The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-07-24
TRICE'S TRUMPETEER
ARTICLES Published under this Heading FUR
nished by M. P. A. Bureau. jacksonville
THE ~ARoLlsHiMe HABIT
(By J. c. Trice)

oOokA
bondage, abolititionists of the north
made common warfare upon all slave
holders and reduced this section to a
state of p%auperism, then stood look
ing on ind~ifferently while the vam-
pires and yultures of their own Sec
ton prayed upon the broken and dis
sappointed southerners. Since then
our increasing regard for the immort-
al principles of humanity has taught
us to look upon slavery as a mons
trous thing, but from the same source
we learn two wrongs do not make a
right, hence we still regard the civil
war as the browning folly of all the
ages-the colossal infamy of Ameri-
government. Whether hundred from
the pulpit of religo-enthusiam or pro-
claimed from the ballustrades of the
~transcending glory OF national govern
ment, he who accuseds God of direct
ing such a war, on the one side or
the other, is as ignorant of the attri-
butes of the architects of the supern-
al splendors of earth and heaven as
were those who went shrieking
through the forests and fed upon raw
flesh of wild animals during the dark
ages. 1t is so inconsistent with Inf
mite Love and Unbound Charity, the
superlative characteristics of great
goodness, that is becomes sacriligious
to associate the two together.
Yet the fire that directed the pen
of the Harriet Beecher Stowe, to
grip the hearts of the nation and dull
the sensibilities of men into the most
stupendous wrong of christian civili-
cation is not dead. 1t shoulders often
and the country for a brief period
seems to be well rid of it's baneful in
fluence. But just as we begin to
breathe a silent prayer of thankful
ness some misguided enthusiast fans
the sentiment into flame once more,
and as its radiance fell athwart
the canopy of the universe the rest
less citizenship mistakes it for the
Star of Hope and looks upon it with
the same reverence as the Survivor
shippers did the orb of day. The anti
saloon league proposes to usher in
the millennium by States and National
Prohibition. Another crowd would
hasten it with an anti-cigarette law.
The Presbyterian council recently in
session decided only those who
eschew tobacco in all forms can
travel with it's members to the new
Jerusalem. The very latest is a sug-
gestion from a West Florida paper
that a place of amusement should be
abolished because a murder was COM
mitted there. These are only a few of
the thousand or more agencies being
daily pushed for the Fastening of the
dawn of the millennium. Yet we dis
appointedly scan the eastern horizon
for the first rays of it's effulgent light,
and only find a darkening gloom.
There must be something radically
wrong with the modern reform
system.
Slavery cannot be justified on any
grounds. A custom which bushes the
laughter of the young folks and con-
tinually keeps them under the espion-
age of a frowning old she-cat or a
growing old he-bear is the last edi-
ton of an earthly purgatory sentence.
Some people cannot dance, therefore
they oppose dancing in all its forms.
Others have no ears for music, and
they straightway see a deamon lur-
ing in every place of amusement
where music makes the listeners for
get the fieeting hours. Dyspeptics
who have to forget chewing and smok-
ing envy the pleasure others get out
of it, and on a pretext of piety would
forbid it. Still others who found it
impossible to convert to personal use
the entire output of the brewers and
distillers before destroying the mem
brane OF their stomaches, for one
cause or another would like to en-
force prohibition.
OF they are working for the benefit
of humanity. But the trouble is, they
are o violent in their good works
than the occasion justiies. They in
sist on making people think as they
do by whatever means suggest them
selves as easiest and quickest of re-
suits. They have misiterperted the
command to teach and preach into a
justification of force, forgetting that
gentleness leadeth far, while force
usually makes a big noise and ends
in a Vow. They imagine themselves
personal agents of a merciful God.