The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1873-07-27


! made of them the leading power of the globe
More unqualifiedly than Taine puts it of the
England of to-day as compared with the Eng
land OF Cromwell, may it be. said of our to-
day. America. as contrasted with that of our
| fathers. "We'no longer look on life as an au-
gust temple, but as machine for solid profits
our rich, our working Glasses. our bankers, who
| preach the gospel of gold; we have gentlemen,
| lords, dandies. who preach the gospel of man
mere. We oyerwork ourselves to heap up
| gulneas, or else we make ourselves insipid to
| attain elegant dignity. Our hell is no longer,
as under Cromwell. the dread of being found
guilty before just jodge, but the dread of
making a bad speculation OF of trapsgressing
| etiquette. We have no moral convictions and
only floating convictions. We have lost the
I handspring of action" To have lost moral
| spring of action. Is'ft not that to which the
American pub seems to have comet Parry
or shield it as we may is'it not that to which
| the American individual has lapsed The
| American reputation cannot long stand the
| strain, much less the American character. 1t
is the republic that suffers. The orian,
were some definition of freedom which would
enable men to see clearly what they mean and
do not mean by that vaguest of words;"
and elsew here he says, "the entire fabric of
| human existence is woven of the double
threads of freedom and authority, which are
forever wrestling one against the other" In
may tney knew this, the men of the elder re-
public are distinguished from the men of the
latter. They had just emerged from q conflict
that taught them the self-limitinps of freed
ON, had been face to face with perils from
which they learned selfrespect as selfre-'
straint. The power they grew to have over
themselves they threw into their government:
and there presides over the birth of the new
nation spirit of moderation and of health
which give to its earliest days the characteris-
tics of an individual rather than of a people.
There is balance, confidence, foresight, consd-
the republic moves to it's place among the
countries of the globe steadily, as buoy
antly as the well-ballasted hull glides from
the stocks to it's place among navies. Time
and tho security of success have largely lost
us the ancestral idea of liberty. 1t will not
| occur to the true chronicler of our time to
speak of the balance of the vepabic to-day.
Not liberty under law, but liberty above law
Is our popular idea. And this not the legiti-
mate result of our institutions Republican
ism does not tend to anarchy. 1t is no syno-
nyme for license. There may be lesser causes;
the reaction from too stern religion the en-
ervation of continued success the rise and
Struggle between various commercial inter-
es's the relaxing of the rule of home; but
the cause behind all other cause is that the
man has lost the thought of himself "a prima-
rly a mora agent, and has given himself to the
control ofthings over which be should have kept
the mastery. The republic of to-day reflects
its children as that of the fathers did its fonn-
ders: 10 shield, to save the republic we must
reach, rouse. convict the man. You and /, and
that we hold not the destiny of our own souls
IN our own keeping, or the destiny of untold
millions, but the destiny of an idea. The man
must go to work upon himself see in himself
the unit of power the unit of safety. He may
not stoop from loftiest principle, because he
so endangers the integrity of the repu bile, and
integrity of liberty, throwing aside all policy
OF party, or sect or of self; turning his back
upon the wild and lay less pursuit of pleasure,
selt-indnlgence ambition; shaking himself
clear of the encumbering things of mistaken
self-interest, under the restrainings of a high
or law, must he seek that moral manhood
whioh. as it was the creation of the republic,
so shall it be it's only safety.
Your Honor and Gentlemen-Wearen not ma
KING grand American manhood side by side
with this great American prosperity; it is not
the impulse and aspiration of our activities. |
All our dangers lie in that-not in foreign en- |
tanglements; not in the failure of one or the
establishment of the other homo policy; not |
IN strifes of labor with capital not in an in
Hated currency or internal disseutiou not in |
the poor, the ignorant. the depraved, the i'm |
migrant, whom we call the dangerous classes
our dangers are not in classes at ALL but in in
dlVldlals who have no pnre, elev at ID nhood,
no well regulated, established, restrained self.
he need we have to-day over all other needs
Is the need of an American manhood; and the
culture requisite to an American manhood is
not necessarily of schools of college, of posi-
lion, or many opportunities, many books. l.
There come to me over the years, the
words, as think, of Mr.. Justice Story: "We
stand the latest, and, If we fail, the last ex-
pertinent at self-govefnment by he people,"
The republic must not fail 1 believe ia the
t h glory OF my country; in ever growing
lie; in career of which no man would dare
TO cast the horoscope. In the far off years /
hear the solid tramp of the centuries as their
deep column moves to the consummaton of
the purposes of God, and at their far 'front.'
steady and sublime, L behold the unflinching
eagles OF the republic, and at the last grand
review hers shall be the place of honor at the
i head of the column en the right"
The last two sentences are mere rhetoric
The rest of the extract is true. The Gov
Of these United States may wear
look of natural prosperity; but any one
may see at glance that political and NOR
al corruption has fastened on the very
heart of the nation. And there is no public
in the country true enough
1rave enough and strong enough to pro-
est, with effect, against evils which reign
and ravage everywhere. From bad, things
'wiftly go to worse. The mere form of the
Republic is all we have. It's spirit is dead.
And soon the form will fall ruin,-and
hen what No maa can tell. There