The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1876-07-13

ment was founded, in maintaining and
securing the permanent well-being of
a nation-would, indeed, be incom-
| plete if we failed to measure the power
and purity of the religious elements
which pervade and elevate our So
| ciety.
The church, throughout this land,
upheld by no political establishment,
| rests all the tirmer on the rock on
which its founder built it. The great
mass of our countrymen to-day find in
the Bible-the Bible in their worship,
| the Bible in their schools, the Bible in
their households sufficient lessons
of the fear of God and the love of man
| which make them obedient servants to
the free constitution of their country,
in all civil duties, and ready with their
lives to sustain it on the fields of war.
And now at the end of a hundred years
the Christian faith collects its worship
ers throughout our land, as at the be-
ginning. What half a century ago was
hopefully prophesied for our far future
goes on to its fulfllment: :" As the sun
rises on a Sabbath morning and travels
westward from Newfoundland to the
| Oregon he will behold the countless
millions assembling us if by a common
| impulse. in the temples with which
every valley, mountain and plain will
be adorned. The morning psalm and
the evening anthem will commence
with the multitudes on the Atlantic
coast, be sustained by the loud chorus
the valley of the Mississippi, and be
prolonged by the thousands of thou
sands on the shores of the Pacific"
Freedom from military power and
the maintenance of that arm of govern
ment in the people; trust in their
own adequacy as soldiers, when their
luty as citizens should need to take on
that form of service to the State these
have gained new force by the expert
nee of foreign and civil war, and a
standing army is a remoter possibility
for this Nation, in its present or pros
pcctive greatness, than in the days of
its small beginnings.
But in the freedom of the press, and
die universally of the suffrage, as
maintained and exercised to-day
throughout the length and breadth of
he land, we find the most conspicuous
md decisive evidence of the unspent
'orce of the institutions of liberty and
he jealous guard of its principal de-
enSeS. These indeed are the great
sgrncies and engines of the peoples
sovereignty. They hold the same rela-
ions to the vast democracy of modern
,ociety that the persuaSions of the ora
,ors and the personal voices of the
lssembly did in the narrow confines of
he Grecian states. The laws. the Gus
-oms, the impulses and sentiments of
he people have given wider and wider
range and license to the agitations of
he press. multiplied and more frequent
occasions for the exercise of the suf-
rage. larger and larger communication
If its franchise. The progress of a
hundred years finds these prodigious
activities i'll their fullest play-inces-
SAINT and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS in
the habits of the people, and impregna-
bic in their affections. Their public
service. and their subordination to the
public safety, stand in their play upon
one another and in their freedom thus
maintained. Neither could long exist
in true vigOr in our system without the
other. Without the watchful omni-
present and indomitable energy of the
press the suffrage would languish.
would be subjugated by the corporate
power of the legiOns of placemen which
the administration of the affairs of a
great nation imposes upon it, and fall
4 prey to that "vast patronage which,
we are told, "diStracted. corrupted.
and finally subverted the Roman Re-
public On the other hand, if the
impressions of the press upon the opin-
ions and passions of the people found
no settled and ready mode of their
working out, through the frequent and
peaceful suffrage, the people would be
lriven, to satisfy their displeasure at
government or their love of change, to
the coarse methods of barricades and
batteries.
We cannot, then, hesitate to declare
that the original principles of equal
society and popular government still in
spire the laws, live in the habits of the
people, and animate their purposes and
their hopes. These principles have not |
lost their spring or elasticity. They |
have sutficed for all the methods OF |
government in the past; we feel no
fear for their adequacy in the future |
Released now from the tasks and bur-
denS of the formative period, these |
principles and methods can be directed |
with undivided force to the everyday |
conduct of government, to the staple |
and steady virtues of administration |
The feebleneSS of crowding the statute |
books with uneXecuted laws: the dam |
ger of power outgrowing or evading
the rashnesS and tickle
ness of temporary eNpedients; the con-
slant tendency by which parties decline
into factions and end in conSpiracies
all these mischiefs beset all govern
ments, and are part of the life of each |
generation. To deal with these evils
the tasks and burdens of the imme-
date future-the Nation needs no other
resources than the principles and ex-
amples our past history supply. These
principles, these examples of our
fathers, are the strength and the safety
of our state to-day: "Horibus, aRtiguis,
stat res Romano, cirisgue.;'
Unity. liberty, power, prosperity
these are our possessions to-day. Our
territory is safe against foreign dan
gers; its completeness dissuades from
further ambitions to extend it, and its
rounded symmetry discourages all at
tempts to dismember it. No division
into greatly UNEQUAL partS wolld no