The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-01-26

of by the New England press, and if that is
not evangel what is? The amusement out
look is encouraging on the whole.
| Our Religious Press Table and What
Is On TIA Call for q Little In.
dignation Thunder.
Our religious contemporaries as o class do
not present any remarkable features this week.
It occasionally happens that they unite in
commenting upon some single and striking
topic of the day and hour, and hence have
more influence with the general reader than if
they confined themselves to dogmatical dis
ton or other This was notably so in their
comments upon the verdict and sentence in
the Stokes case, and also in their judgments
and criticisms upon the character and career
of the late ex- Emperor of the French. In one
of these instances the religious press ex-
pressed with extraordinary unanimity its
satisfaction at the vindication of the majesty
of the law, and in the other with like accord
it held up the moral career of the deceased
ex-Emperor as one not at all to be commended
by the moral and righteous people of the land.
Following similar strata, and moralizing
from similar text it was to have been hoped
that this week the thunders of the canonized
and uncanonized pious press would have made
the welkin ring in denunciation of the mon
strous and unparalleled developments now
startling the community by the investigation
at Washington of the Credit Mobilier shame
and wickedness. What does the crime of
Stokes or the moral turpitude of an extmguished
ruler amount to when compared to a nations
humiliation at the spectacle exposed to the
worlds view by the resurrection committees
at the national capitalp Here we have seen
exhumed, as it were from national grave
yard, the corrupt bodies of men high in
Office and once held in exalted esteem and con-
fidence by their constituencies and friends,
but who are now reeking with the foulness of
personal greed and official cupidity. No doubt
they arp all good church members; no doubt
many of them are open professors of religion;
no doubt they feel themselves spotlessly clean,
and that, as cleanliness is affirmed to be next
to godliness, they think themselves all right
But this is not always the case Cleanliness
is not always allied to godliness. For exam
pie, there is now imprisoned in this city
condemned man who is said to be marvel of
cleanliness, and yet he has been proven to be
one of the most ungodly men in the commu-
nifty. It is the clean conscience that is de-
handed Can either of the accused Congress-
men lay his hand on his breast and truthfully
and solemnly say, ~ am clean?" That man
has yet to be dug out of this sarcophagus of
Congressional corruption.
Wesay we had hoped that our brethren of the
religious press would have seized this golden
opportunity to have spun editorials upon
the moral depravity of men who sit highest in
the tabernacles of legislation. But we fail to
see anything Of the kind In lieu thereof we
find the Christian Union discussing on ''The
Pope and His Little Difficulty" beginning
thus:-
The Sorrows Of werter seem as jolly as joke
book, and the Lamentations Of jeremiah really
optimst, If they are brought into comparison with
the latest utterance of . certain sorrowful old
nd wno is quietly Moss
Lord, Plus k, by the favor of Providence, Popeh
And concluding in this wise =
But lt Ia not so much for the one big Pope In
Rome as It is for the innumerable little Popes IN
America that we have written what we have
written. These little Popes are Protestant as well
as Catholic. For them, too, the times are out of
Joint They also fail to see that God drives and
guides the ark OF modern civilization, Just He did
that Of ancient civilization. They, likewise, have
grudge against the nineteenth century for up
setting the pretensons of their arrogant eccles
asticisms IL matters not what their objects may
be-whether to make every teacher priest or to
unite Church and State by mechanical inOcu-
lation OF the constitution with the name OF
God--they have made a fatal mistake.
The Golden Age advises the government to
make a tour of lynx-eyed inspection among
what are prominently known as the honest
and incorruptible importing houses in this
city There may, it thinks, be fish in the sea
as good as ever were caught. There may be
knavish partners in the most honest firms of
Cliff and other streets. There may be other
eminent but guilty offenders for whom there
waits the same rod of avenging wrath with
which Alexander Hamilton has been punish
ing smugglers since r799 A Trinity of
Crimes is also the subject of an editorial in
the Age. It is not quite so musical as the
Chimes of Trinity.
The Euangelist is in gloom, and its columns
in partial mourning upon the decease Of its
late and lamented founder, the Rev. Joshua
Leavitt, d. D., the patriarch of the religious
press of this country.
The Independent also laments the demise OF