The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1869-12-01

self-dependent women. The agitation OF this
question means at least as much as this.
What pleasant sign of independence and
mental elevation is given US in the adoption
of the eight-hour system, whatever may be
thought Of the economy Of it. Mechanics
are not serfs any longer, hut men of intelli-
gence and influence The drudges must
now be drawn from the halfcivilized and
beathen myriads of Asia and Africa, while
our artizans are TO have time for culture.
In religion, liberal views prevail; super
stitions have given way; the churches are
more free; deuominational wars are pretty
well over. The word hereto will soon be
obsolete, and Christian mean more than
Journalist. We are still narrow, think. in
some of our church ideas. Our churches are
too restricted; the interval between them
and the masses seems to be widening every
year 1t used TO be that all were in some
sort of ecclesiastical connection, and there
fore received some oversight and care from
pastors and others; but now, the churches
are too much the fashionable resorts of a
select few, while the multitudes are as sheep
without shepherd. The Lord help them
But this evil is somewhat remedied by the
| increased attention paid TO the religious in
struction of children. We are getting tired
of presenting the Gospel TO the hardened
sinners only. We are no longer willing to
be put off with the left-ends of humanity,
very few of whom are ever converted 1t
shows the good sense of the times that MN
listers are preaching good deal to children,
who can give a whole life to the Lord, and
who are susceptible TO impressions, their
hearts not having been crusted over by long
habits of unbelief, or the beauty and very
life of their souls burnt out by the fires of
vice. We can offer to our Master no gifts
more precious than bouquets of the sweet
young flowers of human nature-buds o
promise, tender blossoms, still fresh with
the dews of morning.
Wide views are taken in all branches of
knowledge. No part of the past has added
so largely to the domain conquered by the
forces of the human mind. The average of
intelligence is greater than heretofore; edu-
cation is more widely diffused, and embraces
matters of more practical worth. At last,
people have come to study things, not words
and distractions, and to make their school
days steps to trade, the farm, the workshop,
and the home. We are living in day, too,
of great intellectual brilliancy. Bright lights
of genius shine in the armament of ltera-
ture. We have, indeed, no Shakspeare-no
such universal mind may again be expected.
But he had around him no friends and com
panons in the walks of learning to be com
pared with the goodly array of poets, histo-
rians, editors, generals, admirals, divines,
and jurists, who take us by the hand and
lead us into the beautiful groves of thought,
or rupward TO the heights of manly enterprise.
Science, entering into the infnities of crea-
tion, has greatly enlarged the range of
thought, t,-opening highways into the won
derful and vast, where, with hushed breath,
awed and adoring, we seem to stand upon
the threshold of the palace-home of God.
Helped on by inventive genius, science has
smoothed the rough ways of life, and put to
our service SO many hidden forces of nature
as to make it common experience with US
not to be surprised at the most marvellous
novelties.
1t is indeed true that our literary people
and men of science have frightened us some
what by their attacks upon the Bible and
Christianity But it is really not so bad an
assault as that which was made by the inf
dels of the last century. The Bible is not
scorned as a forgery now-these men know
too much for that; Christianity is not seoffed
at as tissue of superstition and weakness.
Its grandeur, its perfect morality, its divinity,
even, are recognized, and Jesus is the love
liest character in history, whose acknowl-
edged power over the hearts of men is
thought worth studying into by Strauss, Re-
nan, Shenckel, and the rest. Granted that
some of these thinkers are bent on evolving
all things from fire mist, without the Gre
ative edict of Supreme Father, yet they
only retire into fog which the multitude
are perfectly willing they should stay in, and
are not at all disposed to enter with them.
Granted that they are busy emblazoning their
heraldic shield with the figure of the pre-
historic ape-their asserted ancestor, yet
the masses hear little about these specula-
tions, and care less for them, believing full
well that if man originated from the baboon,
then the baboon must have started with the
seeds of the human soul in him,-a greater
wonder than the absolute creation taught in
Genesis, and only uselessly moving back the
needed act of God.
g. The present is an age when moral ideas
hold the scepter in society. 1t is not so ma
terialstic an era as some would have 1t.
There is a public sentiment before which
wickedness is constrained to hide its head.
An enlightened public conscience has proved
itself mighty force in society. 1t has abol-
ished fogging on the high seas; 1t has re-
moved the decanter from the side-board of
our houses, where it used to stand-a con-
slant temptation; it has driven into disgrace
intemperance itself, that used TO be thought
no more than the pecessary spice in fine
fellows character. The moral sentiment of
society killed the slave-trade; procured abo
Iition in the British West Indies, and set free
the serfs of Russia. American slavery went
down before it,-swept off not so much by
the cohorts of the Republic, as by the Chris
tian conscience of the people who brought on
the conflict, and when it came, would not
compromise, though the sacrifice was great.
| Moral ideas rule widely in this our dav The