The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-12-01
A LOOK UPWARD

LOOK UPWARD
There is so much wrong and wretchedness
everywhere, that 1t is not surprising many
good people become discouraged, and think
the country has no soundness in it. The
Journal, certainly, has not failed to speak
strongly and to speak constantly upon no.
torious and confessed evils, which put the
nation in peril and we recognize the fact
that this effort must be continued indef-
ntely, possibly forever; that the watchmen
upon the walls-pulpit press, and teachers
of every name and grade-must continue to
cry aloud and spare not. And yet, in the
midst OF all the discouraging evidences of
the presence of evil, there is very much to
gone to the bad, nor do we be-
lieve that fair survey of the
facts and conditions of the times warrants
the belief that the tendency is in that direc-
ton. 1t is well and very proper for the pull
pit to open the divine book, and from its rec
ORD bring out the lessons of the dealings of
God with nations; and it is we'll, also, to trace
the course of profane history, and see how
the mightiest peoples have gone into oblivion
because of their moral corruptons; but it
may not be either true or wise to so look
into these mirrors of evil as to pervert the
vision and obtain distorted view of our own
country. Let us catalogue some of the prin-
cipal sins which are brought against US as a
people. Intemperance; Is it true that the
serpent of drunkenness is coilng it.
self rapidly about the limbs OF
the American Hercules and that unless
some superhuman effort is made will over
come him? Is it not rather true that to-day
there is less brutalizing intemperance than
ever? That the use of intoxicants has been
and is being banished rapidly from society.
and that it is now as never before a disgrace
and disability to be drunken man? The
time was when every board and table
had it's liquors, when liquor was in the study
of clergymen, and when it was no disbar-
ment from honor or preferment to be
drinker. Is it so now2 How is it with re-
swer who can remember the orgies which
once disgraced our national and State capt.
tolls. How long has it been since liquor was
thrown ont of the national restaurants; since
the bottle was banished from the headquar-
ters of candidates? 1t is stated with pleasure
and approval the country over that no
liquors are to be found in the rooms
of the candidates for the speakership now
contesting for the prize in Washington.
LiCuor-drinking is no longer respectable.
Our great corporations and private employ
ers are steadily more and more insisting
upon sobriety as prerequisite for employ
ment. Drunkenness is being bsnished be-
| fore lettering public opinion, and no.
where in the United States is there the re-
motest resemblance to that period in Israel
when drunkenness rioted in the very tenn
pies of God, and when drunken women were
so common that Eli mistook the praying
| Hannah for maudln drunkard.
| Licentiousness: Yes; all too common, and
threatening The marriage relation too
much dishonored, and divorce too frequent.
Yet who does not recognize the difference
between America and Israel, where the por-
| tico of Gods house was debauched by the
sons of the high priest, themselves servitors
in the temple? There is no parallel between
the United States and classic Greece in the
times of Pericles and Aspasia, nor yet with
luxuriant Rome in the days of
Caius Julius, and of the rottenness
of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Everywhere
there is a rising tide of opinion which is
driving this giant evil into the dark places,
which is demanding better observance of
the marriage VOW and which is securing more
stringent divorce laws and their more
stringent administration. With respect to
this sin, certainly, the tendency OF the nation
is by no means in the wrong direction.
Greed of wealth: There is all too much of
| it; but who does not know that shoddy not
so popular as it was, and that illegitimate
methods for rapidly acquiring wealth, pri-