The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1913-09-25
SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT.
If Latter Is Cheap and Vulgar, Form
er Must Fail Its Highest Mission.

! Last Sunday Vice President Mar
shall preached a sermon on the last
day Of the Southern Methodist camp
meeting, near Washington, writes j..
c. H., in Philadelphia Ledger. He
did not choose any particular text,
but said a good many things about
the relation of true religion to good
government, and hamered some of
the idiocies and shortcomings of the
| present day into truly helpless
condition.
Men are not made good by legisla-
ton. Conscience cannot be purified
and established by statutory enact
ment. The state cannot take the place
of the family. The old-fashioned
American home was the inspiration
of the great system of government
which has come down to this gener-
alton a little frayed at the edges be-
cause of the departures that have
been made in the living and thinking
and praying of the people. There
were doubtless many wicked people
in the good old days'-pharisees,
hypocrites, the idle, the vicious, the
criminal appear to be from everlast-
ing to everlasting; but there was at
least an enviable regard for appear
ances. a modesty of demeanor which
made the women more attractive and
shamefacedness in the prevailing
wickedness of typical periods which
gave the men the appearance, at
least, of being respectable; and these
virtues, even if not infrequently as
sumed, impressed themselves upon
the common life and found their in
depreciation in the better forms of
legislation provided for the public
care A noted writer said, 200 years
ago: When modesty ceases to be the
chief ornament of one sex, and integ-
lity of the other, society is upon a
wrong basis, and We shall be ever af-
ter without rules to guide our judg-
nent in what is really becoming and
ornamental Seneca, we are told,
Thought modesty too great check
to vice, that he prescribes to us the
practice of it in secret, and advises
US to raise it in ourselves and upon
imaginary occasions, when such as
are real do not offer themselves; for
this is the meaning of the precept,
that when We are by ourselves, and
in our greatest solitude, we should
fancy that Cato stands before us and
sees everything we do. In short, if
You Danish Modesty out of the world
she carries away with her half the
virtue that is in it,
In his discourse, the vice president
laid the turkey trot, the tango and
the slit skirt to the charge of the
mothers of the country, because,
speaking of them as class, they do
not bestow that care upon the train
ing and conduct of their daughters
which would best fit them for the
place they should hold in the social
sphere upon the purity of which the
strength and fitness of government
depend. That has always been the
way. In the beginning, the woman
teguiled me and l did eat," and it
will be the same old excuse when
the end comes. 1t is true that the
vice president said that 1t is high
time for American fathers and moth
ers to have opinions on religion;'
but he did not dwell particularly on
the very trifiing character of many,
if not most, American fathers. Why
should there be an inequality Of NOR
al measurement in fixing the statues
OF men and women? There was some
thing graceful and lovely in the old
dances; there is nothing beautiful or
elevating in the tango and turkey
trot. There was a special charm when
"Meh Lady" dancing, her feet be-
meath her petticoat like the little
mice, stole in and out, as if they
feared the light of day; there is
nothing in the slit skirt which the
vice president preached against, OK
cept vulgar display. This sort Of
thing the mothers might correct if
they were not so often themselves
given to the adoption of the least
beautiful of the latest fashions, the
wearing of clothes which become
neither their years nor their build.
One of the most impressive of the
passages in the Scriptures is the
charge of David to his son Solomon:
Il go the way of all the earth; be
thou strong, therefore, and show thy.
self man; and keep the charge If
the Lord thy God, to walk in his
ways, to keep his statutes and his