Beverly banner. [volume] (Beverly, N.J.) 1877-1964, 1890-01-18
Want of Principle.


This is the crying want of our time.
1t is the great desideratum in every
business and profession, not merel y in
what we call the lower walks Of life,
the degraded and criminal classes, but
in what are regarded as the very high
est classes, and among people refined
and cultured, and often, indeed, pro-
fessedly religious. Downright sincerity
Of speech, and downright honesty of
dealing, would seem to be among
Wendell Philli ps' "lost arts" Pre-
varication, assimilation, adulteration,
defalcation-these have become SO
common that you are ready to ask,
"Whom can we trust ?" Sometimes it
does seem as if business and society
were honeycombed with evil, and ready
to fall to pieces for very rottenness.
The reason is not far to seek. We are
not sufficiently careful to inculcate
high-toned moral principles upon the
susceptible children entrusted to our
charge.
The writer was recently on board a
railroad train on which was motherly
looking woman with three uncommonly
handsome boys, all Of them evidently
in their teens. For herself and the
oldest son she had purchased tickets,
which she presented to the conductor.
For the second boy she was willing to
pay half fare, and the third she tried
to smuggle through without paying any
fare at all. Judging from the whis
pered conferences before the conductor
came, and the mother had failed to
come to terms with the ticket agent at
the station from which she had started,
but hoped to have better success with
the official on the train. 1t was clear
case Of an attempt to cheat" the road
out of money to which it was fairly en-
titled, and in making it the mother
equivocated about the ages of her
children, and haggled about paying for
them, and altogether gave them la
mentable lesson in lying and stealing
which they will be likely hurtfully to
remember to their dying day. We do
not imagine that the woman meant at
all deliberately to lie or steal,-she
would have been appalled, at the
thought,-for she looked for all the
world like a reputable church member,
but this was precisely what she was
doing; evincing a lack Of high-toned
Christian principle, which, in the sec
ond generation, would develop into
falsehood and roguery, and lead to
Canada or the penitentary.
This same mother may some day
stand weeping at an iron-grated door
way behind which is one Of her boys,
she wondering meanwhile how in the
world it came to pass that child so
carefully raised should have come to so
dreadful an end. 1t will probably
never occur to her for a moment that
she herself planted the seed that has
borne, at last, such bitter fruit. A fine
sense of honor that instinctively recoils
from the faintest suggestion Of fraud or
falsehood is thing that cannot be too
scrupulously cultivated in the rising
generation, and must be cultivated
more than is being done if we would
save society from "going to the bad"
Ifthere is anything on which we pride
ourselves in America, it is our Smart
ness" and "Sam Slick" is our patron
saint. And we are apt to be nightly
pleased with the out-cropping of this
characteristic in our children. Above
all things, we glory in their being
Smart" as furnishing assurance that
they will get along" If there is any
thing we are ambitious of, it is to see
them getting along" though often it
is only another name for hurrying hell
ward.
What is greatly wanted is less solicit
tude about mere "cleverness," and
more about character less concern
about getting along in this world, and
more about pleasing God and getting
to heaven.