The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-11-26
DR. SMITH ON RING RULE
MAN OF LAWLESSNESS IN 4 CITY
 MUST BE RETEALED.

 How Ring Rule is Constituted and How
 it Works-Its Natural Life-Time--Reme-
 dial Measures and the Value of the Inde-
 pendent Vote-Young Men Must Fight
 the Next Battle for the Country.
 Center church was filled with large congregation at il o'clock yesterday morning, the occasion being the union Thanksgiving service Of the Congrega- tional churches of the city. Rev. pr. Smyth, pastor of Center church, was assisted in the service by Rev. pr. Munger of United church and Rev. Dr. Twitchell of Dwight Place church. Dr. Smyth preached the sermon speaking on "A Reason for Municipal Thanlsgiv- ing in View of Ring Rule." His re- marks in full were as follows:
 I Thess., 2-3, For it will not be, ex- cept the falling away come first, and the man of sin be revealed"
 I have chosen this text for Thanks giving sermon because it puts us at once into possession of a profound rea- son for thanlfulness in view of any in- creasing public evil The better day of the Lord cannot come in a city until the man of lawlessness in it shall be revealed. The people must see it before they will destroy it. God in high heav- en waits with the patience of the ages for the evil to reveal its whole Satanic malignancy in the life of the world be- fore it shall be brought to naught by the brightness of his coming. So the apostle has compressed into a single verse whole philosophy of history the increasing revelation of an evil prophecies it's approaching destruction. This is my reason for thanksgiving In view of existing municipal conditions in our American cities. The discouraging time for reform is not when the public wakes up with confused sense of he1p- lessness before any civic wrong. The time that may try ones faith is the day when only a few see the evil, and their testimony against it seems to the majority as a fanatics idle tale. When Isaiah lived for some forty years amid the scheming politics of Jerusalem, and no one needed him when he said, "Nev- ertheless IsraeTs God has righteous character, and hates iniquity," then the prophets faith in his country and his God may have been sorely tried. But when the Assyrian was at the gate, and the politicians of the city hall in Jeru- salem were at their wits end, and the people saw the danger of their trifling longer with the eternal law of right- eousness, then the prophets hour was T kI.o 1rrfI <~F% !, 1>13,a last fully revealed, was destroyed by the brightness of another coming of the day of the Lord to the city. t
 Whenever in an American city it's man of lawlessness hastens towards full self-revelation, even though the many who at last realize it begin to lose faith in democracy, then the few who have all along seen it may know that the time for their rejoicing over it draws near and in that day the proph- ct of righteousness may cast off his sackcloth and ashes, and blow one jubi- lant blast from his reform trumpet.
 Such crisis-such a revealing of the man of lawlessness in our American cities-seems to me now at hand; and therefore let us rejoice to-day and give thanks. I shall proceed, then, this day to describe the dominant evil in the American city. so far as 1t has now come to revelation. Rejoicing in the historic principle of our text that the revelation of an evil is precedent to it's destruction, I shall delineate, as fully as my observation permits, the natural history of Ring Rule in city and state.
 Incubation of Ring Rule.
 I have to speak, then, first, of the in- cubation in the body polite of Ring Rule Our physiologists can hardly tell how a cancerous growth first starts4 We know that for some reason one or two cells, or a single group of cells, be- gin to live for themselves, quite inde- pendently of the welfare of the organ ism. The morbid growth sets up life on it's own account and it's cells ripen and rot without regard to the life time of the body upon which it feeds and fattens. Two conditions, however, must meet for the germination of this civic contagion-there must be an active, vir- ulent principle, and a suitable environ ment. The active, virulent germ of Ring Rule is the same general lust for money and power which threatens mod-
 ern civilization everywhere. Politics l there is in it. What is the game? How
 may we get into 1t? What can we get out of it? These familiar questions
 show the immoral idea of public life which lies at the source of modern Ring
 Rule So general, however, has this immoral conception of public office be- come that it might seem old fashioned
 to observe that it IS crime against the people; but it is worse than that; it is justly stigmatized as blasphemous, for it is blasphemy against the Holy | Spirit of our liberty.
 l The environment amid which this evil | germinates and proliferates is the pub- lie indifference; or sometimes 1t may be an unframed state of party feeling. Ring Rule can utilize party passion; or it can thrive in bloodless, an anemic condi- tion of public spirit. Indeed, it fancies no better soil for it's own rank over growth than an undisturbed traditional | state of party loyalty.
 | Constituent Elements of the Ring.
 Let me proceed to sketch, secondly,
 the constitution of the fully developed
 political Ring. It may need a some- what microscopical acquaintance with