Litchfield enquirer., 1873-06-12
The Railroad Commissioners: Re-
 port.

port.
 The report of the railroad commissioners
 for the last year is very much like the pre- | pared, the history of the roads during the year, we presume, is correctly given, but anything in the way of recommending inn provements the report Is as innocent of except few remarks quoted from the Massachusetts railroad commissioners the Bible. We shall not find fault with these commissioners, for they have proba- ply done as we'll as they knew how; and ! when men act according to the full meas
 ure of their capacity, they are not to be 1 blamed for sins of omission
 1 What do we complain of, however, is
 the miserable system now prevailing in respect to the appointment and compen- satlon of railroad commissioners. If the office is exist at all, 1t should be filled by 1 able men. At present, the office IS filled by three men every way worthy, except l for the duties of commissioner. They are not engineers, have had no experience in railroad matters, and the work which they do reflects no credit upon themselves and 1 IS worthless to the public. No one turns ting any recommendations concerning
 
 l lection of yearly statistics upon the rail- ! roads of the state.
 The present system is the result of two or three things. First, their mode of ap- pointment. They are appointed by legis- latlve caucuses, where each member has his friend, whose cause he feels he must ! advocate out of pure friendship, or in re- ] ward for some political service. He knows | well enough that his friend has not sin gle qualification for the place, but his re- gard for him outweighs his regard for the public, and so his nomination and cleo tion is advocated.
 suekH Hddhnwo5rfthy canadatess, he replies, "Oh, l only do it to please my friend I know ! that he will not be nominated, but my duty IS done in presenting his name, and l no one is inj jured; no harm is done." But harm is done. for too often men are nom- mated whom neither they nor their friends expected would be, men who are unfit for the position, and who are little more than capable of drawing their pay without do- ing the work.
 Now the remedy for this is to place the nomination of such men in the hands of the governor, who will be held responsi- ble for them, instead of dividing the re- sponslbility among the members of cau- GUS. By such method will more efficient men be secured
 It is true that the politician generally disapproves of this plan, for it is taking 1 away the very best part of his capital. Quite as potent, in fact more so, are -po- lltical appointments than money, because those who will not use the latter to infu- ence men will use the former,
 Another difficulty in the way of secur- ing the proper officer is inadequate pay. It has been suggested that single com potent railroad engineer be appointed, having salary enough to reward him ade- quately. in place of three men as now. Such change would involve no addition all expense to the state, while there would be no comparison between the worth of his services and those of the men who are usually selected. .-Nore0ich Co,rier.
 BEEcuER's VIEW OF THE FUTURE STATE. On Sunday of last week MT. Beecher preached sermon on the future state which has excited much comment. We extract the following from the World re- port:
 Do believing souls at death pass 1mme- dlately to state of blessedness, or do 1I1CJ 4AC SAu1uOCIlug HI SOLu0 VdSL fGCGULu- tacle, waiting for the disclosure of anoth- CT era :? It cannot be said that the New Testament IS absolutely explicit on this theme. nor that there cannot be ingen, lous arguments to prove that there is such a probationary state; but to my mind the. implication is, through the New Testa-
 ment, that at death believing souls rise I immediately into consciousness of the divine presence-into new spiritual hfe
 That this was Pauls feeling is to me sure First, he never alludes to the intermediary state and though there is constant refer ence to the condition of the emancipated soul Edo not recall a single instance in which either directly or indirectly he lntimates that there IS wanting period where men lie useless, formless, conciousless. wait ing for some general ingathering into the spiritual sphere; nor has there been q sin gle reason given why there should be ! such; nor IS there & single yearning for such state, nor is there any moral instinct
 or feeling that this Is so. If there was a vast intermediate period where the souls | of believers lie there would be shown l some wisdom in it, some reason in il, some explicit fact that the Day of Judgement is described as the bringing together of all of Gods people, as if they came for the first time. In the fifteenth of First Corin- | thIans read 1t all the way through to | find If there be point at which he stops, l Q gulf he leaps, as if 1t were gulf in
 which waiting spirits are On the other
 had find in the closing part an ecstatic rendering of the fact that when the dead
 shall rsse, all the living shall rise with them and be in the presence of their God.
 Mir. Beecher here quoted many other passages from the writings of the inspir- ed apostle, and continuing sad: This was | not the language of one who believed in, | an intermediate state. The teaching evil dently was that whatever there might be. for the dead, for the living there was no 1 such state of suspense; for them there
 was no kind of pause, not even so long as seed-planting and seed-sprouting So, while we do not undertake to affirm posi- | lively this fact, we believe that dying is r entrance into heaven at once, and every person may feel that the Scripture war rants the belief. Secondly, the entrance | into heavee does not forbid the idea of an unfolding process; but on this point also we would avoid positiveness. Take the testimony of Christ as shown in the twen- ty-second chapter of Matthew; the ques- tion arose from an attempt of his enemies to entrap him-as to whose wife the wo- man should be in heaven which had had seven husbands, and Jesus said, ''In the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God" This showed that we shall dis card in the other life many of the func- | tions of the mind that we will then, have DO necessity for. There will be no need of passions and appetites, and sos they will be divested from the mind. The souls that emerge from death in heaven will emerge along degree of life; and power and glory, and the state of progfess will be developed so that those morally uncultured will be in the heavenly land but low down, not in place, as we under stand it, but under other conditions He will begin with the capital whichrher- has in this life, and will stand in a state of l probation separated finally at an infinite distance from the top, and thus kind of intermediate state will exist. Those that carry uD one talent will he far heIow