New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-07-12

by the means; but only as It weighed us
down. The idea Of holding on to it from
Christian and evsngelizing motives was for
us whatever Coos plan may have beenj,
an after thought. shat came up by belated
train of ideas. But here the mass was, its
whole inalienable gravity resting by an iu-
exorable law, which has not been repealed by
any change of names, full upon the shout
ders of a partially developed nation alread y
carrying about it the lumber and trash of
Europe as well as some of its true worth.
We talk of missions, and send mission
aries to the heather tar away-one or a
handful here and there in Asia, Africa,
POlynesia-tO put in the leaven which shall
finally vitalize all those masses, but only
slowly, discouragingly at first; hardly, til
lately, with any very sensible or sweeping
effects obvious at this distance. They go
guarded and separate in all their ideas and
habits. the ripest Christians, the purest
souls, to show the heather the mercy of the
gospel, and the models of its fruits care
fully constructed and preserved, that to
such things those low lives may, with inf
mite pains, sometime be elevated. And we
see sufficient results, glorious results; and
we know it to be worth while. Has Christ
done what he has, and waited so long to
'see of the travail Of his soul and be salts,
fed :" And shall We despair of final salts
faction with the wisdom of our unamended
commission to Ego into all the world and
preach the gospel to every creature" no
matter how remote and dark in mind or
body1
But here is a strange anticipation of the
process of Christendom's ACKNOWLEDGMENT
and reversal Of the whole order of it's
development as we have understood it. In
stead of our going to those regions. not ex-
haustively explored even to this day, and
carrying the gospel to every creature there
at his own hut door and under his own
bamboo tree; men 90 there and carry away
hither, import, multitudes upon multitudes
OF such savages as Livingstone and Stan
ley and other travellers have blessed or
cursed and fought in the jungles, and we
set them down upon the very doorsteps and
by the hearthstOnes of a nascent and cor
ruptible nation. Well was it for us that we
woke up after long while to what we
were doing to ourselves and to our prin
ciples, and changed the name of these I'M
as indeed their character has much
changed. of course, by contact with the
ripesJ and most vivifc civilization,
'the long result Of time" in US its
latest pride, and according to the
inevitable molecular action OF all such
bodies upon each other, the good elements
for good as well as the evil for evil. But
that change of names did not overcome one
particle OF the barbaric inertia still in the
way of our progress, nor lifi one pound Of
the dead weight of heather depravity vet
in them residing from the scales in which
We had found ourselves weighed and want
ing. 1t only threw that inertia more di-
rectly in the track of other legislative re-
forms, for time at least, and changed that
weight from it's resting place upon the most
sacred interests-sOme endangered, some
bighted by it-giving it a seat upon the
safety valve of the state, where, unless we
60 very slowly and cautiously, it may cause
something like blow up.
Do not misunderstood me- l am not be-
moaning anything in the past, which can
not be helped; but saying that we must
calculate on bearing yet long all the weight
OF alien and uncivilized elements. once d.
rectly and on large scale imported, which
1t is in their nature to possess everywhere
and any time, whether coming from Europe
or Africa, and whether under the institu-
ton Of slavery or of emancipation and free
suffrage. l am not even reviewing the
decision of the nation that the freedmen
shall vote. l would sooner trust colored
man with ballot than drunken Irishman.
But, voting or not, in slavery or not, in
the bosom of the planters family, or in the
embrace of the nation as its wards and cit
liens, their natural gravitatiOn downward,
unarrested until they were, not by their
own act, hOisted full upon u.s. and for which
natural tendency they are perhaps less
than we are for the little (!)
like it that remains in us, after ages OF
Christian breeding-that gravity must be-
taken into account in all our calculations of
duty and probable progress. In the proyi-
dence of God that force has impinged UPON
the historic movement OF the Christian
families of man, in our era and country;
at large angle and from a remote source,
the resultant motion must, of course, be
detection or retardation, for a time at
least, of our progress 1t is not in physics
nor in morals that it should be otherwise. |
A perturbation in our orbit is inevitable.
We have been SO familiar with this sub |
ect in one form or another, and have be- |
come so weary of its agitation and long tale |
II consequences, that we almost refuse to |
'ealize its nearness to our interests, the |
borough thinking and resOlute faithful |
Tess to ourselves and our fellow. citizens,
hat is indispensable to any clear prospect |
# happy future.
You 60, perhaps, to your mission school, |
r gathering of waits or criminals, for an |
lour's work of benevolence on the Sabbath,
cry much as the missionary goes to Zulu
and to devote his life to its salvation. But
Ow suppose you were to take into your
amily, among your boys, a handful of
hose hayward waits, into your home circle
f innocent daughters two or three of those
lagdalens whom you visit at their asylum, |
hat criminal who heard you talk last Sab
ath in tie prison, or all Of them at once,
nd let them 90 in and out among your
Ousehold; would you not feel that the
respects of your home and family culture |
'ere weighted down with an intolerable |
,cubus; whether they came as unpaid ser
ants or had voice in the family counsels!
,ither way you would realize what hap
ened to this American people when, instead
evangellZlng our sister continent far |
way, with one hand reached out to throw
I the leaven OF the new life of Christian
y, Africa and Europe, and l know not
that unevangelized portions of the globe,
ave, by our own embracing act, and the
of our country and our lib
rites, been brought here to dechristianize
s; unless we turn the tables of the law of
I'VE upon them by wise and wideminded
lastery of the situation. / am not en-
wicked antagonisms. such as we
responsibilities which God may have
bought us ripe for, by His help, giving US
l our blindness, SamsOn-like, to feel the
cry pillars of the worlds darkness, and,
owing with all our might, with a mighty
rayer in our set teeth, to lift the world,
hich will not let 60 of us. But we must
ice the facts, and face the way whence a
amedy must arise out of them, as the sun
lust ascend from the east. Be it under.
God only, that in calculating our strength
nd consequence, as perhaps the foremost
ependence of the world for the Word
nd example of pure gospel
nd Christian civilization, we must
Ike into account this reversal Of |
DDS order hitherto, to Ego into all the
orld," in bringing plump into our very
'ul, and to the very shrine Of our liberties,
lat heather and mixed population, the like
which he would never saddle upon his