The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1898-11-26
GLORIFICATION.

giving day, took the American eagle
40 the top of the mountain and let him
loose for an hour, before the people
In doing So he followed and so far
-'honored" one of our traditions. The
eagle enjoyed it. The Bird OF Freedom
rose in the air, screeched swooped
down to the earth where the miserable
little chickens of other nationalities
were huddled together, and then bore
its joyous pinions up to Heaven with
pride in the everlasting greatness OF
America. Possibly the pulpit here and
elsewhere, stands as the moral doctor
ministering TO minds diseased and it
feels that there are occasions when a
little moral arsenic is needed to stimu-
late the soul; that a dose once a year
of the double-extract of Spread-Eagle-
ism should be given for the torpid liver
of the nation.
But there is always danger in Civ
ing these stimulants of self-exaltation,
as they are apt to react in Indifference
the truth are safer.
The pulpit said on Thanksgiving
day: I'VE are proud of the war of
1872, because our fathers were fighting
for the rights of our own citizens"
This is exaltation, but is it true? We
recently reviewed the memoirs of that
great Revolutionary statesman, Rufus
King. He took no pride in that war.
We. are sure the pulpit viii recall the
fact that after enduring the humilia-
ton of seeing the national Capitol
burned by the British in that war, we
FASTENED to make peace, without secur-
ing the rights our fathers fought for,
and that it was nearly forty years later
that Great Britain conceded those
rights (see Buchanan's Message 1850.
We do take enormous pride in Che
naval engagements of that war, ''glori
ous'' in our eyes. and no doubt equally
glorious in the eyes of God, who looked
down upon his children, while they cut
each others threats In His Name.
But the pulpit, while throwing open
the throttle valve for the escape of the
sounding steam of exaltation, is silent
us such an immense territory, but was
so unjust and disgraceful that General
Grant, at the time of that war, lieu
tenant, wished to throw up his COM
mission, rather than draw his sword in
it, At this hour, the Indian Rights AS
ISOLATION stands before the nation, as
it has stood for years, pleading in sor-
row of the feeble Indians whose rights
have been, and are still outraged.
And today, throughout the Southern
States, the constitutional rights of the
negro are constantly violated (whether
wisely or not we do not say here), and
the blood of the black man is hardly
dry in the streets of Wilmington, be
cause he stood on his constitutional
rights.
The truth is that the sober minded
young men and women who are now
studying history at it's original sources,
and not through the opinions and pre-
judices and theories of historians, are
not much inclined to exaltation. They
find as Emerson puts it, that we are
only at the morning star of our civili-
zation. There is much to take pride in.
There is much to take shame in. Even
If these students do not care to watch
the soaring of the eagle, they do have
deep and abiding faith in the newt
able evolution of good in the world, in
the certainty of the final coming of the
far off Divine event.
Still, the pulpit, in it's diagnosis OF
the moral nature of man, may Justly
feel that these excessive stimulants
are heaHhful. 1t may believe with the
Italian statesman, that individuals
must be modest, but modesty degrades
nations" Even the truth itself may
be too sharp a medicine. 1t is Otter
a nasty dose, and perhaps it should
not be generously given on Thanks
giving day.
There used TO live in New England
town an old topper. who when he was
sober, attended temperance meetings
and applauded the loudest of all. When
asked why he did so, he replied that
he wished to celebrate and encourage
his sober side, because he knew the
other side would be always getting
drunk.
Walt Whitman wrote: q celebrate
myself" Perhaps the pulpit is right II
holding that the nation should cele-
brate itself, even if the "other side
is not always what 1T should be.