The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-07-17
Mloral amo Beligioms.
Self-Respect in Politics and
Religion.

Religion.
should fail to do justice to my sub
ject did l not speak of the respect
which you owe to yourselves as citizens.
Some part in public life you will most
or all of you take. The cleansing of
our politics seems as hopeless as the
task imposed upon Hercules in the
Aug@an stables, and it can be accom-
plished only in the same way-by the in
rush of living streams. Unless the
fresh young life of our people is poured
in purifying currents through the land
corruption and venality must remain
unrebuked, and the positions that
should be filled by the wisest and best
men will be attainable by those only
who are small enough to crawl into
place and mean enough to grovel into
power. In this my native state |
well remember when the fittest men
were forced unwillingly into office and
were kept in Office as long as they were
willing to stay, and sometimes longer,
and when for man to buy his own
nomination or election and not to be
ashamed to tell what it cost him would
have been reckoned as utterly mythical
as any story to be found in the
chronicles of Brobdingnag. l like to
remember that the last graduate of
Harvard that filled the presidential
chair was utterly deaf and blind to the
claims of party, and lost his reelection
because he would not utter word or
lift finger to secure it. The editor of
the most influential newspaper in the
country went expressly to Washington
to offer the president the controlling
influence of his paper on the pledge of
certain items of government patronage,
and failed to make himself understood,
and returned with amazed admiration
for man for whose sacrifice of open
faced integrity he did not believe that
the world could offera price high enough.
| fervently hope that our college will
never furnish another president until it
can give the country one equally in
flexible in his uprightness. 1t has been
a most gratifying fact that among those
that have taken prominent part in the
endeavor to stay the plague that infests
and threatens our political life a large
portion are graduates of Harvard Col
lege. l trust they will find among you
ready recruits and vigorous allies.
Among the chief causes of the condition
of things is the indifference of very many
citizens of superior education, high char
acter and large potential influence.
Such men are overprone, in the common
phrase, to keep out of politics. If this
habit continues it will grow, for it is
in such quarters that example spreads
rapidly, and the issue must be the lapse
Of Af ha
lies, into Kakistocracy and thence, ii
may be, in refuge from the horrors of
democratic tyranny into the more toler-
able absolution of a single despot. If |
was younger man l would 90 into
politics heart and soul, with vote and
tongue and pen. l would fain persuade
you that an active interest in the pub.
lie affairs of your respective commune
ties and of the nation is so far your inn
perative duty that you can not respect
yourselves if you neglect it. | would
urge you so to speak, vote and act that
you can justify yourselves to your own
consciences. Yours will be, or ought
to be, among the leading minds of your
generation, and in all matters of public
opinion and action there are scores OF
hundreds of right-minded but faint
hearted men who spring up all ready
to follow in the right track, but will re-
main inert and acquiescent till they
have leader. You will be rightly am
bilious of influence, and l trust that
you will win all of it that you deserve
all of it that you can respect yourselves
in using. 1t is as a Christian minister
that have your invitation to speak to
you, and | would be UNIV orthy equally
of your respect and my own if / let
such an occasion pass without some
earnest words for religion. Take Christ
for your model of character Govern
yourself by his precepts. Give his re-
| ligion fair trial. If the result is not
firm faith in all that he processes to
be and a trust for the life beyond in
him who has taught you how to live
here, you have right to your inditfer-
ence, to skepticism. Till then you
have no such right; for self-respect, if
no other motive, requires that you
either verify or falsify to your own
consciousness the claims of one who
has given his name to these nineteen
centuries, who has been the most eff
cient force in human history, and who
has been from the first and is now most
revered and loved by the very men and
women who are themselves most worthy
Of reverence and love.-Dr. Peabody'