Birmingham age-herald., 1894-08-19

cipiide." Meantime, the empire sui. sers; and the eternAl belittling of cerS tain noisy detfaetors gives our enemies, cause to rejoice, Among the whole. ministry from first to last there has not been one really patriotic imperialista and nothing but the force of public opinion out of doors, backed by the cog, wheel of the upper house, has prevent< ed a disiptegration of the empire which would have been the first act In. the hideous drama of otir nat tlonal decay,
 The tenderness felt by certain people, for criminals is also part and parcel of this same apotheosis of the individual with justice, right and law trampled under foot. The murdered victim lies in his bloody shroud unpitied; but sym< pathizing signatoriss rush in eager. crowds to back the petition for mercy to the murderer Some men speak. feelingly of the cruel "strangling" of this "poor creature" or that, caught, red handed in some diabolical assassi- nation. Pity, the only Christian virtue cultivated by the decadents, has att tained disproportionate dimensions. It is Aaron's rod which swallows up all the rest. This is because we are weak and fabby and have not nerve enough to infict due pnnishment-becausese } too, we have grown tolerant to thes weaknesses of human nature," and crime, like vice, ''is so very human, you know" It is not because we are Christ-lilke, and earnest to live after the high law of mercy. We pity the pain of the individual more. We loathe crime and dishonor. We forget the ruin, the heartbreak, perhaps the suicide from despair of thousands, In our molluscous sym pathy for the conviction of the one who has been their undoer; and we shudder at the minor discomforts of poverty as @ more manly time did not revolt from larger tortures. This excessive sympathy with unpleasant conditions has its rise In the New Hedonism, which breaches ease and luxury and pleasure, the qualification of our appetites, pas sions and senses ,as the nineteenth gos- pei of glad tidings. The restraints of discipline, the denials of prudence, how disagreeable they are! How much more jolly it is to do just as we like best, without regard to that fusty fos- sil Mrs. GrnEdy, with her stupid old moral maxims, preaching down-not daughters heart this time, but her wild desire for freedom and "experi- ence." And, say the promoters of this new apothesis, if folk do desire this unrestricted freedom, why OF earth may they not have it? In these days when nothing should be forbidden which any one wishes to have or do, morality is dead, therefore immortality does not ex- ist It is the doctrine of the anarchists all through. It is the law alone that creates sin. Take away the law, and everything would be permissible be- cause nothing would be prohibited. Throw down the park palings and level the garden wall with the high road, and punishment for trespass would not exist Without individual property there would be no robbery; without government there would be no disobe- dience. If parental authority is not right fllial undutifulness is not wrong; if modesty is not virtue, inlmodesty is not vice. So the chain of reason ing drags along; and morality, dead letter, dissipates immortality into noth- ingness.
 This disintegration of the moral life passes with some for-progress-evol tion-a parting with the old cramped form to emerge into something frcer, wider, higher. Those who have taken suit and service under the new banner congratulate themselves on their cour- age and look with contempt on the humdrum followers of the old. But in reality their new method is the setting free of those activities of corrup- tion which life restraints and death releases. It is not the but terhy emerging from the chrysalis which it pleases these others to say. We have no longer the subordina- tion, the intersection. the order, the rhythmical discipline of living or ganisn, where the various members fulfill their several unctions, and har- mony of relation produces the whole someness of coordinated energy. We have instead the crowding and multi plication of those ''vibrios of putrefac- tion," which create the loathsomeness of corruption-which yet Is intense ac- tivity of tho individual and disinteGrat- ing kind. The old order dieth rather than changeth, and the vibrios of nor al putrefaction are in full activity. In time we may come to something better. That "streaIn of tendency making for righteousness" is surely not dried up, and the living waters have not ceased to flow. Once tout of the eater came forth meat-out of the strong sweet ness" So perhaps when the present season of transitional disorder has passed we may once more reconstruct society on wholesome principles and stable elements.