The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1873-09-05
MODERN PAGANIsM In NEW YORK.

naturally, the appliances OF lux
ury have taken root in the upper
classes. What were formerly pass
ing pleasures are now permanent
necessities; what were occasion
ally INDUCED habits have become
second nature. Happiness is bound
up with the qualification of sensu-
Gus as well as intellectual life.
There must be no abatement of
the needs of this life, even for
marriage, and the bartering has
begun over the altar of Hymen.
The man pagan asks if the woman
can provide herself with her own
costly raiment, and the womun pa
gan asks if he has horses and car
riages and a box at the opera. An
unsatisfactory,answer to such ques-
lions strangles the bantlIng which
may have begun to live in their
hearts. The newborn is given up
with sigh; it is only what politi-
clans call a '.side ISSUE" The
requisites of full, sensuous life
grow by what they feed on. To
take away the beautiful paintings,
statues, bronzes, porcelains, tapes
try, and the general brio
6rac which the cultivated eye low
ingly dwells upon, the Aubus-
ton carpet which receives the dain-
ty foot like a bed of softest YER
dure, the inviting touches and
divans which the well-nurtured
body reclines on. the little and
powerful instruments of music
through which hreathed the soul
of Mozart, the choice volumes
which tell of poetry, and love, and
of art, the truff1es, mushrooms,
the golden brown woodcock, and
the champagne-to take away all
these would be a privation not to
be entertained. To sacrifice them
for romantic passion and the &C
tual necessities of existence is re-
garded as an act of folly, but to
sacrifice the passion and add to
the laxuries is wisdom. In a
word, less importance is attached
to the person than to the para
phernalia. One person is desira-
BILE in heart and body, but not pos
sessing the conditional collaterals,
is rejected for one who does, and
this is the first downward step in
the scale of social morals. This
is the birth of a new philosophy
of life, and the wane of orthodoxy.
Here civilization, encouraged by
the different systems of theology
and morals, searches no farther,
but descends in artistic, graceful,
and almost imperceptible grada-
tions into paganism.
With US, society is shaping it
self more and more into distinct
classes. The lower class, repre-
senting. labor, and composed of
men more intelligent than any
peasantry of Europe, is the foun-
dation on which the nation repos-
es; the great middle class is that
which makes the laws and governs
the coun try; and the social life of
these two classes remains compar-
atively pure. In the upper class
are several SUBJ lassiications; the
wealthy who hold to orthodoxy,
the wealthy possessed of pagan
tendencies, the poor rich, who
spend a large income in living
from hand to mouth, and the refin-
ed poor, who can appreciate the
tastes of the cultivated wealthy,
but have not the means to crafty
them. In this upper class, all,
with the exception of the ortho-
dox wealthy, have felt the pagan
iZing influence of the age, which
comes from its center, Paris. The
influence has been travelling west
ward as inevitably as fate for
thousands of years, beginning at
Babylon and pushing on to Anti
och, Athens, Rome, and at last
dwelling with the French as their
legitimate inheritance. With this
paganism come art, science and the
beautiful, to make man and woman
happy; but as they are unreason-
ing, immoderate, sensual, aad self
ish, these things after period
wear out the vitality necessary to
their maintenance, and take their
departure in search of a more vir-
gin field. Paganism has already
planted itself on Manhattan island,
and when the decadence begins in
the city Of the boulevards, will
expand and flourish here as it now
does there. A Thousand years
hence, peradventure, the inhabi-
tants of the western coast of Asia
will visit the great city of the an
cient Americans, guide-book in
hand, to look on the relics of her
former greatness. But before such
decay arrives the city will live
that golden age which is now be-
ginning to dawn upon her.-Al-
bert Rhodes, in Sept. Galaxy.