Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1871-07-13
The Prevalence and Results VI .
Luxurious National Liie'

The Prevalence and Results u"
Luxurious National Life'
There is a danger springing from our
o;v;,;zation. that results from the prev
oIonoe If Injurious habits of life which is
an imminent Overwhelming the restraints
Of virtue and the salutary bonds OF mod
grafton and self.control. Where the
means of luxury are generally diffused
and the active spirit of enterprise is ever
on the stretch to multiply them, the mere
material and sensual enjoymonts which
wealth can purchase, become the oolects
of general strife. The moro they are
possessed, the more eagerly they are Vaiu-
cd and sought. In proportion as 1t lside-
voted to these objects civilization draws
itself more and more from the influence
of morality and of religious principle 1t
creates new idols with ever increasing in-
penuity and skill, and throws around the
old ones a Warmer atmosphere Of attrac-
tion, and invests them with more seducing
charms. 1t thus generates that social
hesitate, if uncontrolled by the restraint
which high principle alone can supply, to
overthrow in its mad desires for lndul-
gence, every bulwark of public and pri.
vate virtue to reject all restraint OF
temperance and modesty and to plunge
.beadlopg into crime. The annals OF the
world abound with proofs of the fact that
the social state to which the highest ele-
vations of outward splendor and refine
ment have been attained, too often con-
GOALS within its bosom destructive ele-
mepts which the accidents of a day may
combine for speedy and disastrous action.
How many nations, corrupt to the core
at the period of their highest apparent
prosperity, have suddenly fallen into the
anarchy of revolution, or have been help
lessly thrown beneath the tyranny OF
despotism. One by one, with deadly but
silent process, the social corruption thus
epeendered has eradicated the stern and
noble virtues which gave dignity and
permanence to States, and caused the
people to forget the wholesome lessons OF
self restraint, self direction and self gov,
eminent, until the state of highest pros
perity and universal luxury has become
condition of universal proAigacy where
in society, "like a tyrant OF antiquity
wearied with the infamy of its excuses,
has its crowns always ready, and its
treasures prepared, for those inventors Of
new ioys," which can most effectually
teach it to slumber on the verge OF the
ruin into which it is about to fall. States
there have been, whose overthrow, BY
such means, has been almost the work o.
single day, as rapid and resistless al
that which in one night overturned the
Assyrian throne or whose ruin, like thai
of Imperial Rome, has been slower indeed
but none the less disastrous, exhibiting al
it were in heightened decline, the throe
of the gladiators of her own amphitheatre
protraoted, spasmodic and terrific. Wha
recent illustration of this danger hal
been given in the very heart of Christian
Europe, in France, where a whole people
distinguished by elegance and refinement
by civilization which talent and wealth
can create, impelled by an insatiate thirst
for pleasure in defiance of every principle
which ennobles our nature, in contempt
of every tie which makes life beautiful
rushodin to an insanity of voluptuousnes
and ambition for territory, which wa'
deaf to every warning, until the earth
quake of revolution shook the social fabric
into ruin and Involved in common
wreck not only the prostituted throne
and the polluted altar, but the homes and
hearth of the whole people.