The St. Cloud journal. [volume] (St. Cloud, Minn.) 1866-1876, 1871-02-16
"Po.1r,vr AND NroAr1vB."-!The closing

4 "Pos1r1vE AND NEaAr1vE."- The closing
ecture o. the course was d liversd by
Prof. Ira Moore, on the above subject. at
the Congrega,i onal Church on Tuesday
evening, 10 large audience. Tae positive,
he said, acts ; the negative is acted upon.
: All power or force is positive; dead. inert
matter is negative. Powers and resistanoes
make up the sum Of natures workings. The
positive waters grind down the negative
hills into forms of beauty, and spread the
alluvium over the valleys.
The positive man acts; tho negative
man is acted upon. The one follows his
marked-out track the other is blown about
hither and thither. The positive man be.
longs to aselect class Of leaders; the mega
tive man is an atom of the great mass. In
classifying positive men, the lecturer spoke
OF tho angular man-quick, arbitrary and
fearless-as the most common. Then
there is the slow, heavy, Ajax-like man,
who moves liesurely, but his will is fate.
Much of the worlds work is done by such
men. As marked type Of another class,
those with strong impulses and passions
we'll under control, he referred to Emperor
William Of Germany, and in somewhat
lengthy notice ascribed to him much
that has usually been awarded to Bismarck.
Less honorable than any, is the man of the
"willowy" character, who agrees with
whomsoever he may be talking, apparent
y yields when pressed, but always re-
turns to his own selfish purposes. The
lecturer here remarked that he used the
word man in its generic sense. Negative
men needed no classification they were
from the same mould-affected by every
breath of rumor, and making up their mind
only to unmake'it.
Doubling is the condition of all growth
of knowledge. 1t leads to the discovery of
new facts and to the correcting Of old i'm
presslons. The positive man doubts wisely,
just enough to spur to investigation but
with negative character doubt is final
ity. Of doubling devoid Of purpose,
Shakespeare's "Hamlet'' is striking H.
lustration. The positive man is invaluable |
in society, and in observing him we realize
that of all intellectual pleasures the high
est is reserved for the genuine converse
tionalist.
It takes positive man OF the most deci-
led character to be reformer. His hand is
against every man AMI every mans hand
is against him. The history Of the Anti
Slavery movement illustrates this (The
lecturer here paid his compliments to news
papers, interfering doubt as to their I'm.
questioned reliability under all circum-
stances. To all such doubters, we extend
our sympathy 1t is not strange that wo-
man, moving for inalienable rights denied
her, should meet tho fate of other reform
ers. Mrs. Stanton, on the strength of
newspaper statements and detached extracts
from her writings. had been charged with
holding free-love doctrines which would be
disgrace to any people. But he did not
appear as Mrs. stanton's advocate; the
purity Of her life was known and she was
able to take care of herself.
Negative men sometimns have flashes of
positiveness, and the least positive men are
those who sometimes make the most posi-
tive assertions.
Books are positive to degree which
men can seldom attain. Foremost is the
Bible, which maintains its claim to divine
authority in spite of constant misrepresen-
tation. Teaching peace, it has been called
to sanction the bloodiest prosecutions; it
has been used as a stumbling block in the
path Of science; it has, been quoted by even
so grave and reverenda body as tho Pres
byterian church of the United States, in
solemn conclave assembled not many years
since, as sanctioning slavery as q divine
institution and to-day there are those
who would use it to prove woman's inferi-
GRITTY. We should give woman equal rights
before the law and leave her to work. out
her own destiny. Until she have the suf-
fragc we, as a nation, have but reached
halfway to the goal indicated in our Dec
laration Of Rights. He instanccd Turkey,
where women arc held to be slaves and
without souls, as a logical people. He
reviewed the position of Christian coun-
tries, where women are admitted to have
souls; where they can hold and speak in
female prayer meetings, and attend TIL,
general meetings and listen to the men but
where they have scarcely any property
rights, and no voice in the government. This
IS the great question of the present time.
Genuine thought is imperishable, and is
the only preserving salt of books. Grea'
authors are great borrowers of the crude
material that has accumulated through
years, -condensers Of the literature OF
ages. Pos tive books, those which live, are
not spun out from the material in one
mans brain, but represent the condensed
thought of thousands. Burton's 'sAnatomy
of NJ Melancholy" was instanced as one OF
the few negative books worth remember
ing.
hat has been said Of individuals is
equally true Of nations. The positive race
of the present time is the Anglo-saxon.
While il has achieved much, still higher
destiny is in store for it.
The lecture was listened to attentively
by the large audience, drawing forth
repeated indications of approval, and was
a hitting close to the successful course
provided by the Library Association.
Observation-Disclosures of newspapers
and the public generally will do we'll to keep
clear of the following firms, who have been
advertising extensively, but who are
swindlers:
L. F. DeForest, dealers in watches, 40
and AZ Broadway, New York.
The American Family ($5) Sewing Ma
chine Co.. SO Nassau street, New York.
DR.. J. CLARK, 1910 Broadway, New York
This scamp, one Of our exchanges states,
has just been sentenced to ten years At
Sing Sing, fate too long escaped.
GRAND MAsouERADE.-The Jovial Club
will give q grand masquerade ball at