News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-11-29
LESSONS IN MORALS.
DIR. HALL breaches a SERMON
ON FAILING;S OF THE DAY.
He Tells Us how we May Overcome Most
of Them.

He Tells Us how we May Overcome Most
of Them.
DR.. John Hall, Sunday morning, No
vember. 4th, took his text from Psalms,
cxiX., II.
The condition of community, said
he in the course of his sermon, depends
in a very great degree on the character
istics of the individuals composing it.
The mistake has been made by many
writer's and by some revOlutiOnists of
treating all individuals i'll the community
as standing exactly on the same basis.
In point Of fact this is not the case.
One-half of every community is composed
of unframed minds, of the young whose
powers have notreached maturity. And
yet legislation has been attempted for
the community on the basis that all
individuals are in the same relation
toward each other. This leads to prac-
teal mistakes and to the intiictiOn of in
jury. Various attempts have been made
by men to benefit the human heart
One of the favOrite ways now attracting
attention is the combination of the ethi-
cal with the aesthetic in such Il manner
Il
tractiye, and what is not good ugly and
repulsive, believing that thereby men
will be reformed. No doubt there is a
certain basis of truth underlyingt his
effort, but bitter disappointment must
often be the result. These reformers
want everything to crafty the
senses, appealing to the sense of
beauty, which commends itself to
the imagination, so that the
good and the lovely will be SYNONYMOUS
terms and the bad and ugly also synony-
nous. But unfortunately the bad is not
always so presented to men-it is often
presented to them as lovely. This must
necessarily be the case in the degree in
which the imagination is being dealt
with rather than the moral faculty of
the man. Men have made an immoral
goddess look like Il saint.
There were certain sins, continued the
preacher, laid ut the door of our nation.
As community the people were charge
able with those faults, marking them as
a nation. The attention was called in
newspapers to the ''grasping mouopo-
lies" that characterized portions of the
community. There was an eagerness to
be rich, to take the property of the ma
tion-a desire to secure more than falls
by right to particular individual. He
did not need to repeat the strong objec-
tons used in denunciatiOn of those al
legged faults OF the community. 1t was
difficult to see how people could exist as
community without some men being
richer than others. In the nature of the
case some must needs be so. It was
easy to heap on them such words as
''Grasplng mOnCpOlists." A man who
owned newspaper worth, say, s., 900.
would seem to be very rich to the news
boys who sold his paper, but it would
not benefit the people or the newsboys
to take his money and distribute it
among them. The desire for this was
an unreasOning socialism that must be
taken with Il certain amount of discount.
were charged with having
great discomfort and dissatisfaction
among the lahoring classes. There were
evils in that dirpctiOn-the |
echOings Of the nihilism and socialism
of Continental life. 1t was mdeniable /
that IN many instances there WAS strong !
among the poor to complain !
Of their condition. Those who paid low |
wages pointed in defence to the cOmpe- /
titiOn around them. That restIessness, /
however, might in many instances be /
traced to the action of interested parties .
from without.
In the next place there was certain
Iawlessness justly rgeable-lawless-
ness III crimes of violence, of wicked F..
passions, Of impUrity; crimes that had
their origin in complete disregard of the
rights and privileges attached to life and .
property. When his hearers opened /
their newspapers and looked at the head
ngs of the paragraphs did they not
sometimes feel, asked DIR. Hall, pro
found humiliation and wonder how far
this thing was to 90? 4 large proper
ton of that criminality was imported by
the degraded, bankrupt classes who had /
been under despotic sway. But then
there were certain other crimes which
could be committed only by an educated
people, sucn as Americans were. Let
The circumstances that in so many in
stances surrounded criminals be studied.
They were EOnized, wondered at, adj
nlred and even exhibited for money.
The way to be ''somebOdy' was to be Il
the greater the crime the
greater the romance and the nOtOrietv.
Education Of the right kind, with NOR
VII hCtAANl IANt II NtDNI NllullIlllllN.
Intemperance was charged. How ex-
ensive the evil was was apparent from
he ways in which it was being antago-
liZed. The danger was seen to be prey
lent in the cultured and refined home,
where wine was attractively presented,
Oupled with agreeable conversation
len drank, too, in low and loathsome
alOons. Legislation was under obliga-
ion to reduce the facilities for tempta-
ion.
DR.. Hall also dweIt upon the evils
ffecting the home. Divorce has be-
ONE kind of institution-it was a ma
ional disgrace. Ruined homes We're
he result of parties not marrying in the
light spirit. Again, the people were
and he thought Justly, with
recklessnCss as to human life. He
oOk into account the various clements
hat went to support the charge-the
var, not yet so very far distant, and
whose effects were still potent, and the
composition of the nation which re-
,eiyed the reckless of other lands. The
'emcdy for all these evils, he argued,
vas to be found in the Bible and its
teachings.