The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-10-14
DIR. CRAFTS ON REFORMS.
Speaks of the Needs of the People on
Sunday-Obscrvance Education.

FOucathOns
Rev. DR.. w. +. Crafts, of Washington,
ID. c., superintendent Of the National
Bureau of Reform. yesterday morning
spoke on 1.-The Lords Day and the Rest
Day. at the Memorial Presbyterian
Church. His address in the evening at
the First Presbyterian Church was on
Nineteenth Century Progress and Prob
lems," and was in part as follows:
9Th eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
have brought in a new social era, which
really does not begin until the middle of
the eighteenth century. and but feebly even
then. The first words of the new time
were Methodism and machinery, not a mere
ALTERATION, for spiritual and industrial
quickening have often been cause and
effect. In 1776 there appeared three dis
tinct periods of dawn, one of them not I'M
mixed with shadows: o. The completion
of James Watts's invention of the steam
engine, which was to revolutionize produc-
ton; CD Adam Smiths declaration of in
dustry's independence, which was TO revo-
lutionize distribution. and 80 Americas
declaration of political independence, which
was TO revolutionize the relation of the
PEOPLE to law, and SO at last their relation
to both production and distribution. About
these were other streaks of dawn. In 1913
John Howard began his prison re-
form movement. In IVA Benjamin
Fsanklin founded the first Ameri-
can a~nti-slavery society. In 1850 Rob-
ert Raikes i~naugurated the Sab
bath-school movement. In 1856 DIR. BenJa-
min Rush began the modern temperance
movement. And in 1898 Carey sailed for
India on the first modern missionary ship.
But when the eighteenth century closed
these movements were all faint and feeble.
u1nA 1fr 60" @~A Ill., - AhA
nineteeth century, including 1881. That first
third OF the century was a time of awaken
ing. 1t vas everywhere felt that dawn was
near. but there was as yet no permanent
popular government in Europe. In 1897 Ma
poleon had crushed the few republics of
the old world and conquered all Europe
except sea-girt Britain. Great Britain's
magma charta had been secured long before
by mobiles for mobiles only. The people were
still politically powerless. Two-thirds of the
so-called House of Commons were appoint
ed by the lords from their pocket bor-
oughs,' so that Parliament really consisted
of a House of Lords and a house of lack
eys.
''The legislation was by capitalists for
capitalists. They put prices up and wages
down. and suppressed opposition by means
or the courts. There was little popular edu-
cation, for the rich rulers thought educa-
ton would beget aspiration, and so, make
the poor less submissive TO their hard lot,
with it's hard bread and hard beds. EN-
ployers resisted all efforts TO compel sani-
tation and the use of safety appliances In
mills and shorter hours for women and
such responsibility in Christian lands as its
place in the temples has always given it
in heather lands. | have described the con-
dition of Great Britain, but the moral and
social status was even worse on the CONT
nent in that first third of this century.
DAWNING OF THE NEW ERA.
an 1882 the new era dawned. Christ came
to the world for thirty-four years of greater
words and works than men could bear
when he was upon earth. That was the
year of the reform bill in Great Britain, the
peoples magma charta, by which the House
of Commons first became in reality what it
was in name. Between that date and 1867,
when British suffrage was broadened, popu-
lar government was established in some
form throughout Christendom, except in
Russia. In that middle third of our century
emancipation also swept the Christian world
free of slavery. save in Brazil, which
reached emancipation soon after. 1t was
also the period when American churches
reached agreement on total abstinence and
prohibition. under which last fifteen States
enrolled during that period In that same
period Christian union movements began
with the organization of the Y. NJ. G. A. in
the National Reform Association. in 1863.
That middle third of this century was also
the period of the greatest of Sabbath-re-
LOO delegates in Baltimore, in 1874, under
the presidency of John Quincy Adams.
THE daybreak that came with that mid
die third of our century has already been
overcast with heavy thunder clouds, es-
pecially IN our own country. No doubt
there has been moral progress since 1867 i'm
the world at large. but IL would be hard to
prove moral progress in the United States
since that date. Three black threes stand
out in our statistics of this third of the
century. The consumption OF liquors by
gallons. the divorces and the murders have
each multiplied about three times as fast as
the population. To this third OF the CEN
fury also belongs the whole career of the
louisiana lottery. not yet really suppressed.
1t IL the period. also. of the Sunday paper.
but a crime. II Is also the period OF labor
instructions and or municipal corruption.
II Is the period also when Christian nations