Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1906-10-22

well as the sins of false creeds. And
when | speak thus I could roam over q
very wide territory If | would. for you
have no more right to judge a man Of
the fifteenth or sixteenth century by
the moral standards Of the twentieth
century than you have a right to con-
denim the Puritans because they exiIed
Williams from Massachusetts in
1888 or because. under the leadership
of Cotton AIdther, they burned the sup
posed witches Of Salem in 1901.
The Abolished Cole OF Honor.
1t was Only d few years ago that
mans moral code OF honor compelled
man to fight mar in the duello. one of
the brayest acts Of That brave man.
George .. Prentice. wa exhibited not
in his willingness to fight a duel, but
in his being willing to defy public opin-
ion and refuse to fight one. When II
of the subscribers of his paper chal-
lenged him, as Aaron Burr challenged
Alexander Hamilton, he wrote a letter
which ended thus: 1T takes only one
fool to send a challenge, but two fools
to fight. / am not n of them" And
again, to show to what a low state the
mind of man was in reference to the
savage customs of duelling during the
last generation, NJ. de Girardin, the ia
Their of the present French statesman
and author of that name, was one day
with a party of gentlemen admiring the
precision with which a friend was
shooting at a target. Yes said NJ. de
G%irardin, che shoots very well. but it is
quite a different thing to hit a man in
q duel from hitting a bit of pasteboard.
The most skillful marksman, who could
hit a coin at twenty-five PAGES, might
easily miss a man at the same dis
lance" At nee this gentleman chal-
legged NJ. de Girardin to a duel, claim
ing that he had called him a coward.
The two men faced each other at TWEEN
ty-fve PAGES. The pistols were raised.
The gentleman shot at De Girardin and
missed. II. de Girardin refused to fire.
'Why do you not shoot?" called his
seconds. For what Should shoot?
1 have no bitterness against my friend.
L wanted to prove to him that a good
marksman might miss his man at
twenty-five PAGES, and he has done so.
I am satisfied if my friend is" Yet
such was the foolish demands of the
duello that many a noble man had to
~uselessly lay down his life on account
of such trivial remarks as NJ. lie Cirar-
din made.
What was true of the duello wasalso
L of the gaming table I'D the drink
ing cup and the lascivious habits of the
past generations. In olden times al
most all gentlemen were supposed to
gamble and get drunk and be licentious
if they so willed. The words of Paul,
".If.meat make thy brother to offend 1
will eat no meanwhile the world stand
eth, lest I make my brother to Offend"
have a far different Interpretation now
from that of a few years ago. No
n Wouldsdream of erecting a college
building now by a lottery, as one of the
first buildings was erected upa2stHe
Princeton campus. No one xWtGNA
dream of a party of ministers adjaAE8
ing from presbytery and then sitfNS
down to dinner, each with a g~IaSkas09
liquor fanki4 his plate, as the mfafs.
tiers used to DO. No one would dreaEa
of our present president Of the United
States playing a game a cards with
his minister, as George Washington
was accustomed to do with his Episco-
palian rector. These men of the past
generations should not BsS judged by
our moral standards, Every year the
moral criteriOns of the human ace are
lifted higher and higher. But, my
friends, we know to day what we
ought to do in a moral sense. We
know whether dancing and drinking
and going to vile shows and having
lewd conversations and playing games
of chance are depicting to our spiritual
life. 1t is no excuse for US to say we
are excused from condemnation be-
cause we live on the fashionable .boule-
wards. Where could be found more
beautiful palaces and temples than in
old Athens? And where was the NOR
al tone of a people lower than there!
Paul is speaking to us the same as he
spoke to the Athenians of old: RE
pent! Repent! Except We repent of
your moral sins ye shall all likewise
perish"
Our Brothers. Keepers.
But [ find God bearing with the So
cial sins of our fathers, as we'll as their
theological and moral faults. I find
that he comes to US, as he did to Cain
of old. and says, '"Thou art thy broth
er's keeper And when God speaks
thus he means even more than when
Christ spake the parable of the good
: Samaritan to the Jews as well as to
the Greeks. You cannot Judge the
Greeks who assembled about Mars
hill to listen to the eloquent words of
Paul by our social laws any more
than you a Judge them by our theo-
logical or moral criterions.
In the first place, you must remem-
Der that the Greeks for generations
had been a ~Slaveholding people. You
remember how that matchless orator
of Massachusetts, Wendell Phillips,