Year: 1868

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Societies Fading Ont.


Notwithstanding all that has been done to
give ecI0t to the religious anniversaries now
passing away from among us, 1t must be
said that, so far as pecuniary success is con-
cerned, they have proved lamentable failures.
We will cite but one instance, which may be
taken as a type Of all the old societies that
commune here once year for the purpose of
having both q love and money feast. The
American Board Of Christian Foreign Missions
makes doleful exhibit. It appears that the
sum Of five hundred and twenty-five thousand
dollars was appropriated for the expenditures
Of the Board the current year. Nothing has
occurred to show that the estimate was too
high, and it is said it viii require the utmost
care to keep the disbursements within these
figures. Strange as it may appear, the
amount asked for, if reckoned in gold, is the
sum received by the treasurer nine years ago
Now, in order that the needful sum may be
obtained, the friends of the Board were re-
cent; yet two-thirds of the financial
year have elapsed, and, although the
reasons for this demand remain as
strong as ever, the increase has been
only two per cent. Thereupon wall issues
from the Missionary House that the Board "is
drifting, directly and rapidly, into large and
embarrassing Indebtedness" 1t must be en-
couraging, furthermore, to know that an in
crease of even twenty-five per cent, so far as
human foresight can judge, will still leave
debt upon the treasury.


Now, what is the cause of this amazing
falling off in the receipts of one of the most
important religious societies in the country,
attended, as the case is, by similar subsistence
in the pecuniary interest felt generally in the
success of other religious eleemosynary asso-
Citations? 1t is not necessary to 60 very far to
discover one great if not the paramount cause
for this ice-water dash over what was at one
time raging fever in regard to contributions
for religious works at home and abroad. That
cause, there is good reason to believe, is the
infusion of the muddy waters of politics into
the pellucid stream of undefled religious exer-
ton. Politics and politicians have debauched
the old and important religious societies.
What was once a noble mission, whose duty
was the redemption of the lands of the
heather and the planting therein of the
precious seeds of the Gospel, is now in
condition the extreme of mendicancy;
reduced to that state by the injection origi-
nally of abolitionism and finally of political
sectionalism and pulpit politics into the fold of
its membership. The old and honored land
marks which once guided our people in the
sacred paths of religious faith and duty have
been trodden down by the teachings of such
political pulpit orators as Theodore Parker,
Henry Ward Beecher, Cheever and the rest.
In consequence of this perversion of religion to
politics the moral sentiment of the religious
community was naturally led from old time
honored associations, and the afIuent benevo-
lent, like poor old Mrs. Lyon, whom the
Spiritual Connecticut Jeremy Diddler Home SO
wonderfully magnetized, have sent their dona-
tons into other and entirely different channels
Rich and good old New England Christian
danes, once satisfied that they were of the
elect, forsook, under these guidances, their
knitting needles and spinning wheels, and
instead of giving their dollars to the Episcopal,
Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian and other
political, Pluto -abhorring benevolent societies,
went in pell-mell for free love, Spirit
ualism, Fourierism, Communism, and all the
cash they had to spare was freely bestowed
upon these ephemeral organizations as the
salvors of the wrecks of true religious brother
hoods and sisterhoods. Politics and politi-
clans, in short, are breaking up all the religious
eleemosynary institutions which have hereto
fore relied upon annual contributions and occa-
sional munifcent bequests for support. In the
meantime the solid religious sentiment of the
nation, as it is seen in the quiet Sabbath morn
ing gatherings in the humble country places Of
divine worship, remains true, steadfast, vir-
tuous and powerful, and with that sentiment
as sheet anchor no one need despair of the
republic.


New Impeachment.