The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-07-28
The FOrtieth COngress---Its RecOnstruc-
tiOn Record.
From the ". Y. Times.

From the ". y Times.
The record of the FOrtieth Congress is now
before the people, just as that OF the Thirty
ninth was, two years ago; that Is, before the
people as fully as it can be previous to the
November elections. No two Congresses were
ever in more thorough accord than these two.
The Thirty ninth was not elected upon the
special issues of reconstruction. But it pro-
ceeded to the work with vigor; and, if in its
manner it was too slow, and perhaps too indi-
rect, still the material result was satisfactory.
The Fourteenth Amendment, the Civil Rights
bill, and the bill continuing the Freedmen's
Bureau met the popular sense as to what was
needed for the security of the nation, for the
benefit of the emancipated slave, and for the
permanent welfare of the South.
and psalms which degraded it from creature
of life and beauty into pack-hOrse for carry
ing theological dogmas The drama was to-
tally abolished. Painting must not depart
from or rise above the literal rendering of
Mrs. Grundy's spectaeled wrinkles and plated
nightcap, and was judged admirable as the
waIt on the nose, the Wen, and the hare lip
were accurately reproduced on the canvas.
Poetry was chiefly occupied in putting Deuter-
oncmy into doggerel, the Revolutionary War
into rhyme, the exploits of Christopher Colum-
bus and Captain John Smith into verse, and
those of Captain Kidd into song. Sculpture
being expressly forbidden 10y the Ten Com
mandments, or at least by one of them, nobody
duIst make any craven images, lest some
one should bow down to them and worship
them, improbable as might seem such an act
of devotion toward such objects as the expert
ment would have produced had it b en- tried.
Fictitious literature was so under ban that
commentators were reluctant to admit, and
lesser preachers Indignantly denied, that any
OF the parallels described events which had
not actually occurred, or that truth could ever
be usefully conveyed through any medium
framed by the imagination. And architecture,
especially in the erection OF temples of wOr
ship, was confined to getting the largest
number OF souls into single building with the
least cost.
Alas for the old and the conservative, when
by the increase OF wealth, by the vast labor
power of machinery, and 10y accommodating
capital and leisure, society was drawn away
from these ancient mOollngs and drltted out
i to the wider sea OF modern life Now, en-
ioyment for its own sake has become legiti-
mate i'll public esteem and even the mOralist
arrests the Overworked tOiler with stop, for
your sonl's sake, and enjoy yourself" We
have not, as people, yet learned the art of
enjoyment very thoroughly, but We have
very generally come to entertain grave doubts
whether we ought not to. The first repre-
sentative writer of the age, Charles Dickens,
is never so truly first as when he shows the
of the pursuit of the useful only to harden
and benumb the finer qualities of our nature.
He has taught the age that coarseness and
savagery, aud with them crime and slavery,
may result as we'll from the absence of art or
amusement as from heterodoXy in creed, and
that sticking to facts" and to business may
make a Gradgrind or Podsnap so odioIs that
we shall thank God for endewing us with ina
ginations and rendering us capable OF play.
But lest We ourselves should fall into the
errors OF the past ana value amusement as a
means Of profit, we the more plainly assert
that the age is beginning to learn that all
profit is but means OF amusement, and that
all utility and duty terminate in pleasure as
their last and highest fruit Under the infu-
enoe of this conviction we are restoring art
and amusement to the high place they have
held in the eliminating periods of every nation
or civilization. There have been for twenty
five years a gradual and sure revival of the
physical and the sensuous, and demolition o
the ascetic the coarse, and the vulgar in aver
age American social life. At first it pleaded
feebly for the liberation of the fine arts. 1t
transformed our churches from theological
barns into reformatory Parlors. II has. taught
American ladies that waspish intellectually
and swelling forehead, pale with an overload
OF knowledge, cannot compensate for the alb