The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1868-12-18

| men have not manhood sufficient tG
maintain their integrity, no republican
form Of government can exist. No
such government can be maintained
unless its citizens are intelligent and
virtuous.
Now men cannot haveproper intelli-
| genee who are utterly destitute of vir-
tue. You will admit this because it is
truth.
To my mind, therefore, as ! look
over the state Of things, the ''signs Of
the times" are appalling. Dclilah is
at the home Of Liberty with the voice
of an enchantress, asking this mighty
Sampson to sleep upon her knees, that
she may shave off his seven locks
Now she is speaking clamorously for
universal suffrage" and woman,
lovely glorious woman, Is forgetting
the position into which God has plac-
ed her, and is STOPPING down from that
platform Of female glory and beauty
aud excellence. to mingle with the
drunken crowd and the filth OF the
streets about the polls on election day.
What a pitiable, sorrowfuI sight, to
see the Ioveliest Of Gods creation on
earth, the American woman, should
ering and elboTing with the roughs Of
your city, the fragments Of their bon
nets and the borders Of their caps be-
ing streTn about the walk in their
drunken riots! Heaven save this land
from such a desolation, from such a
curse, from such a moral calamity, as I
believe before God
To-day our nation is on the inclined
plane, and the momentum Of IFS de-
scent is increasing m0mentarily.-
The cry from every patriotic heart
should resound over hills and dales,
and throughout the broad land, Down
with the brakes" That should be the
cry from its deep centre to its almost
b0undless circumference. STEADY
now, steady" or else you will dash to
pieces. Delilah has not yet succeeded,
through the money influence of the
Philistines, in shaving off the seven
locks from the head Of our Sampson
but the money power is at work, we
must break this chain and burst these
bonds and cast these fetters Off, or we.
ike poor Sampson, will yet sleep in
the lap Of the DeIudress, wholly IN
done. This monster power should be
destroyed. Righteousness, strict in-
tegrity, truth, honor, unbending faith,
adherence TO everything that is good,
and abh0ring everything that is evil,
should be the principles for our guild
ance.
Why should We be led estray. Dur
ing the first three quarters Of a centu-
ry OF this nations existence, its infancy,
It's youth, its powerful manhood, who
ever heard Of corruption, and what a
nation it was and what nation
il would have CONTINUED to be, for
far beyond what it was then, if we
had adhered to principle: for righeous-
ness exalteth, instead Of sin. If wo-
man would march on in her course as
majestic as that King Of day, or the
. Queen of night, or the beautiful stars
that accompanying them. and prove the
friendof humanity and the friend Of God
and as Gods friend, mans friend then,
surely, the result must be good. But
when the design Of the heart IS to mix
/ up creation in a way that God has not
mixed it, and to give universal equal
I fty TO men and women, irrespective Of
intelligence, what must be the result :?
+ Nothing butruin.
In order 10 save ourselves we must
] as a nation search for the best, purest,
and the must highly fitted men for ev-
cry official situation in the land. from
the President of the United States
down 10 your ward constable. We
! must have legislative halls. both Ma
tional and State, filed with the best
men that can be found. Surely, below
Ell brethren, and my fe!low-citizens,
in this great country the Jefcrsons,
the Adams, the 3Iadisons and Mon
roes, the Jacks0ns, are not all dead /!
Are they? Then the requium may be
played and the nation go in mourning.
Our Republic is gone.
There seems still to be some Web
sters and Clays and Calhouns and
/ Bentons and Prescotts and Frelinhuy-
. sens and men Of that stamp.
There must be. and a host Of Others
whom neither angel nor devil dare ap-
proach with a bribe. These are the
kind Of men we want. Are they all
. dead? Can We never fill those mag
uifcent halls again with senators such
a. sat there forty and less years since :?
/ Goand look among them he who sat
In his majesty IS the interpreter of con-
s.ituti0nal law aud that eloquent man
Of Kentucky-the nations heart would
leap again to hear his stirring elo-
ouenca! Can we not find such men
now? Are there not some such IN this
great city? Can we not fill that
/ House at Harrisburg, and all the State
/ legislative and municipal chambers,
with men Of purity and men Of
thought? ? Men who will 20 there not
to make immense fortunes in three or
four years at three or four dollars a
day.!5 but men that will 90 there in
the purity Of their hearts and under the
influence ofrighteousness, abhoring sin
/ in every form.
by hearers, this country Of rivers,
of lakes, Of mountains and Of valleys !;
Of soil and Of climate Of minerals and