Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1884-08-28

away to indulge our olfactories in lit.
tie purer air. But the New DIRK Nation
comes to the rescue in a style so remOrSe-
ly reasonable to all virtue that we turn
that way once more for moment to
bear it as best we may.
The Nation, of course, sneer5 at the
Rev Dr. Ball, of Buffalo He neither
needs defense from the Advance. nor can
BE- harmed by the Nation. His reputation
as Christian minister and author long
time resident of Bu.Galo, stands l4Igher
than the New York editor has
strength to throw his missiles
Another, a Presbyterian pastor of Bull
falo, of as high position as he, affirms,
with even stronger emphasis, the same
facts and more. " Indeed says DIR. Ball,
8 if [ am slanderer, a dozen other pas
tors stand under the same condemna-
ton, and two score more Of them stand
as indOrsers."
But we have to do, just now, not
with Gov Cleveland, but with the NJ
tion's defense of him. After garbing
and noinifying the facts to a very casri-
cature, that journal attempts to
BES1EAR WITH IT'S DRIPPING FECULANCF2,
the most illusCrIous names in recent Eli
glish and American history in hope of
blnrring the contrast between them and
the reputation OF it's favorite.
There mas been no great benefactor
of the human race ii Informs u.s. who
has not been truthful to bis trusts. dis
interested, self-denying. There have
been very few VINO have been chaste.
The standard by which some ministers
now propose TO exclude Cleveland from
high place, would have prevented Wash
ington, Franklin. Jefferson, Hamilton,
not to go any farther, from taking any
prominent part in the foundation of the
American republic. 1t would have ex-
cluded from office in England nearly
every great statesman or refOrmer of
the last 100 years. except perhaps (per-
haps, observe) Romilly, Wilbprforce and
Gladstone. 1t would have visited nearly
every prominent politician in the repub-
lican party since 1860 with peculiar
Odium."
Those sentences ought to whittier the
hand that wrote them. We must thank
this inspiring instructor of our sons and
daughters for q new version of an old
proverb 1t is not "ambition," but
greed for pollution, which "is the last
infrmity of noble minds"
English statesmen and reformers of
the last 100 years." include scores of
men like Erskine, Macintosh, Canning,
Buxton, ClarksOn, Howard, the Macau-
lays, John Bright, Lord SALISBURY.
The flIthy tattle as to our own Wash
ington, formerly current in the capital.
has never dared. like the sad lapses of
Charles James Fox, for instance, to show
it's face in history. It's the congenial
BUSINESS OF A GHOUL
to e1hume it now for the purpose The
Nation would make It SubServe. "Near-
~ every prominent politician in the re-
publican party since 1860" suggests such
names as Sumner, Buckingham. Chase,
Andrews. Ferry, Hawley, Hoar and 9th
ers like hem. We believe that if even
so radiant a paragon as The Nations
hero is to be gained at the expense of
such men as these, the American people
will count HIM a costlier delicacy than
they can afford.
We are not defending incontinence,"
says this preacher Of the new gospel of
righteousness. "Chastity is a great vir-
tue; but every man knows in his heart it
is not the greatest of virtues, that often
seS against it have often been consistent
with the possession of all the qualities
which ennobie human nature" etc. He
is defending incontnence. If he cannot
see it, we may excuse his heart only at
rUinOus expense to his intellect No man
who knows anything of human nature
is ignorant that the most plausible and
inSinuating of all methods of defending
vice is the old cry: 8 1t is the way of the
world. Everybody does it, you know.
The nOblest men have been given to it."
If The Nation is not teaching precisely
THAT DAIINABLE DOCTRINE
to the youth among its readers, then
words have no meaning.
In exquisite harmony with the general
tenor of the article, it closes with lord
ly rebuke of whoever dares, at so incon-
venient time for its candidate, to
denounce the pollution it excuses:
preaching of this sort at this time is
can't in its most loathsome form, for it
fills every household in the land with
filthy suggestions and insinuatiOns turns
the press into a common sewer. and con-
vertS scores of its editors into hypocrites
who must blush in secret over their own
ridiculous sermons and their simulated
righteousness"
The very sort of super-sublimated
phariseesism that is shocked by the hon
est Saxon of our English Bible, denounc-
ing the practices on which The Nation
smiles SO tenderly. IF any vile sugges-
tiOns are set afloat, who is accountable?
Who is telling us that the iniQuities to
which they point are among the unfor-
tunate irregularities of the best of men?
Whoever would trace home the respon-
sibility has only to calculate the latitude
and longitude e the office of The Nation.