The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1892-07-16

cess is to work in the right direction
These evils we have in common with our
kind elsewhere somewhat intensified, it
may be, by our peculiar circumstances.
But there are Others in the experience of
which we are alone.
OUR HEATHENIsM.
Open the map of the United States and
see how band of country extending from
the Atlantic to the Pacific is permeated
by heathenism. In the Southern and
South-W estern States, in spite of two CEN
turies of christian teaching, the religion of
the negroes is largely imbued with Woo
dooism-the belief in evil spirits, the prac-
tice of bloody and barbarous rites to ap
pease them. In the Indian Territory and
New Mexico there linger the remnants of
our pagan aborigines, almost as pagan as
their fathers were three hundred years ago.
Further west We have Utah given up TO
the monstrous practices of Mormonism,
and the Pacific Slope darkening with the
unyielding Buddhism of the Chinese. Ev-
en- the climate throughout this belt, ener
waiting and disposing to indulgence, seems
to lend power to systems which encourage
the passions it is our duty to mortify and
control
HETEROGENEOUS FACTORS.
The aggregation of our population in
cities, and consequent desertion of rural
pursuits, the astonishing increase in immi-
grafton, infusing foreign elements at the
rate of more than two per cent. annually
to be absorbed into our system, and the
immense illiteracy among us, will also force
our attention and require our labors.
sEcTIoNALIsM.
Again. there is the trail, all too plain
vet, of our Civil War. We had four years
of a "SoIid South against a "Solid
North Each side spoke its mind freely
out of the cannon Is mouth. The defamation
was vociferous; the rhetoric was magnificent;
the argument was conclusive. Soft summer
nights have dropped their dews upon its
graves; the winter clouds, cold and unkind
as they are, have sifted on them purest
SHOWS; the gentler, aye, and the sterner in
huences of earth and air have done their
best to hide that war and its bloody chasms
under a covering of natures greenest tap
estry. But men refuse to have them hid
den. Estrangement, distrust, hatred, are
still kept fostering in the public mind, and
sores that would have healed "by first in
tention" are torn open often afresh.
THE PROBLEM STATED.
We must take, we must solve our prob
lem as we find it. In our blind worship
of material acquisitions, in the heterogene-
GUS elements of the body polite, in the new
conditions laid upon us by the war, we
have so much stubborn old clay, aud so
much crude new clay, to be nodded by some
hand kind as well as skillful, to first useful
and then beautiful proportions. And when
we remember the difficulty Of dealing with
these evils under our system Of laws, which
leaves their destruction almost entirely tC
the general condemnation of public opin-
ion; when we reflect that all these classes
contribute to that opinion, and are, most OF
them, component parts ofits expression, We
may realize the dangerous extent of their
power, and the increased effort necessary tC
counteract it.
The first French Republic, administered
by gutter-snipes, lasted only few short
years. The grand old Athenian told eight
hundred; but every citizen of it who dropped
the ostra was cultured man, and the helots
grinned behind the bars of the agora.
HIGHER AIMS AND DESTINY.
Yet after all, it is not free institutions,
it is not democracy that is the end of oul
work. No. These are only the means
and the very grandeur of our means should
beget grandeur in the direction of our ex-
penditure We need higher conception
of our purpose and destiny. 1t is moi
enough that we skake the earth with
our engineries. 1t is not enough thai
we belt the earth with our telegraphs. Ii
is not enough that we fill the earth will
our utterance It. is not enough that We
walk the earth erect and free. We mus
realize that we hold our blessings in trus
for mankind-we must make our bes
possessions and achievements the ser
wants of all honest humanity. | wish tc
see my country benefaetor such as nj
country ever was-hospitable to all nations
legislating by example for all nations
shining into all nations-like the sun IL
yonder heavens, at once lighting, ant
warming, and holding true to their course
all the bodies of the political system. MAY
we not climb to this grand conception
that our true policy is opportunity for all
our true destiny is to be the servants o.
all? We fill this place in the hope ant
, expectation of mankind. We have prom
ised to fill it in all our formal declarations
Shall We disappoint that high hope
Shall we be untrue to those fair promises
. my friends for our part at least, let Ii
endeavort to realize practically that our bless
ed land of liberty is the great charity o
God to the human race
BE TRUE TO OURSELVES.
How shall we discharge this magnaui
nous duty? Must we wander to tn
poles or the antipodes in search of new ex
pedients Must We lay about us for un
tried social alliances. before whose shining