poverty and crime. IN fearful abund-
/ ance,g fa~u~ - "a ,,,~c --a4r...
"The administration OF Oaths iil-
Vulnerable, in reference 10 almost
every business transaction Of private
life, has we'll nigh absorbed Omnisci-
.ence in the person Of the revenue
official, fast bartering their solemnity
for lucre or immunities against penal
| "Secsularizing the pulpit, making
earthly schemes instead of heavenly
\ aspirations the object of its. mission,
thereby losing hold Of the mystic cord
that binds man to his Maker, and
through the tightoning of which his
moral sensibility is exalted and ac-
corfntability to his. -fellow-mortal and
his God alone adjusted ss...
"Uprootipg by physical force insti-
tutions more ancient than history, an
terror to records of Holy Writ, us old
as tradition itself, thus changing the
status of great populations, involving
in its train crimes consequent on social
disintegration: og grce
i b..'The greed of gain and thirst for
power, which so mar this generation
with their unhallowed enormities,
rendering il questionable whether the
the doctrine of accountability is be-
lieved to he aught than cunningly-
devised dogma:
"And the Free School--a system
based in appropriating the gains Of
one citizen to the benefit of another,
on the questionable plea of public
utility, having rendered right in prop
erty less sacred, has stimulated reck-
lessness of, and impaired facility to,
the commission of crime that no moral
training will be likely soon to eradi-
cate"
That the tendency of most all those
measures and events which operate
to the practical uuderyaluation of
human life, or to lessen the sanctity
of the title Of the individual man to
his property, is to loosen the bonds of
society, and increase the quantity and
fagrancy of crime, is fact of which
there are too many exemplifcations To
admit of dispute The war in which
we have been engaged has been large
ly productive of both these effects;
aud very great deal of our more
recent legislation one of them. He
who has been a slayer or robber by
the license Of war, is to certain en-
tent demoralized man the degree
of his decentralization depending upon
the degree in which his passions got
the better of his reason and exercise
dominion over his conduct.
Taxation is one Of the conditions
upon which government exists; but
so unequal in their pressure are tho
/ very best systems of taxation that can
be devised, that no principle, in the
abstract, app ais more forcibly to tho
mind of man than this; that the tax
alton should be as light, and the OBJ
jects for which money is raised by
taxes, as few as possible. Govern
ment has its legitimate province, with
in which it is generally wiser than
the average individual Whenever
that province is transcended it loses in
wisdom in nearly the same ratio that
it travels away from Legitimacy. Very
many thoughtful men we may say
all who have studied deeply the science
of government, with respect 10 its true
functions--have come to the conclu-
sion that the mission of what is called
educating the people is no part Of its
obligations. Beginning with the white
the doctrine has been extended to the
negro, and hence tho fatuous notions
that, in the face Of the most convinc-
ing facts, are entertained of the ini-
proveability of tho colored race, and
the still more irrational efforts that
are being made to enlist the General
Government in grand, wholesale
? plan Of negro elevation.
Assuming the fact of a vast CON-
paratively recent increase of crime in
the United States, one thing must, on
all hands, be admitted that it has
not been without adequate cause
Among the causes, the secularization
of the pulpit, in the eyes Of many
judicious men, is entitled to occupy
very prominent place in the catalogue.
1t Is nearly half century since the
pulpit began to embark in that course
of party agitation which, within the
last six years, eliminated in such
frightful excess Of denuncation and
exhortation to cruelty. There have
been very unscrupulous generals
, ip the field there have been sulorli--
mates and privates as vile and as re-
gardless of right and deceney as it is
easy to conceive; but there have beea
preachers in the pulpit, and multitudes.
of them, whose exhortations in tho
: name of God have pointed to worse
even than has been performed. and.
whose urgent advice had it boen fol-.
lowed, would have left in the South,
, nothing but the ashes of its h,.mes
: and the bleaching skeletons Of its in
habitants.
, Here is the place where thought.
| full men pause and ponder over the
moral problems which tho times pre-.
sent, and wonder where lies the trutfs
and what are its elements. In NOR
, ality protean---a sliding scale which
some are and some are ut empowered
to adjust, according to- thor view of
the circumstances? Is the spirit ~
the gospel the same thing to-dav
that Il was yesterday, and will be to-
|, morrow; or is it simply what any
one Of body OF men who claim tho
authority of official Interpreters NAV
choose to- make II, under the influences
J Of bis temporary convictions, passions
or prejudices? Is it right, undor any
circumstances, to cast off the chains