The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-30
SPIRIT OF TIE PRESS.
EDrToRJAL OPINIONS OF THE LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT ToP1os-ooMPILED EVERY
DAY FOR TIE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
CAvALoADING CHRISTIANS.

CAvALCADING CHRISTIANS.
From the NJ y World.
Our Washington correspondents inform as
that great sensation has been created in
that city during the past week by the appear
ance in its streets and avenues of an indef-
mite number of young Christians These
young Christians have entertained the capital
with PROFESSIONS, songs, and hymns, and one
is left little in doubt whether the extreme
excitement caused by their presence and their
performances is to be attributed to their mu-
sicsl gifts, to their good looks, to their excel
lent drill in marching, or merely to the fact
of their being Christians When we consider
the average tone of Washington morals and
religion. it will seem to be reasonable enough
that the spectacle of procession of young
Christians should appear to that city more
novel and amazing show even than Mr.. Bur-
lineame with his heathen Chinee, or the un-
believing "Japs, or the idolatrous Indians
from our far Western frontier.
Why young Christians, however, should feel
themselves called upon, not in their capacity
as citizens, but in their quality of young
Christians, to march in military procession
through the streets of the Federal capital
singing the 'Star-Spangled Banner, is really,
when one comes to reflect upon it, much more
of puzzle than why the people of Washing
ton should leave their homes and hearths and
run into the streets to look at them. The
only reference which we can at this moment
recall from the Christian Scriptures to any
connection between Christian believers and
the streets of city is an injunction laid upon
His disciples by the founder of Christianity
that whenever they desired to pray they
should take particular care to avoid following
the example of the Pharisees, who had a
way of saying their prayers standing sat the
corners of the streets that they might be
seen of men," This injunction, if it was
not disobeyed to the letter by the young
Christians at Washington, certainly was not
kept by them in the spirit. They can hardly
have imagined, when they marshalled their
array in Pennsylvania avenue and set forth
with shouts and lights for the White House
like political delegation, or target COM
pany, or "grand army of the republic, l"
that they were likely to pass unnoted of men;
and it is Just possible that when they lifted
up their voices in ''psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs" under the Presidential roof
they were not wholly exalted out of all con-
sciousness that mortal ears, and those OF high
degree, were listening to their well-modulated
strains. All this would be harmless enough
in its absurdity if these christian young
men" professed to regard their Chris
tianity as Freemasons regard their
Freemasonry, or ''Knights Templar"
their ighthood, as special mystery
and bond, that is, of their own by virtue of
which they became brotherhood apart from
other uninitiated men, and are called upon
by virtue of that brotherhood from time to
dine and ''processionize" and make excur-
sions together. In that case, however much
they might bore the population by singing in
the streets at untimely hours, or turning the
tide of travel out of the highways into shoals
and eddies, no permanent scandal would fol
low the temporary annoyance. But we
understand Christianity to be the
general religion of the land
and those young men to have associated
themselves together for the purpose of set
ting forth the peculiar merits and influences
of Christianity in an exemplary and superior
manner. This they certainly are not in way
to achieve by initiating the suspiciously vain
glorious and self-conscious fashions OF merel!
worldly brotherhoods, by seeking notoriety il
the highway and by subjecting the Presiden
of the United States to an hour or two o
hand-shaking to the tune of very slow music
with General Howard standing by as chic
executioner-
The Scripture, it is true, enjoins Christian
to 'srender unto Caesar the things that ar
Cesar's" But the Constitution nowhere pro
vides that the President shall have his han
shaken in his own house by thousand excul
sionists, nor yet that he shall be entitled t
demand hymns and psalms as tribute from a
Christian young men who chance to pas
through Washington. II these religious ez
ercises were devotional they should hav
been rendered not under Caesar but unit
God If they were not devotional it woul
not be civil for us to say precisely what the
were