Morning journal and courier., 1881-11-28

4AHCLp44AC 3 powerful influence to exalt the pub lic morals and to protect our youth. | With the social tendency strong among us, there will be provided means and accessories for it's qualification. Unless there shall be a strong counteraction, supported by respecta- ble and influential citizens; by something like that which have here indicated, two other institutions will be seen to flourish in your midst, viz, drinking and gambling hells. These indeed are already in full blast. Every day and every night, and on Sundays, the de- bauching process of gambling and drunken ness are proceeding. Men who are the sons of respectable families, who have been brought up to habits of industry, who were taught in yonr Sunday schools, have been en- ticed into saloons and are wasting their earn ings with drink and vice. There are parents who are heartbroken over their ruined sons. There are wives who are disoonsolate as they see the change which has come over their once faithful, prevalent and loving husbands. There are children whose blue blood stains their faces with shame as they stand before their dishonored fathers. There are households here that are shiver- ing before certain want and the horror of that blight that runs to consumption for neg lected wives and to misery for lonely chil- dren. These twin disgraceful and degrading institutions will continue to flourish unless right by them you plant eounteracting in- stitution which by it's moral tone and quail ty shall frown upon the others, which shall have equally open doors and far more win someness and social delight.
 MORALITY vs. DRINKING AND GAMBLING.
 A new era both of drinking and gambling has set in. The two things go together. Gaming houses, under the common law, are nuisances; under the statute law gaming is criminal. But the vice laughs at the law. ,Iz5-s I,,A larr- light the wheel revolves, the.car6 is drawn, the die is thrown Policy playing 8 new and dangerous method of gambling, is sys- tematized as regular business is supporting class of operators and is oonsum ing statedly the earnings of large class of mechanics and laborers serious responsibility rests upon our mag istrates and police. We, as citizens have also our responsibility And while we can- not wield the power of the magistracy, we can use moral power which will shame the law and which will surpass the law in effect iveness You must have in the community substitutes for saloons and gaming rooms. It is pity that our homes are not such substi- tutes In the majority of cases they are. But we are to provide for those whose homes do not hold them, who are tempted by places of social and public resort.
 The Holly Tree Inns. Coffee Houses, Read ing Rooms of other cities, have been found to be great aids to public and personal moral ity. Let there be this Qui1saipiac Lyceatru for tue people, with music and popular lec- lures at times, and with a cheerful welcome always, and you will have built mp moral dike against intemperance and it's associated vice.
 Not only as guarding against vicious indul- gency, but as promoting literary and educa- tionaI tastes, would I advocate the Lyceum
 PRIMARY WARD MEETINGS.
 I consider it of first importance in rela- tion to the politics of the city that all good citizens should take an active personal inter est in the primary ward meetings. It is a time of revolt against the system of the boss and the ring. But we deserve to be bossed and to be domineered and plundered by art
 fuI rings unless we do our full duty as citi- zens This duty begins in the primaries. Sovereignty is lodged there. Our whole re- publican system is builded on these primary
 meetings of citizens. It would be to the honor of thess three Quinnipisc wards if the
 primary meetings were held in the interest of their best citizens, and in that way these wards would get substantial influence in all
 departments of the municipal government CORRECT RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES. It is vastly important for the highest vel
 fare of these wards that the religious bodies
 which are in union in this service to-day should stand together for correct religious
 principles. These churches represent liberal, catholic, fraternal Christianity. The Congre- pational churches are broad in their sympa- thies and their terms of communion-so
 broad that they can hardly be called sect.
 The Methodist church is so full of the spirit of Christ and so fraternal toward all other
 communions that if it were not Methodist it
 would be Congregational, and certainly does not need to be Congregational to be eminent ly Christian. The Baptist churches are Con gregational, with very slight divergence, and are thoroughly Christian and earnest, labor ing and praying with other disciples of the common Master.
 All of these churches set forth plainly the
 doctrine of salvation by the atonement of fore the church. They make much of con version and the renewed life, and there is need of this. A material age, a skeptical spirit, tend to lower practical and vital godli- ness.
 | With other religious bodies who are not
 with us we have no controversy. Cur hands ] are too full of the Lords business to go into l any controversy on sectarian differences. We are in the world on larger business. We | are deciding here matters of divine moment. We are approaching issues of eternsl import 1 ance. Religion is sober, earnest, manly
 matter. And the churches should commend | it as thing between the soul and God, and
 should argue with the strength they have | that sinners should be reconciled to God by
 repentance and faith in Christ, and should
 prove the genuineness of their repentance and faith by life in harmony with the doc | trines of Christ.
 If truly Christian character could be se-
 cured for the population of these wards we | should give to the city our most valuable ] contribution. And it should be the constant | aimaof these churches to promote the entire evangelization of our people.
 Separated from the other and older parts
 of the city by the Mill river boundary and by associations of our own, which run back to | the planting of the commonwealth, these wards have in some measure, then, -four his | tory to make We are part of New Haven, but we are distinct part. The city will | pour it's refuse upon us and we should erect l a moral barrier for our preservation. Four teen hundred members of Christian churches
 should not suffer themselves to be neutral ized or oYerborne by any combinations of | vice. by any customs of icentiousness. l It belongs to this great body of religious people to be felt as 8 refining, uplifting pow | CT in all secular matters, in all educational | work, in all civil social, religious relations. | We ought to hold these wards for good order, | for righteous practices, for mental cultiva-
 tion, for municipal uprightness, for Christian | character.
 | CONCLUSION.
 At this very outset of that annexation
 which has brought all of our old village into
 the municipality, we ought to take new de-
 parture. There is character enough repre-.
 scented here to control the community. It | only wants unity and organization and az gression. We need the courage of our con-
 victions. We need the audacity of great 1 principles. We need the position of true 1 manhood.
 There is future for the Quinnipiac wards. Population is to cover all the accessible plain | from Red Rock to East Rock. It is to spread
 itself over these picturesque hills. Twenty
 thousand, bye and bye forty, thousand peo- pie, with all their vast interests, will be here.