The record-union., 1898-10-03
LECTURE ON HOME-MAKING
THE FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF
SOCIETY.
Interesting and Thoughtful Dis
course by Rev. S. j. Carroll
Last Night.

AT the Sixth-street Methodist Church
last night Rev S. j. Carroll delivered
the first of a series of Sunday evening
lectures on Home making"
Rev. Mr. Carroll said that after a
careful study of and examination into
the matter he had concluded that the
family is the fundamental basis upon
which society rests. During the first
one-third of human history, the family
governed all the institutions in the
world. The priests and priestesses
We're father and mother to the people,
and in the family was combined the
powers political as we'll as spiritual.
The family head was at once the gov
erning and legislative power, and ex-
ercised the power of magistrates both
ordinary and extraordinary.
1t is. the minister said, a common
statement of all thinkers, anarchists
and characters of that ilk excepted,
that if there is honesty in men who
transact the business in the marts and
markets of the world, it had its source
in the family. where the foundation of
character and moral training was
planted in the heart of the child; if the
Governor and legislators of California
are honest in their efforts to create
good laws for the government of the
people the foundation Of that honesty
was laid I'M the home circle.
Society, said DR.. Carroll, has its
standard in the markets, and the
standard, whatever it may be, is but
the reflection of the home or family
life. Whenever the father and mother
fail to impart in the mind of the child
those seeds of Christianity and moral
ity which tend to a higher sphere of
existence, there is retrogressiOn, and
in many cases the child goes to the re-
formatory and afterwards is a menace
to society. All thinkers are agreed that
two things enter into the formation of
character-environm and heredity
for both of which the father and
mother are responsible, and while the
soul of the child brought up without
the moral training of a pure family
circle win retrogress. that of the one
brought up in an ideal home will go
sweeping on to the cons of infinite
ages.
The minister spoke Of the great re-
SpohsibiIty of parents, and urged that
prises truth. honesty, integrity, honor
and manliness and womanliness. be
impaired to the child, so that when it
reached the age of maturity. it would
find the battle already won.
DR.. Carroll attacked the theater and
the plays which are presented in no
uncertain words. He said that Amer
lean authors have WED with French
=
drama presented to-day are fraught
with things with which the growing
mind should not come in contact.
He also attacked the yellow journals
of the land which, he said. every morn
ing go into the homes of this, city, con-
tanning column upon column of ac-
counts of horrid crimes SO distorted as
to leave vivid and lasting impressions
upon the minds Of children. Scientists.
he said, agree that if the human mind
looks often upon crime or upon the
accounts of the same, it becomes call
loused TO the awful Nervousness Of it
ali. He had, he said, talked with re
porters on yellow journals, who told
him that they did not allow their chill
dren to read the articles they them
selves had written, for fear of con-
Eliminating their young minds. He de-
nounced such journals for bringing d
knowledge of crime into households
whence they should be carefully ex-
Guided, and urged his hearers to give
them a wide berth and eliminate them
from their homes.
Then Dr. Carroll took up the sub
ject of the saloon, and inveighed
against what is commonly known as
the side entrance" or ladies en-
trance" Such signs, he said, We're
simply bids by the men who run them
to destroy the honor of the young girls
of the city Since his arrival here. he
said. he had known young people en-
ter such places, who TO name, would
create the profoundest sensation i'm
aginable A grandmother of the church
had told him that she had watched
two schoolgirls. carrying their books
with them, enter a side entrance. She
stopped at the door and looked in. and
the girls We're at the bar drinking beer.
After they had drank and waited
awhile, one said to the ether: THAT
beer is good. Let's have some more"
In conclusion the pastor said there
will come a time in Sacramento when
outraged fathers Will rise in their might
and sweep the saloon from the streets
of the fair city. He called upon the
home-makers to arise and do battle
with the beasts Of prey and the ser
penis who creep in the night. and lure
the daughters and sons OF the city to
worse than hell. He urged that they
do as did the Irish in '9S-pray with
might, and then go out and fight as
though they had never prayed in their
life-fght to stamp out the evil which
is creeping into the homes and blight
ing the fairest flowers of the city and
the nation.