The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1878-01-02
WHAT rs LIFE?

The essential facts connected with that
deplorsble event, the death of Col. VIM. H.
Berkeley, are given in another place. Since
the awful tragedy at Charlottesville in 1914,
when that eminent citizen az d most noble
Christian gentleman, Mr.. Davis, Professor
of Law in the University of Virginia, re-
ceived, and without provocation, fatal shot
from wicked, reckless student, no occur
renee of the kind has given such shock to
the community at large. In the prime OF
manhood; husband with a numerous OFT
spring around his hearth; member of the
legal profession, gifted, quent and sue
cesSful; in social life beloved and admired
in whose veins was the blood of some of the
most illuStrious families of the earliest and
proudest days of the colony and common
wealth with brilliant respects before him
it was such life thst persisted in moment
persisted without cause-and persisted IN
der the murderous hand of an assassin
1t is claimed that he was under morbid
melancholy-was insane, and therefore to 8
degree irresponsible. Be it 30; he too has
gone, and by his own hand, to the bar of
Him who seeth not as man seeth, but under
whose eye all things stand revealed as they
really are. On the question Of this mans
mental condition we do not undertake any
Judgment. The statement is that he was
more or less insane; the witnesses and news
papers are full and particular enough on that
point. But is there not another and fear
full question behind all that ? What made
this man melancholy, morbid, insane? 1t is
a false courtesy, an ill-timed sympathy and
silence that covers up that point at such
time as this when society stands agbaSt at
the spectacle before it. Is it mot we'll known
that the demon of intemperance was at the
bottom of all this ? Is not this emphsticslly
the curse of the land And in its several
stages it is leading our young men and our
old men, by hundreds and by thousands,
down to degradation and destruction. Upon
the footing of political economy merely, it is,
beyond every thing else, the vampire which
is sucking the life blood of society. 1t sits
with its monstrous, mountain weight upon
the breast of the nation, both preventing
and destroying production and wealth.
Who does not know that it is above any thing,
above all things else, the parent of misery
and crime3 What is the, life of a mantle
life of the noblest man worth more than the
life of dog in the eye of one maddened by
drink
Yes, this is indeed the curse of curses
upon our country. Can moral and religious
influences do nothing more to stay the de-
stroyer? Have police regulations nothing
better to devise than to let msdmen 60 about
unrestraiued until overt and dreadful deeds
of blood spread CONSERVATION and distress
far and wide? And is there no sound prin
Ciple which waits to be embodied in right
eOus legislation, and longs to put its strong
hand upon the license Of this plague, instead
of framing mischief by law ?" It is
creditably stated that the city of New York
has seven males Of grOg shops What would
the measure be for Richmond and many 9th
er places in Virginia ? To tar them with
the register may be we'll; far better to abOl
ish them altogether.