The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1882-02-03
The Daily Prcsx.

Whiie All times must nr1ng their own
distinctions and, it may be, seem more
feverish and full of tremors than any
time ever has been TO those who have to
weary through them, and grow sore in
them and sal, we can hardly fail to be
more uneasy than our fathers were, be-
cause these are days such as the fathers
never even dreamed Of The whole
world makes your home and mine whis-
pering gallery through the daily papers,
and 1T IL the business of the papers to
give us the distraction rather than the
quietness of the passing days. SO if one
man In million breaks the order of the
day by some fearful crime there he stands
to arrest our attention and compel us to
gone quietly about the days duties. An
inundation hides from us all the rivers
which flow serenely to the sea, and one
volcanic outbreak all the mountains that
stand quietly clad in pines and crowned
with white glory, and a fire like that by
Lake Huron brings the smell of fire AZ
we read of it, AZ it is still raging, into
our living rooms and offices.
And this is the way the times takes MS
captive wherever we turn. 1t used to be
SAID of the wicked, they are like n
troubled sea. 1t is in some sense true
now of the whole life we have to live,
when time and space are lost iii the tele-
graph wires, and the day draws near
when we shall put girdle round the
world in forty minutes. Is there trial
like that in Washington, we are all in
the court together listening to the shame
full laughter, as we were all in the White
House Watching the shadows of death
gather slowly on the face of our good
dead President. Nothing can befall
men, painful, shameful, and perplexing,
which does not seem TO be brought close
to hand by the daily paper. The horror
in Grand street jars all the walls which
can be tainted with suspicion, not in
New York alone, but in all other cities
between this and the Pacific Ocean, and
touches the nerve so that through this
perpetual disturbance we are all restless
In our way. Those who feel real inter-
est, again, i'll the questions which touch
the inner and the higher life have TO deal
as they can with the distractions the
papers bring.
In the days of the fathers, if man
began to doubt. whether the foundations
of his faith were stable, or the teach
ings of his lifetime true, the chances
were that his name would not be heard
a hundred miles away, or his trouble dis
turb any quiet heart outside his synod
or county; but now u man shall preach
sermon thousand miles away that his
church counts heresy. and before next
Sunday the contents Of that sermon Will
be preached again by every freside
where it can find entertainment, and
when he is tried we are all there listen
ing TO the evidence and wondering
where we sail look for the sure founda-
ton. Or if it Please men we can all
name to go from town to town and bid
the people witness how they can pull
down in one hour the slow and painful
building of the ages, and do it to the
satisfaction of their listeners, amid vast
clamor and dust, the journals come Ia
again to report where the hammer
seemed to make its heaviest mark. and
then there Is the new touch of distrac-
ton and the wonder whether there is
sure foundation after all on which we
can rest and build for the better life, or
whether those who teach are not deceiv-
ers and those who hear deceived. These
are the distractions that touch our times
As they have touched no other time since
the world stood. Is there disturbance
in nature, L might almost say we are
there to watch it and take the shock.
Does the pestilence walk in darkness, or
the bullet smite in MONDAY, we hear the
means of the dying through the columns
of the press as if they came by the tele-
phone ard no feature is forgotten of the
dead. Does faith suffer or seem to stand
at bay, or travail toward new birth in
some man worth mention, we are all in
the secret, and it becomes 10 great num-
bers as their own deep concern.
We never take mp paper In which the
alarm bells are not ringing for some new
surprise in nature, III life or in religion,
and while most of the sounds which dis
turbed the life of the fathers were
softened by time and distance, we seem
to dwell In the very bell chamber, and
grow sore through the clangor that
smites on the heart and brain forever
And so it is most natural that we should
ask whether there can be such quiet
ness in our time az this prophet touches,
and then whether we can find il !; what
are these foundations of God and nature,
in life and in religion, and how shall we
build on them so that he that believeth
shall not make haste.-Dr. Coiiyer