Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1884-08-29
A BLOW At COMMON MORALITY.
The Apelogists for Cleveland Teaching q
OamNabIo Doctrine.
The Rev. DR.. West IN the Advance

The Rev. DR.. West IN the Advance.
We were hoping not to recur again
to the character Of the Buffalo candi-
date. We had turned away in indulge
our Olfactories in q little purer air.
But the New York Nation comes to
the rescue in q style SO remorselessly
reasonable to all virtue that we turn
that way once more for a moment, to
bear 1t 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 Buffa-
10, stands higher than the New York
editor has the strength to throw his
missiles.
Another, a Presbyterian pastor, of
Buffalo, of as high position as he, af-
firms, with even stronger emphasis,
the same facts and more. "Indeed,"
says DIR. Ball, "if l am slanderer,
dozen other pastors stand under the
same condemnation, and two score
more of them stand as endorsers."
But we have to do, just now, not
chiefly with Governor Cleveland, but
with the Nations defense of him. At
ter grabbing and minifying the facts
to a very caricature, that journal at
tempts TO
BEsMEAR WITH IT'S DRIFTING FECUL-
ANCE
the most illustrious names in recent
English and American history, in hope
of blurring the contrast between them
and the reputation OF its favorite:
"There has been no great benefac-
tor of the human race Gt informs us)
who has not been truthful to his trusts
disinterested, 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 Washington, Frank
lin, jefferson. Hamilton, not TO go
any farther from taking any promin-
ent part in the foundation of the
American Republic. II would have
excluded from Office in England near
ly every great statesman or reformer
of the last hundred years, except, per-
haps (perhaps, Observe), Romily.
Wherefore, and Gladstone. Itwould
have visited nearly every prominent
politician in the Republican party
since 1860 with popular odium."
These sentences ought to wiIher
the hand that wrote them. We must
thank this inspiring instructor of our
sons and daughters for new version
of an old prOverb. 1t is not ambition
but q greed for pollution which sis the
last infirmity of public minds"
English statesmen and reforners nf
the last hundred years include scores
of men like Erskine, Macintosh, Can
ming, Buxton, Clarkson, Howard, the
Macaulays, John Bright, Lord Shafts
bury. The filthy tattle as to our own
Washington, formerly current in the
Capital, has never dared, like the sad
the 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.
Nearly every prominent politician in
the Republican party since Is so" sug-
gests such names as Sumner, Bucking-
ham, Chase, Andrews, Ferry, Hawley,
HOar and others like them. We believe
that if even SO radiant paragon of
virtue 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.
ave are not defending incontinu-
ance," says this preacher of the new
gospel of righteousness. Chastity is
a great virtue, but every man knows
in his heart that it is not the greatest
of virtues. The ofienses against it
have often been consistent with the
possess on of all the qualities which
cnnOble human nature" etc. He is |
il continuance. If he can
not see it, we may excuse his |
heart only at ruinOus expense to
his intellect. No man knows anything
of human nature is ignorant that the
most plausible and insinuating of all
methods or defending vice is the old
cry, at is the way of the world. Ev-
erybody does it, YOU know. The no.
blest men have been given to it," IL
The Nation is not teaching precisely
THAT DAMNABLE DOCTRINE
10 the youth among its readers, then
words have no meaning.
Iu exquisite harmony with the gen.
sral tenor of the article, it closes with a
ordly rebuke of whoever dares, at
70 inconveniant q time for its candi-
late, to denounce the pollution ii ex-
uses:
preaching of this sort at this time
S cant, and cant in its most lOathsome
iOrm, for it fills every household in
he land with filthy suggestions and
nsinuations turns them into common
'ewer, and converts scores of its ed
tors hypocrites who must blush in
secret over the their own redulOus
and their simulated righte-
The very sort of super-sublima-
ed phariseeism that is shocked by
he honest Saxon of our English Bible
the practices on which the
alton smiles so tenderly. If any vile
uggestions are set afloat, who is ac-
Who is telling us that the
niquities to which they point are
mong the unfortunate irregularities
# the best of men? Whoever would
race home the responsibility has only
o calculate the latitude of the office of
he Nation.