The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-01-18
MORAL INCURABLES.
nom The Lon don, saturday R1vie,0.

ArCnlpebBO mas, among OJner tnlnEs, given q |
rather minute account of the condition to which
the Malay opium.smoker reduces himself; and
the account is made more graphic than una,ded
words could have made 1t by Photograph OF
one of these UNHAPPY creatures. The wretch
though only of middle age, is emaciated so as
to be mere skin and bone; the deadness OF his
expression is irreproduclble in words; in his
hands is the fatal pipe; "by his side are seen
vessels for making tea, aud by coPious draughts
OF. that stimuant be will try to revive his dead
limbs by and by, when he awakes from his con-
templated debauth, and finds, as it were, his
very life on the point of leaving the body
When a man has once contracted the habit Of
opium.smokng says the traveller, il Is npossi-
BILE to reform; aud, in leed one need only look
at the picture to be quite sure of this i'm.
possibility. A reader with anything like
an imaginative turn OF mind cHn hardly help
pausiug TO think of condition of such despair.
and il he is reflective as well as imaginative, he
will feel chill IN remembering that the Malay
opiuoi- smoker is not the only, even If he Is the
most degraded, kind of lucurable. 1t Is rather
useful thing for Enghshmen to think about,
because the notion of an incurable Is one of
those which we have supreme difficulty in ad-
hitting to our minds, We are so convinced
and it is a very decided piece OF good fortune
for us that we are SCOT the omuipotenCe of
personal effort aud the rfeslstblenc55 OF the
human will, that the existence OF facts whicn
effort cannot touch, and OF circumstances
against which any force that we th nix OF under
the name of will IS totally imoOtent is either
i.nored, or al any rate is kept as much OFT OF
sight as possible That TINS Is on the whole
very wholesome tendency, and ends in good in
the long run there can be hardly any jubt.
1t is good less for it, elt than for the healhiness
of nature of which it is sign. 1t
is better that people should overrate than
that they should undetrate tue power OF the
will, and that they should narroT the deld
where effort is unavailing to as small dmen-
soBs as may be. Even if they devote their
enereies to the reformation OF characters that
are too far gone in evil TO be capable OF refor-
nation, at any rate the effort brings cool to
the worker, and braces his oHn character If 1t
does nothing else. But 1t IS not good that
anything should be shiISed, and it is not good,
therefore, that we should smut our eyes to the
existence of whole bands OF moral incura5le,-
men as far beyond redemption from this Or that
tyrADnical habit as the M tlay opium oker,
and whose moral case is not a whit less despe-
rate. Our common reluctance to recognize such
a class of persons arises not merely rom the
shock which they give to our conviction OF the
omnipotence of energy and wIll, but also IRON
the shock which they give to our CO npasSOn
and sympathy aud human hopeulness. Tlere
is certain horror, as OF death itself, 10 the i'd
that any body, especially any body we know or
like, is finally given over TO a repro6e.e
mind, either on one special side OF con.
duct, or, as is sometimes true. on all
sides. Hopelessness Is the one condition which
1t freezes the sympathetic mind even TO dream
about in connection with character. Yet III
one sense hopelessuess may almost be SAID TO
be law OF character; chat is to say, get IN 20
moral grooves, and II We only go sufficiently
far in them, thence hencefor ward it Is as gooI
as certain that We shall never succeed in
hosting ourselves out OF them. Opium.
smoking is not q tA7orlte popular wee
among Europeans and 50 we do not get Incura-
bleDess brought home 10 us in that direct and
concrete manner which is much more
elective than any other. But the most un-
fnchipg optlmlst will think twice before tie
maintains that we are free from other vices and
toibes that are hardly sntde ess deatly,
nlutGtlS nnutdndiS; at all events, from vices an
tolbles which their victims would probably
count quite as deadly II they could only see
hens elves as Others tee them.
Take weakness OF purpose, tor example. 1t is
as certain as anything eau be, that after time
the habit of desiring without willing, of pur-
posing without STRIVING, of wishing an design
ing without executing or taking strenuous
steps towards executing, tastens uDon a man
and grows into his bones and his flesh, ami
pulls him down 70 stale fully as desperate and
as deadly from a moral point of view as the
state of the Malay opIumsmoker is despela e
from the moral and physical point. Pract-
cally, there is about MS little chance of re cutnS
the one as the oIher. II moral differences
could only, by some useful bit of miracle, be
made TO manifest themselves IN outward
and visible signs in the flesh, we should per-
ceive that the man was as far gone, as enact
ated, as much OF a skeleton as his III tlaY proto.
type, and that not all the 10 oral and spiritual
doctors in creation could pull hun out of his
cachexy. The power of sefdeception is per-
haps kindly device placed WITHIN reach Of men
by the beneVolence OF the compassionate gods. 1t
would be too appalling, too tragic, II men in
this condition could realize the truth that they
had finally and forever shut and double To- ck red
the gates OF their particular Paradise against
themselves. To have mind teenng WITH pro-
jects and purposes, to keep body and soul
together, SO to speak, by confident anticipation
OF ful6llng them, and suddenly to fnd out that
you had hopelessly crippled yourself and de-
stroyed as with knife or cautery, the very
germs of the strength necessary for fuldlment-
could the flames OF the PIT coue much nearer
to man than this? Or much nearer 10 toe
friends OF the man? Yet there are perhaps no
more soddened opium smokers in the Indian
Archipelago than there are people IN Europe,
feeding themselves on the fumes of uneSecuted
purpose, thrown by their Xatation into deadly
dIowsiness, only to be dispeled by violent
stlmulants-thc futile prPpara ions tor h
debauch. II this were seen physically, it would
be 1lghtn Its terror aud despair woIlt eX-
coed any physical malady to which men are
subject, because, to be capable OF hi b
resolve and good purpose, man must
have stuff in blm, and must therefore be
capable OF proporlona.ely bitter ANGUISH If it
We're ever to be revealed TO MIN that his whole
life, OF which he thinks so muCn. W tn which DE
means To do so much, which impresses and
stimulates his empty purpose so m Ich, is only
patch OF mOOnshDe a ter all Tue cA,e Of tn :,
simply indolent man is bad ennuub ii he cnul 4
only see It; but then IT could never appea
particularly horrible to hlm from his O Vn point
OF vie Y. because he probably has theory thai
the Maay mig bit Just as vii be lying com tort.
ably on hls back on straw mat, with the tea
pot by hls side, as doing anything else. The
case OF confirmed Incidence Is guobie, aud it, L
sad, as the sight OF ANYBODY surrepderel o
demon from whose grasp he cannot be eXtrl-
Gated must ALWAYS be. But il is not so terrible