Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1897-11-26

| law scboOl, ScuOOi Oh CiVicS, lrhlplue
chool of citizenship.
Obey your parents, Obey your rulers,
Ooey our God.
This is Gods way Of teaching obedi
ence, law, government. The homes
highest function, save the development
OF love, is 10 teach, by daily habit
obedience to law. Parents who fail to
their country. l.. is pertinent here to
say also that the mothers who think il
meritorious to love their children bet
ter than thems. Ives, and so better than
Gods great law, love not wis ly but
too we'll. and by their excessive un-
sel6shress, doing the work son or
daughter ought 10 do, to the neglect OF
their own higher culture, are develop
ing se!fishness in their children, to their
own injury and that of society. God
does not set altruisrn before egosm but
beside it. 'Tbou shalt love thy neigh
Dor as thyself." Lst parents prepare
their children for social justice, the
great need of society to-day, by iosist-
ing that in the home the children shall
consider the rights and privileges of
parents no less than their own.
By teaching love and law the homo must
ennoble society, but Ii order that it may retain
moral force to do this, society, on its par,
must not forget home protection, which, at
| present seems 10 be the last concern of gov
erDmcnt whether of city, state or n ton
almost everything is protected except moral.
iiy, which has been tuly called "a gu. .stioM
of life or death to nations" No nation was eve
| killed by currency, and few, ii any, even by
foreign invssion which had not first been
| fatally stricken with moral cancer. The chief
concern Of statesman and preacher alike, the
| one too exclusively abso bed in national
| finance, the other in individual conversions.
should bs the ten cyclonc clouds, which,
since the war have been gathering in our Da-
| tional sky.
The consumption of liquors ii this period.
! measured by gallons, has increased more han
twice "a fast as the population, anu partly as
consequence divorces snd murders have III
creased i'll like proportion. Three other
clouds hang together pecu to our own na
t onal sky and to this part of cur history;
namely, the in rease of lynchines, labor riots
i aud municipal corruption (ail of which are
larger evils IN our country than In any other)
Three Ohor clouds are no less threatening;
namely the increase of Sabbath breaking, ap.
parent to all; OF impurity declared by a f.
cent convention of physicians; and of corrupt
journalism, that prOclalms itself. The tenth
C ond, larger than all and patty inclusive Of
all is the najioua habit of Jaw breaking. 1t
would hardly be too II uch to call the inc;eas
ing interest In brutal sports another cloud.
How to escape the disaster storms these
clouds threaten should be the theme both OF
Thanksgiving sermon and Presidents messag
for il is really The chief problem in buIh
church and state.
10 escape the consequences we must study
aud ,emove the causes What are they First,
the wa-, for war whether iuat or unjust, al
ways increases on both sides ntemIe ance al q
impuIity and les;eLs the sacrednesS Of both
life ana property. Their fore We th9uld seek
peace and pursue it rather tban invite more
war and 20 more vice by multiplying Wal
ships and fqrts. a second eau e OF increasi' G
immortality is the beer invasion, which came
in under cover o the war anf filled tn, land
with foreign sa GODS when we were too busy
in another coEtl ct to resist them. Too 'i.ti,
atteotion is gwen to removing this tars
Beer is often counted even By Christians th
least harmful drink when for that very Ie..
soa it has become really the most harmful, tbc
bridge over VIII ch eli; h Y per cent of drunkar
20 TO the asylum and the p.isOn. thl,
cause of the clouds named, IS tho food o.
toleign i'm migration that has rolled in ou us
ever since ne war, st4lt by the need
men to replace a IN lion fallen heroe, and the
sudden opening in the closing days Of tho WAY,
though the Pacific railroads Of our whole va
domain, which is it self the four Ii of tt c
causes, lesding to the fifth, sixth and seven h
namely, the absorption of the strongest men
iu greit commercial entei prises, whi III III ide
ha m q md Sn N sih
rpJIations that in popular opiaion cou d
neithet chest nor be cheated; .se, in tine,
developing luxury, which has never failed TO
corrupt Is second gene 'a:lon. whl:h S now
proaiaiming ilset in such BahylOnish ie SITS ss
the Seei,y dinher Ih-se causes can be re-
novel OF soIed by imm gcation res riot o
and by noble coucepIlo,s vi Dusloess an poll
tbs There is a least one e lea ding cause
of these clouus. the doubts thrown by the
words of soms and silence of more on the
doctrine of future etribution. Whenever men
DOUBT future hell they make hells on ear,h
Not hells of indul9 9ence only but Of NIB vlo-
fence also. Wnen the oppressed &c iss 10 be-
lieve that God will In the future mote OUT
Justice to those who by corruptins govern
msnt escaped their deserts here, tLey seize
the bomb and fire brand and themselves mai
Judgment day. Not only in order to the
saivAtlon of individuals, but for social salv.-
ton also we must follow Christ in warning
men of the judgment 10 come
am Christian op;omlst, not lazy opto
mist, not vii .ful OPTIC mist. who finds hope
by turning his back on tho clouds not pro
fossional optmist, who acts as # retained 10
cfend the present against all comers by ex-
pl lining away facts, but a Christian optomist,
who expects right to win-frst, because God
r.,gns; second because the young people OF
the church are recognizing social ethics as Il
rart of Christisn duty and Of church W rk by
their citizenship commit tees; third. because
Americans hav5 way 0f waking up when
evils grow intolerable, and they are very near
iy that Just now, and fourth, because in the
one. third Of century which any memory
covers have seen egh5 clouds a, dark as the
ten now in the sky scattered by the winds OF
God 81 the Fo k OF his People.
They have left bshind spots of blue that lie
between the clouds that yet remain not
think, as large IS the clouds just now, but
large enough TO point the way to the clesr
shining after rain, with which cur nineteenth
century shall yet close if we will but use IN
the intervening years tho same methods by
which the former clouds were scattered.
What are these spots of blue between the
clouds?
timid Christians said had Come To stay
namely, duellipg, slavery, polygamy, the iot,
tery and tho spoi system They had behind
them the same vast power of politics, money
and social !om as the clouds we so much
dread to day But they had 10 go for God
had come to stay, and a few of his peope
bad staying qualities. Three other reforms