Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1903-06-22
| N 81 n G E RITY
FORMS OF MODERN INSlNCERlTH
DISCUSSED BY j. n. BILLIARD.
Mr.. billiard, in the Chicago Public, Peaches
q Sermon That Will be Read With Inter.
est, Whether Pleasant or Otherwise. he
Puts Up a Good Argument.


think it may be said that our present age
is singularly insincele. And the imme
date trouble, venture to assert, lies
behind the fact OF our in>inceritv and in
the fact that 80 many of us are uncon.
scious OF it. We are insincere, and have
not yet arrived at The point OF confession
that we are so.
My attention was first directed 10 one
form of modern insincerity bv listening
to an address by a we'll known college
president on the Democracy Of the Uni
versitv. He represented university
founded on private endowments. in which,
as l happened to know, not the first
principle of democracy was either taught
or practiced; and yet in apparent sin
certy he spoke as if the universities OF
the land were really the very savior OF
democracy.
Nv next shock came from the pulpit.
1t happened that l had just read state
ment by Canon Farrar that less than
three per cent of the workingmen OF
England ever entered church, and a
com ment by DIR. Josiah Strong that in
America the percentage was even less.
And vet my preacher asserted that the
ch,, ch was the great bulwark OF liberty
and of the rights Of the people. Evil
IDENTIFY, said, the people do not feel SO,
and the preacher, like the college man,
was talking the reverse Of the truth.
By and by I came to see that this
seemed to be just the trick of modern
oratory. The cue is to say just the oppo.
site OF what is.
Take our president, for example, or our
secretary Of war. The worse our officers
and soldiers behaved towards the Fill
pinos, the more gravely did they speak
OF the honor OF the army and of the great
moderation AID self-restraint shown
throughout our war Of conquest. We
now know positively that these gentlemen
knew OF the barbarous actions of our
troops at the very time when they were
talking with eloquent gravity of the good
conduct of the army. There is with
them some trick of the conscience, just
as with the university president who
talks democracy, and with the clergyman
who talks OF the modern cl urch as the
champion OF equality.
But there is sadder form of insincerity
in orr modern life than is displayed in
these larger oratorical specimens, which
are partly products OF personal ambition
and vanity. The humber form of insin.
cerity is due to the miserable conflicts in
the hearts of men between enlightenment
and dependence. There are today thou.
sands OF individuals in all the humble
pursuits of life who are by vote and
speech supporting men and policies in
which they do not in their innermost
convictions believe, but in which they
have persuaded themselves to believe.
This persuasion has arisen from the bur
den OF their necessities and from the force
of environment. 1t is the penalty o.
their dependence.
In old times, when there was less
spread o. education and enlightenment
we can imagine that courtiers, detainers
dependents, serfs, and slaves had, as g
rule, rever a thought but that the rule o.
their lords was as the will Of God. Theil
subserviency was at least sincere. In
modern days it has become necessary tC
be insincere In subserviency. The trouble
is that freedom OF actual social conditions
has not yet caught up with the spread Of
freedom OF thought upon these condi'
tions. The trouble is not so much intel
lectual, but lies rather in the will and
character. The inherited forces of in
equality, the vested rights OF classes, the
faint OF dependent inertia, all tend to
hold in allegiance the full and final free.
dom Of will and character. Hence the
lack Of right action, and the false persua.
sion to support of existing conditions,
which is at bottom insincere.
These two forms Of insincerity, of the
orator and OF the people, different as they
may have seemed in this presentation
may be seen to meet together in the
utterance and thought of the great modern
dictum, equal rights to all and specia
privileges to none." The senator, fress
from securing franchise for some
monopoly, rolls it from his tongue Will
solemn vehemence. The people. who
might and do know better, uphold thu
very measures and policies that belle thu
theory OF equal rights which they ap
plauded in the platform OF the party ane
in the speeches of the politicians. Ont
is the insincerity of charlatanry; thu
other is the insincerity Of impotence ant