The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1880-02-19
IN. Y. Tribune.1
Hiding Behind the Majority.

he usually attacks men as a corpora
ton. Take the average business man,
for instance; it is safe to assume that
he is an honest, conscientious fellow;
he would not wrong his grocer or boot
black Of penny. But give him the
smallest share in a partnership, and
he will calmly consent that 1.-The
Works" should put China clay in
their drillings or sand in their sugar
to the cheating of thousands of poor
er purchasers, or should even adulter-
ate their drugs to the destruction of
human life. Individually, he will go
to church to-day and drop his money
in the box for foreign missions with
the sincere prayer thatit may be bless
ed to the conversion OF some poor
heathen; tomorrow, as one OF the
firm, he will issue orders to his sales
men to get rid of certain unstable
stock to unwary country customers at
maximum prices: or he will instruct
his new shipping clerk how to cheat
the customs of the usual per centage
of the duties. He knows very well
that such teaching to lads and young
men beginning business life infects
their souls with the dry-rot Of corrup-
tion; but it is not he, it is ''the trade
that does it.
Or, take another man, who is in
temperament telder-hearted and sem
sitive as a woman, W 10 would not look
on to see a worm needlessly hurt; yet
he belongs to a little sect that trlum-
phantly consigns all the rest of man.
kind to eternal and inexorable torture
because it does not submit to its dlcta-
ton in certain dogmas; and the idea
of this wholesale cruelty does not re-
volt him at ALL If he had lived, too,
in the time of the world when his sect
had the power, he would have approx
ed its use Of thumbscrew, fagot and
rack to do to death its helpless victims.
Remember how many merciful men
and gentle women consented to these
things in the old time simply because
their hideous creed came to them
sanctioned by great majority, host
of their congeners and forefathers.
Or take others Of our readers, OF still
higher class, refined and honorable
Christians; as commercial men, schOl-
ars or clergymen, whatever their do
mestic life or business relations may
be, they are scrupulously careful to
fulfill every -ty. Yet gigantic frauds
and cruel injustice may be carried on
by the political party of which they
are nominal members or by the Gov
ernment which they help to form, and
they do not stretch out a finger to re-
form either The good man sitting
by his chimney-corner shakes his head
sadly when he reads Of the corruption
in his own party, and thanks God that
he knows nothing Of rings and long
since ceased to take any part in poll
tics. He read two years ago of the
cold-blooded murder by order of one
department of the Government Of sew
enty-fve helpless men, women, and
babies; he reads now Of the robbery,
the banishment and the slow starva-
ton of whole tribes, and it sounds to
him like a disagreeable but far-off
song. "He has nothing to do with
IT," Has he nothing to do with it ::
The decent, honorable citizen who re-
fuses to take part in politics, who
passively hands over the control OF his
city or State to rings of men whom
he knows to be knaves and swindlers
is just as responsible for its manage
ment as they are. The voter, who
knows of a blot upon the National
honor and crime like that of slavery,
or the slow slaughter Of the Indians
now going on, and does not protest
against it, is personally guilty of it..
It is against him, not an impersonal
Country" that the voice Of his BROTH
er's blood cries aloud from the ground.
It is not in garden that the Cain of
to-day hide from God; it is in MAORI
ties. "If," sings Hosea Biglow, ''you
take sword and draw it, Go and run
a fellow through, Government aim t
to answer for it, God will send the bill
TO you.
The habit of throwing responsible
ity off of our own shoulders on to a
party, sect or corporation has increas-
ed in modern times. There are very
few men who are not guilty Of it. We
suspect that one reason why women
are considered more conscientious and
religious than men is because they sell
dom work in association or corporate
bodies. The routine Of their lives
makes them personally accountable to
God. That the tendency is in them is
shown by the fact that they are just
as ready to be dishonest provided the
victim is a corporation. What woman
thinks it wrong to smuggle or cheat
the Government? In old times the
individual man stood face to face with
God; the terrible Presence forever
held perpetual reckoning with his
soul, though he fled to hide in the ut
termost parts of the morning, or made
his bed in hell. Now, he is part of
a sect, of Society-he is so much a
church member, a Republican, an
American, that he forgets he is man
with a soul for which no man can an
swer but himself.
Of one thing he may be certain,
that there will come time when nei-
ther his firm nor his church nor his
country will be present for him to
hide under. Out in that solitude his
soul will stand alone with God in
Judgment, and answer for its own
shortcomings.
WE believe that, taking it as a
whole, the Christian ministry embraces
a much larger number of pure and in
telligent men than are to be found in
o,,u 0+boy. oo1linr Go If Ouobt To ha