Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-08
SUNDAY THOUGHTS
ON
MORALS 4s5 MANNERS
BY A cLERGYMAN.'
lwnrrrzs FOR THE DrsrArcH.1


WRITTEN FOR THE DrsPArcH.1
A certain Prof. Mahaffy, Of Dublin, who
is an authority on Greek literature, has been
lecturing at Chautauqua on ancient Greece
with modern applications In q lecture
upon Primitive Man, week or two ago,
he said, among other things, wise and other
wise: 'In the preamble of your great
Declaration of Rights appears, I believe,
the statement that all men are equal in the
sight of God. That statement was borrowed,
not from the Scriptures, but from the specu-
lations of the French revolutionists, whose
opinion on the subject was, to my mind, Of
very small value. You are fond Of talking
Of the equality of all men. The longer
read history and the more I look around
society, the more see profound inequalities in
men. It is not true that every man Is equal, In
the sight Of either God or men. suppose that
this Is an awful heresy. but, at least as long as
i am in this country, I am free man; SO you
will allow me to make a clean breast of it."
Prof. Mahaffy may be an expert in the
hnss Ss iDows nn woh way IN
Greek accent ought to slant he certainly does
not know the leaning and meaning Of the
Declaration Of Independence, and OF the politi-
cal history which illustrates II. Sidney Smith
said that 1t took surgical operation to get a
joke into a Scotchman's head In the same
way it should seem that it requires surgical
into an Englishman's head. This is what the
Declaration Of Independence says: I'VE hold
these truths to be self-eyident. that all men are
created equal; that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights; That
among these are life, liberty and the pursuit
Of happiness: that, to secure these rights. gov
ernments are instituted among men, deriving
their just. powers from the consent OF the
There is not school boy in the United States
who does not understand by this that it Is OF
civil rights that Jefferson is speaking g-of those
political rights which the English Government
of George Ill. and Lord North had assumed
and presumed to deprive the American colo
nies, but which were assured and secured to
them, equally with all other subjects OF Great
Britain, by the immemorial guarantees Of the
British Constitution. Thomas jefferson and
his contemporaries knew, Just as well as Prof.
Mahaffy knows, precisely as we all know, that
climate are half omnipotent-that some
bloods are more brarny than others-that GER
tain races are socially, morally. intellectually
superior, while certain others are inferior.
fessor to enlighten US oH' on these @ points points Mr.
Mahaffy is not the only student Of history ex-
taDt. What the fathers said, and what their
children hold as their priceless legacy, the open
Great Republic, is that, notwithstand-
ing all differences of brain and frame.
of food and training, OF inherent
strength and weakness. when considered as the
subjects Of political government all men stand
alike, all are equal before the law all are enti-
tied to "iife. liberty and the pursuit. of happl-
ness;' and each may say to Governor or Presi-
dent, as Diogenes said to Alexander-"Get out
of my sunlightr' This principle contemplates,
not social. not moral not Intellectual equality,
but equality under government. And this
principle we owe not to the doctrinaires of the
French Revolution, but to the Bible. 1t fits
Christianity snugly as the glass slipper fitted
Cinderellas foot. Go home. Prof. Mahaffy, lay
aside your Greek for six months and study the
times in which you live. The Declaration Of
Independence is better key to this study than
all your classical grammars. BY the bye. why
not acquaint yourself with the English Ian
guage7