The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1876-09-14
REFORM.

| gresslve, final triumph of humanity over the
evils which hinder its development, we
c.uuot be blind to the active and maIign
forces which threaten the overthrow of our
civil and social Institutions AS an example
of what We mean. We may take the city Of
New York, distinguished for its unmeas-
ured opuleDce and abonnding charities
The statistics show annual expenditures as
follows:
Licensed saloons. Ds........ $50, 900, 900
Pauperism, public and private
chArlty- .--.. .-....- o, oOV,Ooo
FuoIlc schools. S,OUU, UOu
Fifty millions devoted to the manufacture
OF poverty and crime, six and one-half mil
lions to the relief of that poverty, with
three millions for preventive education.
Add to the first item the hundreds of mil
lions squandered in extravagant living, in
panderIng to selfish pride and vanity, to-
gether with the political and business vii
laiules which defy public sentiment and
fout retribution, and we have the data from
which to draw serious inferences as to our
downward social tendencies. A
Alarmed at the threatened ruin, q general
cry goes up from the business, social and
political world for reforHa, reform, and
general movement towards correction and
amendment is recognized by the dullest as
imperative and inevitable. But this reform
atory movement will meet with but par
- ol @ha
sentiment of the land is practically enlisted
in its behalf. In the city of New York there
are about $50 churches with as many min
listers, who, we may concede, are earnest,
cultivated and intelligent men, doing the
best that can be done under inadequate and
mistaken church ideas. Primitive Christi
anity had no dogmas or creeds. 1t was a
very simple, straightforward and practical
affair. Il went forth in the power of the
spirit, promising the redemption OF the
world through the inauguration of
grand humanltary gospel, and incit-
ing all men to earnest endt avor after
newaess of life. But the church, 1g-
noring the true work committed to her
keeping, which was the redemption OF
man from evil in this world, has come to
regard the world of humanity as wreck
beyond hope of recovery, and herself as
spiritual life-boat launched to save such
souls as she may be able to reach from
some indefinite perdition in the neat world.
To save the body from vice aud wretched-
ness in this life, by directing her energies
to social reform, is not considered as her
mission. Thus the church, in devoting
her energies to the spiritual interests of
man, has left his material interests to the
kind care of the devil, who finds no diff
fcuty in taking control and management
of what has thus been given him. And
so we may lie, gamble in gold and
stock, ''sell short" ''make corners" be-
tray public trusts, and be not only re-
spectacle citizens, but stChristiau states
men," and if we donate literally of our
profits on Credit M3bilier, etc., to the
revenues of the church, we will be as
signed prominent seats in the life-boat
which is to bear US in safety over the
raging billows to the melodious tune of
the ''Devil take the hindmost"
Now we admit that the fashionable &C.
clesiasticism of the age is honest and sim
cere in taking this view, but this furnishes
no barrier to the evil results which are
seen on every hand in debased, cor
rupted, social and political life, in the
threatened warfare between labor and cap
ital, and in the tendency of all business
activity to the enriching of the few and
the consequent impoverishment of the
many. The church has handed over this
whole industrial question to the devil, and
he, left to his own momentum, will pro
ceed TO lay our boasted civilization level
with the dust.
The remedy must be found in return to
the true and primitive ideas of Christianity.
We have entered upon the age of reason.
Preposterous creeds and fAghtful anathe-
mas have lost their hold over the consciences
of men. No'efforts of synods or churches
can prolong the reign of superstition. Not
for less but for more light is the cry of our
time. Religion must go with reason or
cease to go at all. The time is transitional.
Men are painfully winnowing their old be-
liefs, sitting the wheat from the chatf. The
people are being educated out of the un-
reasonable dogmas Of century ago. The
cure for worldliness is not found in other
worldliness, but in carrying into our daily
affairs nobler, higher spirit, and in open
ing our eyes to see that the lines we draw
on ledgers, counters and work benches, if
prolonged, lead on to the stars. Men are
working, as never before, to reduce the
amount of perdition in this world. They
are getting back from the subtleties of
creeds and dogmas to the golden rule and
the parable Of the good Samaritan. In the
divine work of practical benevolence men
of all churches and creeds find themselves
side by side with the Communist and the
"lnfdel, and working together thus they
learn how small are some things which once
seemed great. The time is fast coming
when the Church. throwing off the fetters
of superstition, will devote its incalculable
energies and forces to the redemption of
our world from its wrongs and injustices,
its inequalities and disorders, its poverty,
vice, wretchedness and crime, by the d.
vine spirit of humanity acting through the
social laws of human fellowship, and this
greatest of all reforms will render all lesser
ones easy and practicable.
THE NEXT VICE PMksTDENr TALKS
ABOU THE SOUTH.
Governor Hendricks opened the canvass