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


tie purer air. But the New York Nation
comes to the rescue in a style 50 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, sneers 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 Buffalo, stands higher
than the New York editor has the
strength to throw his missiles.
Another, Presbyterian pastor of Bull
falo, of as high position as he, affirms,
with even stronger emphasis the samo
facts and more. Indeed says DR.. Ball,
. if am a 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 n; :
TONS defense of him. After garbing
and minifying the facts to a very CARR
cature, that journal attempts to
BESMEAP WITH IT'S DRIPPING FECULANCE.
the most illustrious names III recent En-
giiSh and American history in hope of
bIurring the contrast between them and
the reputation OF us favorite.
There has been no great benefactor
of the human race Git informs us) who
has not been truthful to his trusts, dis
Interested self-denying. There have
been very few who 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. Tt would have ex-
Guided from Office in England nearly
every great statesman or refOrmer of
the last 100 years, except perhaps per
haps, Observe) Romilly, Wilberforce 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 a new version OF an old
proverb. 1t is not "ambition," but a
greed for pollution, which els 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 filthy 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
its face in history. 1t IS the congenial
BUSINESS OF A GHOUL
to exhume it now for the purpose The
Nation would make it subserve. Near
ly 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 them. We believe that if even
50 radiant a paragon as The Nations
such men as these, the American people
will count him a costlier delicacy than
they can afford.
1--WE are not defending incontinence,"
says thie preacher of the new gospel of
,ighteousness. "Chastity is great vir-
tue; but every man knows in his heart it
s not the greatest of virtues, that often
ses against it have often been consistent
with the possession of all the qualities
which ennOble human nature" ETC. He
is defending incOntinence. 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: Sc 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 DAMNABLE 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 a lord
~ rebuke of whoever dares, at so incon-
venient a time for its candidate, to
denOunce the pollution it excuses:
" Preaching of this sort at this time is
cant 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 uper-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. Ii 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.