The Saline County journal. [volume] (Salina, Kan.) 1871-1893, 1879-05-15

and slavery occupied the highest posi-
ton in tho popular estimate; and then
there came time when both were so
hated that the one was utterly destroyed,
and the other was debased to and
dragged through the dust. After the
Bourbons of France camo revolution,
the age of reason and no God sup
planted the divine image which, but an
hour before, was enthroned in every
household IN France. One day Russia
was vast slave, holding power
without thought or even dream that
q serf had any of the rights of human
being and little later all Russia was
in delirious ecstacy over its enthusi-
ssm for liberty, during which, without
. struggle or hesitation, it gave freedom
to millions who had no reason to antic-
ipate any such occurrence.
There is nothing very singular in the
existence OF the recurrent paroxysms in
which humanity passes from one ex-
IRENE to the other. A vast pendulum,
weighted with human hopes, fears, de-
sires, motives, is ever in motion, swing
ing through the arc, now touching one
extreme and then going back till it
again reaches the opposite one. This is
the result of the workings of natural
corrective progress. As men rise to
the height of one extreme, they are
slowly but surely gathering the force
which will halt them, and then send
them in the opposite direction. The
higher the pendulum swings in tho one
extremity of its arc, the moro swift will
be its descent and rush, and the higher
its rise toward the other extremity.
So true IS this that one who sees the
swell of events at any given moment
can accurately measure without seeing
both the swell which preceded it and
the one which will follow it.
The present age or period is one char
acterized by what may be termed an
extreme sentimentality. 1t is the rule
to be sympathetic, TO have all causes
producing pain. This is seen in the eff.
forts being made to abolish capital pun.
ishment. Men are everywhere urging
that criminals should be reformed and
not punished. The whipping-post has
been abolished in majority Of cases
flogging in the army and navy is now
scarcely anywhere tolerated. There
are hundreds of thousands of people
who do not eat meat because they wish
to spare animals the pain of being
slaughtered. There is tremendous re-
action against vlvisection. 1t is the age
of painless dentistry, of ether, chIoro-
form and opiates. Crime is being re-
solved into disease, so that by obliter.
at,ng responsibility the pain of inflict-
ing punishment may DO avoided, and
also the pain which it Inflicts. There
are societies for the prevention Of cruel
ty to animals, and children. In fine, il
Is time when pain is especially dis
tasteful and such men as Swing, Coll
yer, IngersoIl, Ryder, Herford and 9th.
ers are the evangelists of the lew dis
pensation.
Can there be any doubt, in view Of
the tendency of human events TO ex-
tremities, whence come such men as
these, especially a man like Insersoll,
who is the very incarnation OF the pain
less warnings and tendencies of the age !?
They are arrows sent far on the other
side BY the reaction of the bow of Cal
vinism and Puritanism. The great pen.
dulum has passed from the extreme Of
severity, of punishment, Of revenge, and
is now ut the other end, having borne
with it mercy, forgiveness and healing
for every form of suffering. This re-
dictionary fact in human occurrences
explains lngersoll. He is termed inf.
del, fatalist, sanatic and lunatic, but, af-
ter all, he is, pure and simple, the result
of reaction. His reason has no part in
his pos,tion-he is solely the result OF
rebound 10 human nature, whose elias.
ITCHY has carried things as far over this
side as it was but just now bent on the
other.
An amending nell with its frying ba-
bies, and all that, has been followed by
the inevitable rebound, and now there
is no hell. There was once q God of
Justice who distributed rewards and
punishments with impartial hand.
There Is only God OF love, who weeps
over the transgressons of His children,
and whose tears wash out the stains of
theft, murder, and villainy of all kinds,
preparatory to their perpetrators being
gathered TO place of eternal ease and
rest. There was once q predestination
which doomed few to be saved, and
the rest to be damned there Is still an
equally unyielding predestination, but
il 10 one which forces everybody,
from the suicide who scatters his own
brains, after having blown on: those OF
his wife, to the drunken assassin who 10
sent red.handed into eternity, into q
paradise of white robed, unvarying fe-
licity. Whatever was is deemed there
BY something which ought not to be.
Men were once forced to "work out
their own salvation with fear and trem-
bling" now the "work, the "fear,r the
"trembling" are booted down as tyran-
meal and brutal, and the human race,
irrespective of age, sex or previous con-
dition Of servitude, is borne along the
pathway to the eternal Zion on "aowery
beds Of ease" to the languid thinking Of
clerical lutes, and the soothing pianis-
simo strains from the throats and in.
struments Of theological choruses and
orchestras.
All this reactionary product proves
except the tendency of human
nature to resist being bent for any great
leagh Of time. II does not prove that
what 10 now taught and believed is true,
Or that what is rejected and scorned vas
IL