The New York herald., 1871-09-03
work for the Churches.

tue COuutIy ufo returning W INC City, onu IL F"
week or two will be in their accustomed places
in the church and the counting house and the
home. In each of these spheres there will be
abundant work for every hand and heart, ana
the calls of the poor for sympathy and benevo-
lence will not be less this year than formerly.
Dread diseases are making rapid strides
toward our shores, and already the yellow
fever has begun to lay its heavy hand upon
the inhabitants of some of our seaboard cities,
and we know not how soon 1t may De here
among us. News of disasters by sea ana
land come to our ears in quick succession, and
famine and pestilence warn us Of the "begln-
| ming Of troubles
There is in New York, as there is in Lon
don and Paris, in Rome and Madrid,
| disturbing element in the population, ever
ready at the favorable moment to burst forth
in acts of violence and bloodshed, determined,
if possible to change the face and form OF
society We may be more safe and secure
than the other cities named because of the
popularity of our institutions; but there
are influences at work here which, 1t
allowed to 60 unchecked, will, ere long, upset
our institutions and leave us prey to the
basest passions of the mob. There is, there
fore, something for each one of us to do, but
the part which each is to take must be decided
by our individual sense of duty and obligation
to God and to our fellow men. Last Sunday
we were told by stranger that the three
great evils which are destroying New York
are :-Intemperance, RIGHTEOUSNESS and politi-
cal corruption. These and kindred evils
spring, of course, from low state of morals
in the community; and this comes from the
Church's neglect Of duty. If, therefore, this
state of things would be altered and improved,
every Christian man and woman must take
| hold and work. There must be no shirkiug
and lodging. That has been the cause of all
our immortality and rioting. There is tender
spot in every human soul which may be
reached by the proper means and in suitable
way, and the obligation rests upon the CHURCH
of God to bring the truths Of the Gospel and of
morality to bear upon every form of vice and
wrong doing.
Notwithstanding the number Of temperance
societies which exist in our midst, the evil of
drunkenness is on the increase, and it is no
longer confined to the laboring poor, but finds
hundreds of victims among the "better classes"
One cause Of this increase of intemperance,
and, perhaps, the most potent of all, is the
rapid rate at which we live and our excitable
style of living 1t is call work and no. play"
and the dulness which must ensue from over
work is kept at bay by the use Of stimulants,
which, taken at first, it may be, for a laudable
purpose and in healthy proportion, have
come at last to be our masters and the destroy
ers of our liberty and our lives. Temperance
societies do not strike deep enough to get at
the root of this evil. There is something more
needed than the mere signing of q pledge.
| The vice must be met a1d fought on an intel
lectual and spiritual basis, and the Church of
Christ is the only proper agent to combat it.
| And were our churches, Protestant and Cath
olic, to delegate score or more of their ablest
| religious teachers as apostles Of temperance
| to attend to this thing, both privately and pub
| licly, during the approaching fall and winter
and the ensuing spring, it would be time and
labor and money well spent. 1t is estimated
that not less than sixty thousand persons die
annually in these United States from intem-
perance alone. Our proportion of that number
is probably one-sixth, or ten thousand. What
a noble work the Church might do, therefore,
in saving, or trying to save, ten thousand
immortal souls from 'sgoing down to the pit!'
We believe there is no ministerial work within
the Church half so important as this; and we
are very well convinced that if those perishing
ones are to be saved at all it must be by going
after them and following them into their haunts
of debauchery and death.
Licentiousness is very closely allied to in
temperance-indeed, the one leans upon the
other for support. This vice leads to crimes
| untold and of great magnitude, not the least
of which is that which just now is agitating
this community. This, too, must be fought on
| the higher plane of Christian morality, and not
| merely by legal enactments and penalties.
We have tried these for many years and failed.
| Instead of lessening the evil, our laws, and the
administration thereof, have but tended to in
crease it, until the most fagitious crimes are
committed in the full blaze Of day and with
| the utmost unconcern-nay, even in defiance of
| the results. This, too, is the Church's work,
| and it must be met out of The pulpit as well as
in il. We cannot clear our skirts by going to
church, or to synagogue, once or twice or
thrice week, and praying or preaching
against this evil Somebody must take the
ploughshare of the Gospel and run it through
this vice until it is torn up root and branch,
from our midst. Who will do it?
And akin to intemperance and licen-
tiousness is the want Of probity and in
tegrity in all classes Of the community
| We see and hear of merchants and brokers
and business men going to work deliberately
day after day to cheat and defraud their neigh
| bors or the government. or the tax payers, and