The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-03-09

has held steadily on through all the
years and vicissitudes. But that strong
trait is not more characteristic of DIR.
Paige than the other, evinced in the
fact that he has on his library shelves
complete bound set of the paper from
July 3, 1919 to date-"not single num-
ber missing" How like the venerable
and beloved scholar! So painstaking
and so exact. He may justly prize his
treasure. Probably it is the only such
complete and uniform collection out
side the Office of publication.
Something to love, something good
and worthy to love, is the need of every
human soul. What is best in us is drawn
out by admiration and affection. Here
in are the eternal power and charm of
Religion and the Home and Fatherland.
They open in us the fountains of good
and exalt us into worshippers, lovers,
patriots. Even common and stupid clay,
80 invoked, shows divine: while the in
heritor Of great name or of the better
gift of genius, sinks and shrivels, unless
he learns to love.
1t is sad to think that the home,
which is the ordained instrument of our
best discipline and the center of our
sweetest Joy, should so often fail of its
mission. B.oken homes are the most
pathetic spectacles under the sun. 1t is
not, however, the invasion of disease and
death that despoils them. These are
solemn visitors, but they often refine
and spiritualize the home, 80 that to the
eye Of faith it is yet unbroken, and is
transfgured. Alas! for those other home
wreckers,-infdelity and brutality and
drunkenness and a coarse or selfish
spirit They drive out love and let in all
the devils. And from that ruin there is
no repair.
The Annual Reports of the great
Life Insurance Companies, which have
been appearing for some weeks, have
been more than usually interesting. A
study of the operations of these large
financial institutions should supply the
means of judging how deep and general
is the depression in business and indus
tries. All the great companies publish
full tables of their income, assets, sur
plus, losses paid, reserve, etc. 1t is not
iceable that none Of them proclaim a
decrease in business. The amount of
new insurance for the year aggregates
many hundreds of millions. TIE assets
the surplus, the reserve and the sums
paid in losses, dividends and annuities.
all show large increase. Add this to
the showing Of the savings banks and
the investment companies, and it is
plain the people are not poverty stricken,
whatever may be the Governments
straits for gold.
There are those some of them ed
itors OF newspapers-who profess not to
be able to distinguish between the boss
and the reformer. 1t suits the mood of
these persons to describe the leader of
the movement for municipal reform in
New York as "boss Parkhurst." 1t is
bad to be born blind and nearly as dis
tressing to have blindness "happen" to
one. We commiserate these children of
misfortune and pray that they may re-
cover the use of their eyes. In the
meantime, let them mediate on the fact
that the reformer is one who seeks to
organize the sound and Just and decent
sentiment of society into practical in
strument for good government, without
reference to sect or party or clan; while
the boss is man who seeks to amass
power in his own hands, through the
subserviency of henchmen and tools,
who are always of the baser sort, that
he may control the government for his
own ends without regard to the public
wish or welfare.