Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1876-07-13


of democratic arrangements of society
and government that the sentiment of
honor and OF pride in public duty de-
cayed III them. 1t has been professed
that the fiuctuating currents and the
trivial perturbations of their public
Life discouraged strenuous endeayor
and lasting devotion in the public
| service. 1t has been charged that. as
a consequence, the distinct service of
the state suffered, office and macistracv
were belittled, social svmpathies
cooled, love of country drooped. and
selfish affections absorbed the powers
OF the citizens, and eat into the heart
of the commonwealth.
The experience of our country re-
jects these speculations as misplaced
and these fears as illusory. They be-
long to condition of society above
which we have long since been lifted,
and toward which the very scheme of
our National life prohibits decline.
They are drawn from the examples of
history, which lodged power, formally,
IN the people, but left them ignorant
and abJect, unfinished with the
means of exercising it in their own
right and for their own benefit. In a
democracy welded by the arts, and to
the ends of patrician class, the less
worthy members of that class, no
doubt, throye by the disdain which
| noble characters must always feel for
methods of deception and insincerity.
and crowded them from the authentic
service of the state. But, through the
period whose years we count TO-DAY.
the greatest lesson of all is the prepon-
derance of public over private, of So
cial over selfish, tendencies and prlr-
poses in the whole body of the people,
and the persistent fidelity to the genius
and spirit of popular institutions, of
the educated classes, the liberal pro-
LESSONS, and the great men of the
country. These qualities transfuse
and blend the hues and virtues of the
manifold rays of advanced civilization
into sunlight of public spirit and fer
yld patriotism which warns and IRA
dates the life of the Nation. Excess
of publicity as the animating spirit and
stimulus of society more probably than
its lack will excite our solicitudes i'm
the future. Even the public discon-
TO 20
and heart of the whole people ache
with anXieties and throb with griefs
which have no meaner scope than the
honor and the safety of the Nation.
Our estimate of the condition of the
people at the close of a centuIy-as
bearing on the value and efficiency of
the principles on which the Govern
ment was founded, in maintaining and
securing the permanent well-being of
a natlOn-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 firmer OH 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 III 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 it's 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 fulfillment: 90 As the sun
rises on Sabbath morning and travels |
westward from Newfoundland to the
Oregon he will behold the countless
millions assembling as if by a common
impulse, iii 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
of ten thousand times ten thousand in
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
duty as citizens should need to take on
that form of service to the State: these
have gained new force by the expert
ence of foreign and civil war, and
standing army is a remoter possibility
for this Nation, in its present or pros
pective greatness, than in the days of
its small beginnings.
But in the freedom of the press. and
the universally Of the suffrage. as
maintained and exercised TODAY
throughout the length and breadth of
the land, we find the most conspicuous