Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-11-26

!: /"
0l\ /JSSM vail among the people,
NM JNN the conceptions which
LAWN RAzG they form of what is
AG~ENs truly admirable and de-
/ sirable, in a word Ideals
v II which shine in their
~ armament, these are
n the mightiest making
DIR. MKIM. and molding forces Of
national life, and il is before all things impor-
taut that they should be high and noble and
pure.
Now, many influences in this age and in this
land conspire to lower our standards and de-
base our ideas. For example, ii is to be feared
that in the popular mind Bigness is mistaken
for Greatness America is big, therefore it is
great. Chicago is big. therefore it is great.
st. Paul is bigger than Minneapolis. therefore
it is greater. Cities engagedin fierce and bitter
rivalry as to which of them contains the bigger
population, as if that determined which of
them should be the greater. And SO. on q
larger area, we boast of the vast increase of our
population from one decade to another. as if
that settled our advance in the scale Of great
ness among the nations Of the earth.
MODERN ILLUSTRATION.
To prick this popular fallacy it ought to be
enough to remember that China, whose civili-
cation we despise, is the most populous nation
on the globe; and on the other hand. that
Greece and Palestine, whence have proceeded
the mightiest intellectual and spiritual move
ments OF history. were territorially and numer-
ically contemptibly small. Yes the land which
gave Homer and Sophocles to poetry, Pericles
and Praxiteles to sculpture, Therodotus and
Thucydides to history, Plato and Aristotle to
philosophy, Alexander to war and Leonidas pa
triotism, was in territorial extent insignificant,
measuring not more than $50 miles in greatest
length and $50 miles in greatest breadth and
embracing a territory smaller than Portugal.
And Palestine, the land of Abraham and Moses,
of David and Isaiah, of Paul and John, which
gave the Bible to literature and Jesus Christ to
history, could all have been laid down between
Washington and Philadelphia. And yet we,
citizens of this free America, with the
vioume of history open before US, continue to
put forward the bigness of our territory, and
the bigness Of our population, in proof Of our
greatness among the nations of the earth As
well decide between the claims of Napoleon
and Wellington. of Cesar and Alexander to the
palm of military genius by ascer tanning and
comparing their respective weights.
WEALTH NOT THE PROPER STANDARD.
Equally false is the standard of wealth as q
note Of national or individual greatness. Here
we teach one of the most vital and fundamental
dslusions of our age. 1 affirm that the aggre-
gate material wealth of our country is no sure
evidence by which to judge even of its material
prosperity. For If, az some careful observers
affirm, our country is growing richer, not by the
genera increment Of wealth among the people,
but by the aggregation of wealth in
tu6 0anU6 OF the rev, Wnlle the average
wealth among the masses is decreasing. If, in
a word, the true reading of our economic con-
dition is that the rich are growing richer and
the poor are growing poorer, and that the gen.
eral body of our people are finding life a harder
struggle than before, then the increase of aggre-
gate wealth does not denote prosperity even
when we measure it by the purely material
standard.
Prof. Cairnes writing Of Great Britain re-
marked "a constant growth of national capital
with nearly equally constant decline in the
proportion of capital which goes to sup
secret of this state of things harsh separation
of classes, combined with those glowing ir-
Irregularities in the distribution of wealth which
most people will agree are among the elements
of our social instability. That the same is true
in our own country may be inferred from the
following facts.
In Massachusetts the average working man is
unable to support his family at wages, so
that one-third of the burden Of support must
be borne by the labor OF his wife and children.
In Illinois carefully collected statistics show
that one-half of the intelligent working men
are not even able to earn enough for their daily
bread, and have to depend upon the labor Of
women and children to exc out their miserable
existence"
In Pennsylvania there are heads of little
children OF all ages from six years upward at
work in the coal breakers. toiling in dirt and
air thick with carbon dust from dawn to dark
Of every day in the week except Sunday. These
coal breakers are the only school they know,
and there are no schools in the world where
more evil is learned or more innocence de-
stroyed.
Put side by side with these facts the state
ment that ten or twelve of the Wall street
kings made Gin the year 1880 about $50, 600, 900
and we see how false is the conclusion that the
increase OF wealth necessarily indicates an in
crease of even material prosperity.
But 60 farther than this and affirm that
material wealth, even il equitably distributed,
is low and inadequate standard of national
greatness. Il is conceivable that the poorest
nation might be the greatest, aud the richest
nation the meanest, in the world. Wealth does
not increase power, and if physical force we're
the true criterion Of greatness, then con-
celvably The richest nation might, in
this age, @hen war is SO enormously
expensive, be the greatest, because
navy and enlist and equip the mightiest
army. But it ought to be an axiom with intel
ligent people that greatness. true greatness, has
no necessary relation to physical force The
poets words should find an echo in the heart of
every patriot: '.By the soul only the nations
snail be great and free.''
POSSIBILITIES OF EVIL.
Surely on this day Of national thanksgiving
it is well thatthe pulpit should utter its warn
ing against q danger SC menacing and SO
INDUSTRIOUS Vi possibilities VI oNu. wealth. In
itself is not an evil 1t may, and it ought to,
minister to life. to enlarge it, to enrich its
culture, to open doors of knowledge and of de-
velopment otherwise closed. 1t may, and it
ought, and, thank God. in a multitude of in
stances, it does, afford scope to noble men and
women to serve their fellow men in a spirit of
enlarged and noble philanthropy which gives
not only its money, but its thought and its
sympathy and its toll and its time, to the up
lifting of the world.
But whenever wealth Is sought for its own
sake, or for the sake OF the luxuries that it af-
fords, then it becomes a degrading ambition,
and the soul which ought to expand in ali
noble aims by its right use contracts into
smaller and meaner proportions under the
blightng touch OF an ever-deepening selfish
ness.
Teach you- young men, If they seek for
wealth, II they make it object Of ali, to do so
with the higher purpose of thereby enlarginR
their power Of usefulness in the world.
IN EVERYTHING GIVE THANKS
Rev. DE-. g. w. McCullOugh's Sermon ut the
Union Service in Anacosfia