The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-22

Conscience is really nothing more nor less
than high sense of public and private
God, his fellow-man and himself. Without
freedom of conscience and freedom of per-
sonal conduct in accordance with its re-
quirements. faithful performance or duty
is impossible, and the faithful performance
of duty is the chief end of man for the
world that We live in--the Shorter Cate
chism may answer for the next. All his con-
ventonal rights are. inferior in heavens
chaneery to the right to perform his duty
as it is interpreted for him by his con-
science.
THE foundations of the polity that was
established in New England, nearly three
centuries ago, were laid in conscience by
men who made it's monitions the law of
their lives. Other men sought our shores in
a daring quest for mines of gold and sill
yer, the treasures of the IncaS, an acquiSi-
ton of territory and the spread of empire
a northwest passage or shorter route to the
Indies the fountain of youth, discovery
and fame. Royal buccaneers and titled
brigandS sailed across unknown seas and
plundered the inoffensive natives of two
continents in the name Of trade and COM
merce.
THE motives of these discoveries and adj
venturers never had any place in the minds
OF the pilgrim fathers. If they had sought
peace or refuge from persecution only they
might have had 1t behind the dykes of Hol-
land, amid the classic shades of old Ley
den, where Grotius and Descartes, Scaliger
and Armnius. studied and taught and
where Rembrandt and Jan Steen and
Gerard Douw wrought their deathless cam
might have given the rest of their lives to
polemics, like Erasmus and SalmaSius; or
they might have devoted it to the pursuits
of that culture, without which, in the opin-
ion of Matthew Arnold, they were unfit as
SOciateS for Shakespeare and Virgil. But
their sole care for their lives was a care
for the best use of them and Shakespeare
Ind Virgil were the idle singers of an empty
day.
THE SPIRIT THAT BRED PURITANS.
1.-THE spirit of revolt was abroad The
bones of the first great Protestant had
been exhumed and burned, nearly half
century after his death and burial, and the
ashes flung with impotent malice into the
tributary of the Avon, and, as
1.-The Avon to the Severn runs
The Severn to the sea,
So Wyclif'S dust was spread abroad
Wide as the waters be-
The candle that Latimer told Ridley was lit,
as the names rose around them, had not
been eXtinguished; Luther had struck
blow at ecclesiastical tyranny which still
reverberated, and Hussr and Savanarola had
given their lives as testimony against re-
!igious and political despotism and sealed
1t by their. death at the stake. Holland
had cast on the Spanish yoke, and storms
were gathering about the house of the Stu
arts. But the men who knelt on the
beach of Delft Haven, before they sailed
again at Plymouth on their final departure
in the Mayf1ower, were not actuated by a
negative spirit of revolt against govern
ment and its institutions The blind hys-
terics of the Celt-the mad fury of the Seine
to kill and destroy all who came in
it's way and to break down the muniments
of civilized society had no lodgment among
them, and there were no Menads among
their sweet and noble women. They were
the founders of a state, and their con-
Structive craftsmanship was exhibited in
the written constitution which was formu-
lated for its government in the cabin of
the Mayfower. 1t was free state dedi-
Gated to conscience and liberty-for one
cannot thrive without the other-and they
had a grave and high sense OF their re-
SponSibtlity as its founders.
"One ought to have what is described by
st. Paul as good conscience, and Sterne,
whose life disclosed very little conscience
of any sort, has given us, in Tristram
Shanty, a sermon upon a text of st. Paul
showing that an easy conscience, unaware
of it's errors, is often mistaken by itself
for a good one, and we also have had
much discussion of the metaphysical puz-
zle of it's possible derivation through intu-
ition or experience that interests metaphy
sicians only AS one of them Cotton Math-
err would reject the views of Sterne, and
also those of Montaigne, who previously
held that conscience varies, like our
clothes, with different. ages and countries,
If these views We're offered as an excuse
lating to witchcraft and possess
sions. more rational explanation of
the phenomena which gave rise, to that
very learned disquisition is that they We're
the results of one of those epidemic delu-
sions which occasionally take possession of
large communities. Binder their influence
tense and oVerstrained nerves find an out
let in extravagances like those of the flag
Giants in the middlel ages, who met and
gregarious epilepsy of the Jensenist convul-
sionaries in the eighteenth century. All of
these phenomena belong rather to the do
main of pathology than morals. But it is
unnecessary to venture further into the
Serbonian bog of metaphysics for exact
definitions of conscience, it's origin or its
variations. The conscience that is most
needed in practical life is the faculty of
knowing our duty Which is associated with
ffTx fAV1lhf rAg don nf
moral insight and moral energy. An over
scrupulCus conscience which, as John Sell
den says, starts at every bird that flies out
of the hedge, and ends in doing nothing, is
practically worthlesS.f7.t The Puritan con-
science was robust and vigorous and always
efficient in the affairs of church or state.
Whatever may have been it's errors the sin
of the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin was
not upon it. In or out of season its voice
never had any uncertain sound. A strong
character and sturdy manhood were its
inevitable product Play the man, Master
Ridley said Latimer. as they stood to-
gether in the fire. and the Puritan was q
man under every stress of circumstances.
TESTS OF PURITAN MANHOOD.
There were frequest and crucial tests Of
his manhood in the daily life of the COM
munitIes that were founded by him at Ply
mouth and about Massachusetts bay. War,
pestilence and famine stood at their doors,
like gaunt sentries, to repress their growth
and threaten their very life itself A dead
line, like that of Andersonville, was drawn
about them by cruel and treacherous saw
aget Hardship and privation were the
common lot. AS they waxed stronger their
foes multiplied. New France, with its red
allies repeated at Deerfield and Oyster bay
the wicked atrocities of GuiSe and his royal
master in massacres that differed from
those of st. Bartholomew day in magni-
tude only. The mother country was OPP
pressiVe and unjust and its tyrannical ex-
actions were continued until at Lexington
" TIL embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world
And deliberately brought on the great strug
gle which gave us our national independ-
ence.
There is nothing in the spectacular hero
ism of Thermopylae or Balaklava, as 1t has
or in all The tale of Troy divine any
greater than the simple manhood of our
New Observation-Disclosures and there is moth
ing of equally vital Importance in the Luild-
ing or the maintenance OF a free state.
Among them We're men of learning and Gull
ster and. Endieott, whose leadership was
undisputed. If the ideals of Matthew Ar
mold were not realized in their culture 1t
was at least substantial and genuine, and it
fully met the conditions Of life around them.
Mere intellectually was not its dominant
Sive state of mind which is nourlsned for
ones own exclusive use, like plant in
conservatory. 1t was an efnclent ana whole
some force in their communities and upon
the natives who were brought within the
range of its influence. 1t matters very lit
tie whether Shakespeare and Virgil could
have got on with them or not. We are not
sure that Shakespeare and Virgil could have
got on with one another. Many excellent
persons, in our oWnstiTne, VINO regard them
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