Litchfield enquirer., 1873-02-20
pR. HOLLANDS LECTURE.

posite phase of thought, and calls our at- tention to the strength of the treacherous ssundertow" that carries back the waters hurried forward with such show of progress by the grand-looking waves of reform. While conceding some advance as the probable net result of all this ac- tion and re action, Dr. Holland neverthe- less sums up heavily against Reform. Of moral reform-particularly the fight against intemperanee and lcentiousness- his view is anything but encouraging. The prevalence of drunkenness, the growth of the criminal classes, and the consequent increase of crime fill him with apprehension. The refornaotion of the present evil generation, he considers hope less; he looks rather to the formation of the coming. good generation. He spec ially deprecates the enfranchisement of woman as tending to the increase of vice, proposing, instead, to confine her sternly to her old sphere of educating the young. He demands that public education should be made compulsory, moral and religious, and relies on the Church and the Sunday school, rather than on the noisy delusions of Reform, for further social progress.
 While Dr. Hollands scheme of ''forma- ton" is in many respects an admirable one, we see nothing new in it. The lec- turer has invented 8 new name-not 8 new thing. Formation has been in- culcated from every pulpit, and practiced by all Christian denominations, long enough to have accomplished whatever success can be reached in that way. Our estimate of it's good results is far higher. indeed, than that of Dr. Holland himself, who unwittingly criticises his own plan in speaking of the failure of existing methods. Still there is this fundamental error in his theory. It expects too much of preaching Every child of ten knows, just as we'll as any deacon of seventy, that preaching is the easiest thing in the world practice, the hardest. The best moral training consists in homeopathic doses of good advice, allopathic doses of good example. The good mother fancies it is her beautiful talk that has made her children good, when in fact it is her beau tiful life The bad father Is always at loss to know how he came by such bad
 
 sons. Of Dr. Hollands scheme of reGg- ious instruction in public schools, we can only say that to make it effective. we must restore the old union of church and state, and that, whether advisable or not, is practically impossible. .a
 We mean to be patient with all we'll meaning anti-woman-sufdragists, and with all Jeremiahs, with which class of proph- cts Dr. Holland ranks himself but the combination of both these shades of un- belief in one individual is rather trying. Every time the anti-suffage Jeremiah heaves g gfoaa over the immortality of the age,he gives an extra twist of the igatures that restrain the really moral half of the community from dealing with immortality. From such comes the complaint, ''There is no religion in politics p And how should there be?s Two-thirds of the Christian church, numerically, and vastly greater proportion, reckoning strength of faith, are now disfranchised. Temper ance languishes because temperance men lack earnestnessl' Three-quarters of those who practice abstinence are disfran- chised. So, too, are the wives, whom drunken husbands misrepresent at the polls. Is it any wonder then that the oc- casional conscientious politician finds that the most of the friends he has made by opposing intemperance are at home, pray ing. perhaps, for his success, while every drunkard Is at the polls. voting against him And in elections, except perhaps, with Republican returning boards in Louisiana. prayers are not counted. Then, as to grosser vice, is it too much to say that three-quarters of the pure adults of the country cast no votes that, at the polls, purity is in minority that, with the ehfranchisement of women, it would have majority And by such Q majority could not that be l lone for the suppression of vice which a. present ii would be absurd to try When, there. fore, the anti-suffrage Jeremiah moans that religion. temperance, morality, fight. ing Satan at the polls. are generally beat
 en, we ask, tsDo you not richly deserve your defeat? What sort of generalship is it that disarms your truest soldiers, send. them to the rear, and then fights it: moral Chancellorvilles with the worst half of it's army ?" Then, if an honest Conservative. the sati-sqfrage Jeremiah falters out this suspicion: Remove ex isting legal and social restrictions of wo
 mans freedom and she will become jus. l as immoral as man." All the fine talk
 then, about the finer fibre of woman. nature is one of the shams of polite socie ty2 It is restraint. not nature, that ha. produced the ideal woman-the saintee mother, the angelic wife, and all the puri
 ty and sweetness Conservatism delight, to celebrate ? = Here we must in fairness divide anti suffrage Conservatism into two classes One of them disbelives even in the pres ent purity of women. Liars like Byrol and Swinburne have sown the seeds of distrust that evil associations have con frmed. Tens of thousands of such prac