The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-01-30
WINDLED, BETRAYED

AGGS4 ~ AAB CHOW me0s
WINDLED, BETRAYED
prosecuted David, in par
RZEY x oxysm of petulance and
FoVNG5Nsl rage, thus insulted the
@ AENM human race. David him
z\NNSaS\s self falsitied when he said:
fCSGE2SA ''All men are liars" He
Z8SAVH apologies and says he
!: ! !: ! !" !:
df1 was unusually provoked,
A5fZ1S| - and that he was hasty
S(O1 when he hurled such uni
e& 61J versal denunciation. 81
JG said in my haste" and so
q ~ on. It was in him only
~ momentary triumph of
pessimism. There is ever and
anon, and never more than now,
a disposition abroad to distrust
everybody, and because some bank
employees defraud, to distrust all
bank employees; and because some
police officers have taken brides, to
believe that all policemen take brides;
and because divorce cases are in the
court, to believe that most, if not all,
marriage relations are unhappy.
There are men who seem rapidly COM
ing W d0OPt GA1S CAOCO" AL 4A(A IA -
liars, scoundre1s, thieves, 1ibertines.
When a new case of perfdy comes to
the surface, these people clap their
hands in glee. It gives piquancy
to their breakfast if the morn
ing newspaper discloses new expos
ure, or a new arrest. They grow fat
on vermin. They join the devils in
hell in jubilation over recreancy and
pollution. If some one arrested IS
proved innocent, it is to them disap-
pointment. They would rather be-
1ieve evil than good. They would like
to be on committee to find something
wrong. They wish that as eyeglasses
have been invented to improve the
sight, and ear trumpets have been in
vented to help the hearing, a cor
responding instrument might be in
vented for the nose, to bring nearer
malodor. Pessimism says of the church.
''The majority of the member are
hypocrites, although it is no temporal
advantage to be a member of the
church, and therefore there is no temp
tation to hypocrisy" Pessimism says
that the influence of newspapers is
only bad, and that they are corrupting
the world; when the fact is that they
are the mightiest agency for the arrest
of crime, and the spread of intelligence,
and the printing press, secular and re-
ligious, is setting the nations free. The
whole tendency of things is toward
cynicism, and the gospel of Smash-up.
We excuse David of the text for a
paroxysm of disgust, because he apollo
gizes for it to all the centuries, but it
is deplorable fact that many have
taken the attitude of perpetual dis
trust and anathematization. There
are, we must admit, deplorab1e facts,
and we would not hide or min
ify them. We are not much encouraged
to find that the great work of official
reform in New York city begins by a
proposition to the liquor dealers to
break the law by keeping their saloons
open on Sunday from in the after
noon to II at night. Never since
America was discovered has there been
a worse insult to sobriety and decency
and religion than that proposition.
That proposition is equal to saying:
"Let law and order and religion have
a chance on Sunday forenoons, but
Sunday afternoons open all the gates
to gin and alcohol, and Schiedam
schnapps, and sour mash, and Jersey
lightning, and the variegated swill OF
breweries and drunkenness and crime.
-Consecrate the first half of the Sunday
to God, and the last half to the devil.
Let the children on their way to Sun
dav schools in New York at o'clock
in the afternoon meet the alcoholism
that does more than all other causes
combined to rob children of their
| fathers and mothers and strew the
| land with helpless orphanage. Surely
/ strong drink can kill enough people
and destroy enough families, and suffi-
GENTLY crowd the aims houses and pen
| itentiaries in six days of the week
without giving it an extra half day
| for pauperism and assassination.
Although we are not very jubilani
over municipal reform that opens
the exercises by a doxology to rum
we have full faith in God, and in the
gospel, which will yet sink all in
EQUITY as the Atlantic ocean melts 6
flake of snow. What we want, an
what believe we will have. is grea4
religious awakening that will moral
ize and Christianize our great popula
tions, and make them superior tt
temptations, whether unlawful Of
legalized. So see no cause for dis
heartenment Pessimism is sin, ant
those who yield to it cripple them
| selves for the war, on one side o
which are all the forces of darkness
led on by Apollyon, and on the othe.
side of which are all the forces o
light, led on by the Omnipotent.
risk the statement that the vast ma
jority of people are doing the best the.
can. Nine hundred and ninety-nin,
out of a thousand of the officials of tn
municipal and the United States gov
ernments are honest. Out of a thou
sand bank presidents and cashiers, min
| hundred and ninety-nine are worth,
the position they occupy. Out of
| thousand merchants. mechanics an,
professional men, nine hundred an,
1ipofv-uiua are d0ipr thar d77fx- n