The Saline County journal. [volume] (Salina, Kan.) 1871-1893, 1878-09-05

In a lecture in Minneapolis, MIMI,
one evening last week, on "TLe Reign
of the Common People," Mr.. Henry
Ward Beecher said:
"Now labor, especially manufacturing
industries and commercial industries, ARE
most powerful educators; they stir up
the brain; they make it nimble they
make it various they make it fruitful,
and drive men forward in the way of
life; but in America peculiarly this ope.
ration, by which the brain is being
broadcned, sharpened, deepened, and
made more versatile and more fruitful,
there are various causes that are acting
here. In the first place, and what men
little think of, our climate is powerful
element. We breathe more in one
breath here than they do on the other
side in three. l mean more oxygen.
Shipmasters tell me, who drink soundly
and roundly in Liverpool, that they stop
off their drink in New York they can
not bear it; that the climate itself is so
stimulating to them that to add the
stimulus OF alcoholic liquors is to over
stimulate, and the cool, moist climate on
the nervous system as much Of strain
as in this land. Did You ever take no.
tice throughout the whole North how
lean the faces Of men are, how sharp the
features of men are, how keen and radi.
ant the eyes of men are? Did you over
walk the streets and see how busy men
look? Even lazy men look active if
you take their features for it. Laugh
teri And the whole climate stimulates,
and, if this was not enough, all our in
situations in America serve TO stimulate
the brain and the nervous system. We
are full of politics; municipal politics,
which are brought before the common
people, country politics, State politics, and
the national politics-and our system is
such that those having a voice in the
making of rules must feel the light of
heat of it. When O prairie is on fire
everything must feel the light or heat OF
it, and so our people are continually rul-
ing through the stimulus of political ex-
element. And then, too, the industrial
element. In this land there is no nobil-
ity, except in wealth-no material or ex-
terror morality-we all believe in moral
wealth, and all believe in educational
wealth; but nevertheless, there is moth
ing that tends in society to measure
quality as much as wealth does to-day.
Laughter And to certain extent it
is right, for although wealth, and espec.
tally selfish and sorbid wealth, is not an
honor to man, yet that man that has
begun in industry and preserved him.
self in it for ten or twenty years, and
finally, by generalship, has erected
fortune, that man deserves laurels as
much as he who has been on a battle
field, and it is q credit to a man to have |
property by legitimate and law
full means. 1t means thought; it means
1t means morality in the
long run, for in the long run sue
cessful industries stand on truth, or
honor, or industries, or integrity at
large. But industry, while it seeks the
honors of aristocracy, and 1t is the only
in this country, meanwhile
IS stimulating the brain and developing
t. Then comes in oil the filling up.
The church stimulating mon, for OIL
though oftimes the church seems rather
! place for refuge, yet after all the gen.
,ral drift of religious affairs is stimulat-
ng, breaking out in one way and in an
,ther way. When men have been ex-
,rcised in industry-when they have
been glowing in politics they aie not
uttered to grow cool in the church.
They are put on the anvil again, and
,eaten with other hammers, and devel-
,ped into new forms OF excitement.
And the newspapers arc another stimu-
us that catch men. Every morning at
breakfast the man spreads the nap OF
he world before him, and the wires
,ave brought whispering across the
,ccan every sound that has been uttered
n all Christcndom. We don't need to
,e put upon mountain to see the king
lom Of the earth and the glory of it.
We can sit in our house and see it, and
/ isn't the devil that shows it to us-yes
/ ls, very often, laughter but not nee.
ssarily so. So, then, in our own land,
pom this continent, the tendency to- .
1ard cerebral development. which has
een going on slowly and augmenting ,
trough the generations, in respect to
Is impulses and its highest stimulation, -,
as resulted in positive development
+ brain, l believe there is moro brain
natter in men than there used to be. i :
hink they have bigger thinking power
han they used to have. think not
My that it is better disciplined, and ,
,ore exercised, but, being developed, :
is more fruitful and versatile-certain-
: more than it ever Wis in any previ- )
us period since the race began on the !
arth." .
A Bank Renaissance.
Secretary Sherman is making his ar