The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1899-02-01
DIR. RAYMOND'S LECTURE.
On "Charles Kingsley and Christian
Socialism" Interested A wheeling
Audience Saturday Evening.
Intelligencer.

Inc second lecture OF the course
being given by DR.. Jerome Fl. Raymond
president of the West Virginia uni
versity, Saturday evening, at the
high school hall, was fully up to the
high standard OF the first one. His
subject was "Charles Kingsley and
Christian Socialism. From time i'm
memorial, said the speaker, the world
has reyered the hero. Once the fact
that he might be stern and harsh, per-
haps cruel, did not detract from the
worship given him. To-day a new
faith is lighting with it's tender rays
of thought our humanity. A new
motive impels society. Our modern
heroes are tender, humane, helpful.
The world loves the champion of the
weak, the distressed, the unfortunate
No better exponent of this new social
motive, this nineteenth century faith
OF humanity, can be found than Char
les Kingsley. Christian socialist, he
stands before us: Christian socialist
and Christian soldier, covered with
The scars of long and valiant warfare
warfare not for place or power, but
Tor the alienation of the miseries of
the workingmen, his fellowmen. His
highest aim was to lift, il he might,
the burdens from their shoulders,
burdens placed there by unjust and
cruel employers. The blows which he
struck so manfully for the working
men in their time of need have made
him one of the foremost figures of our
century.
The victim of the old English penal
system In his noisome reeking cell,
had his John Howard; the negro, de-
livered from his birth right of human
ity, had his Wilberforce, his Harriet
Beecher Stowe, his John Brown, his
William Lloyd Garrison; the English
workingman, toilln2 in the choking
atmosphere of the sweaters den, the
farm laborer in his barren downs, a
land slave to his INSCRIPTIONS land
lord, who wrung the last farthing
from his helpless tenant, had his Char
les Kingsley.
The speaker then told, in very
graphic style, the story of Kingsley's
early life, showing that the child was
father to the man. He was preacher
when child, preaching little sermons
in the nursery with the chairs for an
audience.
When Kingsley was lad of thir-
teen in school he witnessed the Bris-
tol riots. The terrible scenes of blood
shed and pillage were indelibly stamp
ed upon the boys mind, and brought
him face to face with facts which
gave him, he asserted In after years,
his first lesson in social science The
direct cause of the riots was the visit
of Sir Charles Wetherall to the city
as recorder. Sir Charles was cordially
hated by the workingmen of England
as an opponent of the reform bill, and
his coming to Bristol to attend the
courts was signal for open revolt.
Wetherall had to escape in disguise,
but the fury of the mob increased;
public buildings were burned, the
bishops palace was destroyed and the
cathedral nearly demolished. Kings
ley had slipped away from school in
the very midst of the tumult. The
CHASTITY corpses, the flaming prison
walls, the maddened mob of wretches,
plundering, destroying, burning, re-
vealed to his sensitive mind at flash
the terrible truth that the evil
wrought by the so-called dangerous
class is born of the neglect of the
higher classes to meet their duty face
to face; that greed and scorn in the
upper ranks of society engender de-
spairing vengeance in the lower and
kindle the flames of revolt. "That
sight" Kingsley said many years
after, made radical of me-"
Kingsley in the front Of the battle
in 1S48 censured by those above him,
attacked by the press, speaking loud
and clear for the brotherhood of man,
careless of public opinion, is one OF
earth's chosen heroes. His own motto
in his life work might be ours to-day.
BE earnest, earnest, earnest-mad if
thou wilt;
Do what thou dost as if the stake were
heaven;
And that thy last deed ere the judgment
day,
When all's done, nothing. There's rest
above
Below let work be death, if work be
love-"
The lecture was heard by an inter-
ested audience, not so large as it
would have been on another night.
The next lecture will occur on Friday
evening, February 10, at s o'clock