Birmingham age-herald., 1894-08-19

selves clean, d1d they 1nduce OGnerS to lbesmear themselves with mud; nor did they endeavor to show that this mud was a beautifull and wholesome sub stance, and that to besmear with filth was much the same thing as to crown with roses and be diademed with ru- lbies. Respect for virtue has hitherto obtained even among the backsliders iof those countries where society was founded on certain well-deflned ethical principles. And If this has been true of the baclSsliders, how much more, then, of the practically innocent? It is different with us English folk at the end of the nineteenth century-we of this self-laudatory fin de siecle, who openly advocate immortality as among the rights of the individual, and as openly deride those old-time restric.' tions by which social order and purity have hitherto been maintained
 Turn where we will, not one of the former landmarks dividing the per- missible from the forbidden has been left in its place. In the home and in the steeets, In the press and in parlia- Inent, are preached doctrines which upset all existing arrangements and inc troduce a new rendering of the deca- 1ogue. The virtues once made obliga- tory are now nowhere in the field. The mutual interdependence of the various members of the community and the disciplined intersection which makes : the-general good of more account than individual desire have given place to an unchecked egotism which destroys If y1i 10 af fiorl = 2 The good of the community counts for nothing at all and the desire of the in- dividual sweeps the board. The due subordinatie; of ofinferiority-th fright -ful influence of education and the au- thority of knowledge-the headship of man and the fitting functions of women t-the grace of patience-the modesty of Humility-the reticence of maidenhood .-the courage of f-restraint-respect for the law-loyalty and patriotism all forms of obedience in short, have vanished from our code. Instead of that self-respect in self-oontrol which used to be the virtue practiced by pa- trans like Marcus Aurelius and Chris tians like Sidney and More and Melanc- thon, we hear only of the right of the individual to live such kind of life as he shall deem best for his own happiness. But we disguise this apotheosis of Self, under the name of democratic evolution, of the New Hedonism, of neo-radiealism, of the duty we owe ourselves in our own development and the full use of our liberty. And when we throw off all restraint, and aban- don our appointed duties because they se bore us, then we call it stepping out i. of the dolls house into the wide mo- lbility of self-culture. And we applaud that act of undutiful egotism, as if it were as heroic as it Is in reality base.
 Many of the dramas and much of the Literature turn on this new outbreak of egotism devoid of principle and stripped bare of selfsacrifce. The sym pathies of the public go with the neu- rotic divergondee, who cannot find Happiness in duty nor rest in love, and who will not seek it in employment the neurotic divergondee, who wrecks every one's happiness because she is bored-and boredom is the living sin which excuses crime. The second Mrs. Tanquery is "understood;" and tout comprendre est tout pardonner. Grat- itude or consideration for others does not enter into the picture. In'the apoth- eosis of Self what place has any form of thumdrum virtue?
 This upsetting of old principles gives "a phantasmagoric aspect to life, at Ionce bewildering and distressing. Is thcre really no such thing as elemental morality-no difference between right and wrong, for the simple reason that pothing is right but as we make it. nothing wrong if we desire it?
 Are the virtues which Christ taught mere scarecrows put up by age and authority the better to subdue youth and insubordination? or were they the expression of the higher law of life and the truer wisdom2 Filial obedience, for example, Is there such an obliga- Ition, or are parents the enemies and ityrants of their children, who are there- fore in their right ito defy and oppose them? Is it true that the reason why grandfathers and grandsons are gem Ierally goodfriends is, because they have a common enemy in the son of the ono and the father of the other? AS for mothers and daughters, we have it on tho testimony of one who speaks with authority-the former are unsypa- thetic, restrictive, coercive beyond reason, and the latter are therefore justified in their rebeliousness-are in their right when they demand the idangerous liberties embodied in the eymbol of the latch key. The purity of mnidenhood, bound up in it's igno- rance of certain forms and facts of life, which once all good men and motherly women regarded las girls most precious possession, of