Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1878-04-27
Acting Under Excitement.
Iscribners Monthly.


the public, lest, in certain excited
movements of reform, there should
bethOse who will takesteps for which
they will be sorry. They argue,
from this, that it is not best to have
any excitementat all, and especially
that nothing should be done under
excitement. 1t so happens, how
ever, that the path of progress has
always been marked by sudden
steps upward and onward. There
are steady growth and steady going,
it is true. but the tendency to rut-
making and routine are so great
e in human nature that it is often only
by wide eXcitements that a whole
community is lifted and forwarded
to new level. Men often get into
the condition of pig-iron. They
pile up nicely in bars. They are in
an eXcellet state of preservation.
They certainly lie still, and though
there is vast capacity in them for
machinery, and cutlery, and agri-
cultural experimentation they
contain measureless possibilities of
spindles and spades,-there is moth
ing under heaven that can develop
their capacity and realize their
possibilities.
There are communities that would
never do anything but rot, except
under excitement. A community
often gets into a stolid, immObile
condition, which nothing but a pub
lie excitement can break up. This
condition may relate to a single sub
ject, or to many subjects. 1t may
relate to temperance, or to church
debt. Now it is quite possible that
a man under excitement will do the
thing that he has always known to
be right, and be sorry for it or re-
cede from it afterward but the ex-
element was the only power that
would ever have started him on the
right path, or led him to stop in the
wrong one. 1t is all very we'll to
say that it would be a great deal
better for drunkard, coOlly, after
quiet deliberatiOn and rational de-
cisiOn, to resolve to fOrSake his cups
than to take the same step under
the stimulus of social excitement
AMI the persuasiOnS of companion
ship and ferVid OratOry, but does he
ever do it? Sometimes, possibly,
but not often. Without excitement
and great social movement, very
little of temperance reform has
ever been effected. Men are like
iron: to be moulded they must be
heated and to say that there should
be no excitement connected with q
great reform, or that reform is
never to be effected through excite
ment is to ignore the basilar facts of
human history.
At the present time there is q
great temperance reform in pro-
gress. Men are taking the temper
perance pledge by tens of thousands.
They go around with glad faces and
with ribbons in their button-holes.
They sing their songs of freedom
from the power that so long and
cruelty enslaved them. 1t is said,
of course: sob, this will not last.
1t is only a nine days wonder.
Many of these people are now drink
ing in secret, and soon the most of
them will be back to their old
courses" The most of them,-pOs-
sibly. 1t is not probable, however,
that the most of them will recede.
Suppose one half of them remain
true to their pledges; does not that
pay? We should have had none of
them without the excitement, and
to have had a great mass of brutal
men who have long disgraced and
abused their wives and children,
sober for month, or for six months,
was surely a good thing. 1t was at
least a ray of sunshine in a great
multitude of dark lives. The point
we make, is, that the alternative of
a reform through popular excite
ment is no reform at all. And we
make the further point that man
who will not sympathize with re-
form because of the excitement that
accompanies it, is, ninety-nine
times in a hundred, a man who
does not sympathiZe with the re-
form on any ground; and the
hundredth man is usually an i'm
practicable ass.
Let us take this matter of paying
church debts by what has become
known as the Kimball method. n
church builds a house of worship.
1t costs more than the original esti-
mate, or some important members
have failed in the expected or
pledged subscription, or, worse than
all, debt has been incurred with the
eyes open and by intent. 1t has
been carried along for years, the
whole organization gToaning with
the burden. To few it has become
intOlerabie. They see the church
dwindling. They see strangers
frightened away by this skeleton in
the closet; they see their pastor
growing gray and care-wOrn or ut
terly breaking down, and knowing
that nothing stands in the way of
the usefulness and happiness of their
church but the debt, they cast about
for help. We will say that in most
instances the church is able to pay
the debt, provided every man will
do his duty; but it so happens
that every man will not do his
duty, except under some sort of
social excitement, which Mr.. Kim
ball or his helper supplies. Now it
is simply a question between pay
ing debt and not paying it at all.
1t is not practically question be-
tween paying in one way or another.
This method has been tried many
times with the most gratifying sue
cess. In one brief half day, by
means of everybody doing his part
under the influence of elOquence and
social excitement, debts have been
lifted and churches made free.
Churches and congregation have
sung and wept over their success,
and with the joy that came of duty
done and sacrifice made for the
Master. Just here steps in the crit
ic. He has known nothing of the
burden that the church has carried.
lie knows nothing of the happiness
that has come from the sacrifices
made, or of the hopes that have
been born of them. He only knows
that it is probable that men and
women, under the excitement of
the occasion, have subscribed in
some instances more than they
could afford to subscribe. Therefore,
in the opinion of the critic, a public
excitement for the purpose of
securing the payment of n church
debt is wrong. The critic does not
take into account the fact that with
out the excitement the debt not
only would not but could not be
paid. He does not take into ac-
count the fact that the willing part