The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-08-06
THE oHIEP Or THE PHAR1sEBs.

he Tolls in the Editors Easy Chair Of Har-
per's Magazine for August, and discourses OF
tPharisees." He begins by saying ssThere
is no more beautiful and impressive picture In
the New Testament than that which contrasts
the Pharisee thanking God that he is not as
other men are and the publican who asks
mercy as sinner" That the beauty OF the
picture, to Mr. Curtis, lies in the subtle IN
Justice done to the Pharisee is, by the appi-
cation Of the contrast apparent in his next
sentence; thus: 'But there is no passage
which has been more ingeniously perverted. +"
The method Of Mr.. Curtiss demonstration will
appear plainly, from this sentence to be that
aPharisee, the fact is no palliation for the sins
Of the man who is honest enough to confess
them. In his demonstration Mr. Curtis man
ages, by inference and implication, to do just
what he arraigns others for doing, to-wit JUS
tify their course by proving the rottenness
Of their opponents. So, Mr. Curtis deicately
leads us to the conclusion that the honest
sinner is such bad fellow that per contrast
the Pharisee, whose garments it is conceded
are pure, is altogether the better one of the
two. In short, he makes the Pharisee to APP
pear quite a prosecuted person, martyr in
fact, and by contrast with his surroundings
altogether lovely; and he reaches the climax
Of this demonstration in manner so
thoroughly pharisaicaL and withal in such a
deliciously unconscious way, that he brands
himself as a very Pharisee of the Pharisees.
Hear him:
"Fellow-citizens, Jonathan Wild is a man
Of the people He doesn't pretend to be
higher, and purer and better than other men,
He didn't graduate at college, indeed, and
he never read the Had in the original Greek
No, fellow citizens there is no cambria hand
kerchief and oh-de-cologne about him. He is
just one of the boys. He whoops it up with
the plain people, and, thank God, whatever he
is, he is not a Pharisee. The argument is
ingenious. It does not deny that he is a
thief. 1t only insists that those who assert it
are Pharisees."
No it doesn't Mr.. Curtis; it insists that
those who assert it are liars, whether they be
Pharisees or not. But this is beside the
point. We are here simply asking atten-
ton to Mr.. Curtis, not to Mr..
Blaine. Read his utterance again.
Consider the ineffable Phariseeism Of a
man who, with all the honesty Of his nature,
sees nothing incongruous in comparing Blaine
with Jonathan Wild, who was highwayman
and murderer, and then, with no futter of
conscience nor the slightest thought of any
thing to the contrary, says it IFS not denied
that he is a thief" Here is picture for gods
and men! In the quiet Of his study, with all
the leisure which allows the very inner soul
of a man to come to light, Mr. Curtis carefully
writes himself down as believing truly that the
beginning of the argument, the admitted pre-
misses of the debate, are that Mr.. Blaine is a
thief, and that his likeness to highwayman
and murderer is so striking that the typical
highwayman and murderer is to be used as his
personifcation. That is Mr. Curtis's solemn
self-assertion of his understanding of the con-
dition of the heart and mind Of the Ameri
can people If from the time of Christ to the
present day history records unconscious by
pocrisy deeper than that, self-righteousness
more impenetrable, Phariseeism more blind
and bigoted, we have never heard of it. Mr.
Curtis, in his deliberation of purpose, has
shown himself to be the very Narcissus Of
Phariseeism, which gazes forever at itself till
it dies of its own dear loveliness. We could,
if we chose, quote from Mr.. Curtis to show
how he exonerated Blaine from all blame and
held the charges against him unproYen; how
when what Mr. Curtis now calls after-evidence
was produced he never alluded to it in any
way and that, until he few to the embrace of
Cleveland, all the world held Mr.. Curtis
of record as testifying to Blaine's complete
vindication and triumph over his enemies; how
when Mr.. Blaine left the office of Secretary Of
State he praised his conduct therein without
stint; how he went as delegate to the Repub-
lican convention, never telling his constitu-
ents that he meant to bolt that conventions
conclusions in case they did not suit him; how
in that convention he resented resolution
binding delegates to stand by the result, as an
imputation on his honor (sic.) All this were
easy to do; but we present here simply the
picture Of George William the Pharisee- not
as the highwaymen and murderers who fol
low Jonathan Wild, whom they admit to be
a thief, have painted it-but as it comes fresh
from the hands of the Pharisee himself.
THE Iowa Methodist talks to its patrons Of
the worse than folly Of temperance men nom
\