The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1896-07-02
SOME RAMBLING THOUGHTS.
BY MEMO.
(Copyrightedj

y - IUo
utilization OF spare moments in the
life OF a busy layman. The aim is to
lead IN an optimistic way to "A better
understanding of life, its grandeur
and responsibilities
Strange though it may seem to
the untutored sense. yet it is never
theless true that not every day is
equally pleasing to au artist. He
looks for that intangible, indescrb.
able something which he calls "at-
mosphere.' 1 am oftentimes incliu-
cd to think that writer's also must be
subject to some such imp ponderable
influence. for it will happen that the
mind gropes hither and thither for
suggestive thought aud utterly fails
to find it, until change of scene or
OF duty distracts the attention. Then
without conscious action OF tho
mind the needed suggestion comes
into being. Thus has it been with
me this week. The burden was to
write something seriously suited to
the week OF tho glorious Fourth. 1t
was clear that the intelligence of the
vast army Of quiet readers of these
Thoughts" was not to be insulted
with easily written, adjectival folde.
rol, such as will greet the ear next
Saturday when the average rocketty
speech will soar upward in flaming
streak only to end in an explosion,
darkness, the smell of smoke, and
dangerous returning stick but the
right thing was still lacking and re.
NAMED so until the writer spent a
few hours on Bedle's Island in.
specting Bartholdi's great statue of
Liberty Enlightening The World. "
The catch-words OF a Republic are
epf 10 become, Lao the catch words
OF religions denomination, or the
lines of familiar hymn, or the
routine expressions Of many pray
er, 80 purely matter OF form that
we rattle them off as unconsciously
as we turn the corners on our
homeward way, or AZ though mind
and mouth had no connection. The
word Republic" itself. like charity,
covers multitude of sins, and has
such magic charm about it that,
without any conscious line OF
| rananpipu nnr avp,Nat Hoo n,l ...>.,
al support go forth unreservodly to
every country that names the
name, and our den nouncements are
apt to be given with equal unreservo
to every country that retains even
so much as a puppet vestige of
monarchism. We class Switzerland,
where each individual has not a
theoratical but an actual, political
freedom and religious liberty, with
the Transvaal, where political rights
are denied to the taxpayers. We
have tacit condemnation for Bel.
gium and England, where the inter
ference of the monarchy with the
personal liberty of the individual il
OF the slightest, while there is n
strong lurking sense of kinship for
the bloody Spanish-American TO.
publics, where'tyranny holds sway
and party can scarcely record an
opposing vote without precipitating
an appeal from liberty and ballots to
license and bullets.
If we fashion Liberty into one
huge, unchanging, unprogressive,
everlasting statute of fixed con.
ditions we are idolaters and cast.
aways aud no freemen. Freedom is
a condition of life, changing as our
ideas change, growing with our
growth or fading away with our un-
worthiness. Imagine you that the
"Signers' AS n whole, had any con.
ception of our end. f-the. century
idea of our Freedom When they
declared in courageous phalanx for
the freedom and equality of all men,
and enforced their opinion at th,
point of the sword, with a heart
back of it, there was after oil tn,
mental reservation that neither free
dom nor any thing else belonged tc
the children of Ham. And because
the world moves and a nation tba,
lives must also move or perish. W,
have had to pay in blood and fra
tricidal strife and sorrow untold il
order 60 measure up to an idea O
Freedom far in advance of the prac
teal humbuggery OF the origina
declaration.