Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1869-07-13
Yokes.

Many people take the opinions OF others
and fashion them into yoke for their own
necks. They are continually asking them
selves, not is a given line of conduct right,
but, if unfinchingly pursue it, shall | not
be thought peculiar. Thus, while perhaps
honestly desiring to avoid doing wrong, the
remarks that other people may make, the
construction that other people may put up
on their actions, operates as a positive hind
rance to many who lack that independence
of character which will enable them 70 pur-
sue given courses simply because they are
called to do so by high sense of duty.
Good people of the stricter sort sometimes
make grieyous mistakes in imposing unnec-
essarily heavy yoSes upon the young. Even
the observance of the Sabbath day, that
ought to be the pleasantest day of all the
week, may be of such character as to de-
tach all pleasant associations from it. Per-
haps the tendency of the present time is to
look with two little reverence upon the sa-
cred day; butt the old Puritan times, when
pious men are said to have hung cats on
Monday for catching mice on Sunday, the
formal observance of the Sabbath was insis-
ted upon with fearful strietness. Well
meaning parents have doubtless sometimes
made what God designed as "a day of rest
and spiritual culture simply day of tor
ment to thoughtless little children, too
young to understand why they could not be
permitted to make little noise on the sew
enth day, when on all the preceding days
of the week they could feel as free as air
and act as free as they felt When chill
dren thus brought up are told that heaven
is an eternal Sabbath, it is not strange that
III la
desirableness of going there. There are va
rious other yokes that men bear though,
thank heaven there are some that a pro
gressive age has broken.
There are people whose antipathy to in
novations, merely because they are innova-
tons, is intense. The yoke they work in is
the yoke Of custom; and because it has
been fastened upon successive generations,
'time whereof the memory of man runneth
not to the contrary" it seems to them that
it ought always to be borne.
Most of the ''isns" that are rife among
men are, in one way and another, yOkes );
though those who bear them do not seem
to know it. In religion sectananism yokes
people together in a way that is destructive
to breadth of culture as well as to depth Of
religious experience. 1t is also well-nigh
destructive TO social intercourse outside the
circle of those who are bound together by
common ism
We raise no objection to the formation of
organizations which comprise those whose
opinions upon the great truths of religion
are similar but, when almost exclusive at
tention is paid, not to the grand object for
which they are united in visible form, but
to the bond Of union itself, an influence is
exerted that is detrimental and narrowing
in the highest degree. This nineteenth
century Of ours has been glorifed by being
allowed to see the yokes of enslaved mil
lions broken. 1t has seen these same down
trodden ones inspired with the hope of Ill
timately attaining to the condition of free
men, with all the legal rights and response
bilities pertaining to that condition. One
after another the yokes that have held men
in bondage-physical, mental, and spiritu-
al-are falling off; and men are learning
that real freedom and true happiness are tC
be found only when no yoke whatever is
borne, save that which Infinite Wisdom ha,
pronounced an easy One.-Independent.