North Iowa times. [volume] (McGregor, Iowa) 1867-current, 1868-12-30
WHOLE No. 637.
why 10 the Age Irreligious !

The Boston Journals are lamentinc the
religious decadence of New England
That portion of onr country, the land pa,
excellence OF the Puritans, was once the
high temple of christianity in the Ameri.
can Union. 1t is now the moral pest.
house of America, whence comes all the
infidelity, all the deistical philosophy, and
nearly all the political sedition of the
times. Mormonism had its rise in that
quarter. Abolitionsm of the Garrisonian
stamp flourishes there. Spiritualism finds
congenial soil, and so does Millerism, as
well as every other mischievous ism of the
day, in the east. In sober truth, there's
fore, New England has lost it's good repu-
tation, and is rapidly acquiring, at pre-
sent, as great notoriety fer its Stree
thinking proclivities, rs it originally en-
joyed for the stern and uncompromisiny
character Of its evangelical principles.
And yet, after all, this change is natural.
One extreme inevitably begets in time, it's
opposite. 1t is the common law of action
aud reaction. The people who are, in one
day models of patriotism, often became
the next, by simple change of circum-
stances, the most revolutionary, and sons
of pious men are too often celebrated for
their conscionless extravagance. And
this we behold it in New England The
generation dying out still adheres tena-
ciously to its orthodox notions, and is
probably as exemplary now as it ever was;
but the generation coming in is quite the
reverse. 1t has fretted and chated under
the too frightened rain. until, having got
ten its liberty, it breaks loose from all
rational restraint, and b unds away in its
exuberance of freedom to enjoy perfect
saturnalia of mental recklessness.
The conduct of some of our pulpit
orators is utterly destroying, in truth, all
respect for religion among the masses of
kalIocn quietly sapped the foundation Of
popular devotion, aud to much greater
extent than the inconsiderate would i'm.
agine; while the discourses of men of the
stamp of the Reverend Messrs. Beecher,
Cheever and company, insensibly wear
away the distinction between the church
and the stump" and reduce the sermons
of our divines to simple essays on morals,
or mere political harrangues. Good,
worthy preachers, are thus made to suffer
for the course Of their reckless associates.
The general mind becomes demoralized.
1t looks on all ministers as alike. 1t be-
gins to view christianity as no longer a
thing to be reverently alluded to, and a
rule of life to live 10y, but to contemplate
it AS a mere system Of ethics sustained by
our iorefathers in order to keep as in
wholesome check, and maintained by a
willy priescraft simply to ensure the sup
port Of an idle and exclusive class. The
moment these conceptions become univers-
al, that moment all practical religion falls;
and if they do not become so, it will never
be the fault of the church militant, which,
in its bold attempts to become power
and an authority in the field Of politics, is
building up widespread and inconceiv-
ably intense resistance to everything like
ecclesiastical domination, and creating an
indifference for religion itself that is well
exemplifed, on the Sabbath, in the few
hundreds who 90 to the house Of worship,
and the thousands and tens Of thousands
who 90 anywhere else to make of it day
of frolic and abandonment.-E1.