The Newtown bee., 1898-02-18

Quinlan was a consistent church-mem-
J Der, but he has not fallen he stands un.
convicted to-day. He is not an object for
our condemnation. We pity his misfor-
tune, and the greater pity is that the men
who deserve our condemnation are to go
wholly unpublished. One of them is said
to be visionary in all his schemes. 1t is
part of his makeup to build castles lin
Spain or dig canals in South Dakota; and
so perhaps he may not be stamped as an
out-and-out criminal. The other, though,
is said to own fine house in upper New
York, which he has paid for by getting
money, by sharp practices,
FROM OTHER PEOPLES POCKETS
into his own. 1t is pity,
say, that men who swim
die by millions go scot-free, while the
poor man who steals loaf of bread to
keep the wolf from the door is hurried
away behind prison-bars. That so many
men are living solely by their wits tC
day, that men are able openly and IN
blushingly to get money as Mr. Silvers
and Mr. Cradle got theirs, and are still
held on the crest of the wave of prosperi-
ty while their victims go down, joined
with testimony from hundred other
pointe, seems to me a sad commentary
upon our times.
am afraid that it would be admitted
by far wider circle than we should
want to allow, that theft, if concealed,
as was the code of the Spartans, is right;
and there is evidence that what David
Hume argued, adultery, if secret, is per-
missible, is not an unpopular notion to-
day. g Smart ~, said and astute Ger
man critic in rejecting upon affairs here,
twill ruin young America yet" All
along the line we are letting down the
bars. There is general lowering of the
moral STANDARD. sin Is not
ga monster OF so fr1ghtful m1en,
Is to be hated needs but to be seen"
With the preaching of the love of God
to-day (and am glad that note in theo-
logy has taken foremost place., and
with the silence that prevails in regard
to the old-fashioned idea of He'll (and
am glad that the aw ful1y realistic preach
ing of the torments of the He'll fame has
been relegated to the limbo of the past),
there somehow has sprung up the wide
ly spread conception that it is not worth
while to worry over sin or it's punish
ment. We cannot obscure the fact; the
dread of the awful consequences of sin is
passing away. The Judgment Day has
lost it's terrors. We almost forget that
the Bible has anything to say about s'the
wrath of the Lamb" Our memory is
weak as to recalling "Our God il con-
Stunning fire" and lit is a fearful thing
to fall into the hands Of the living God"
The absolute standard of right and
wrong is breaking down. Right ap-
proaches wrong, and wrong approaches
right. Go into any community you
please, and you will see that men are al
together too forbearing with the wrong.
How is it in this community Drunken |
M "A reel along on streets, sight of |
fensive to decency and shocking to the
self-respect of every law-abiding citizen.
At first we shudder at the sight, whisper
TO our friend about it and wonder IL |
something cannot be done. Liquor is
sold in open violation of law. We wish
it were not so. With one or two we try
TO conceive Of some plan for abating the
evil.
APATHY CAUSES OUR ENTHUSIASM TO
sUBsIDE.
We soon settle down with the others, /
grow quite accustomed to the thing
which awakened our desire to do some
thing; and 1t is not long before we are az
willing as any one TO let things take their
course and let what we have bribed our
conscience to believe Is other peoples
business alone.
How is It IN other communities?
Greater New York was few months