Year: 1878

A few years ago the police of this city
became aware of the existence of com


munistic conspiracy in New York, which


they believed to be extensive and form
idable. The social agitators had not then


adopted the modern fashion of plotting


by means Of mass meetings and process


sions, and delivering reasonable menaces


in the loud aside of q stage murderer


They met in the back-rooms of beer sa-


looms, and other hot-beds of social reform.
Nobody knew their numbers, and in the
mist of uncertainty which surrounded
them their figures were perhaps exagger-
ated into shapes quite unlike their true
| ones What the police may have discov-
cred by their inquiries into the doings of
these disorganizers has not been divulg-
ed ; but it is no secret that the late Com
missioner Charlck died in the conviction
that New York slept over Volcano
Some things that have happened during
the past year give an apparent confrma-
tion of his fears. The friends of disorder
have thrown aside all reserve and pro-
claim in the public squares the purposes
which they used to whisper in dark cor
ners. There is hardly scheme of rapine,
arson, and bloodshed in the dark cata-
logue of revolutionary crime which has
not its open advocates to-day in the
streets of the American metropolis; and
| there are other cities in which the danger
is much more imminent than in our own.
A correspondent whose letter we print
ed yesterday, assures US that there is no
danger of the Commune, the spiritual life
| is too strong in nearly all our communi-
ties, and the party of law and order,
while religious influences remain in force,
will rise full armed for every emergency.
But perhaps we make the mistake of
mt
active influence. DR.. John Hall recently
referred to the feebleness of the religious
life among us and the difficulty of secur-
ing any sort of religious EDUCATION for the
poor as one of the gravest perils of the
community. DR.. Chaplin, of Beloit Col
lege, in preaching the other day before
the American Home Missionary Associa-
ton, declared that this country was now
suffering from an epidemic of infdelity,
like that which followed the Revolution
"Scepticism," said he, ''is disseminated
by the pulpit, the press, and from the
lecture platform it is fashionable epi-
demic," 1t has long been the custom to
speak of Americans as religious people,
but that they are losing that character
very rapidly is a fact which cannot be
concealed. To have no particular pref
erence in religion is nowadays consider
ed a mark of enlightenment and liberal
ity, people forgetting that to have no re-
ligion in particular is to have none at all
Thus denominational zeal is decried as
bigoted sectarianism, and we seem to be
fast approaching that state.of Indifferent
ism in which the religious sentiment is
nothing but ancestral tradition. Wheth
er this intellectual phenomenon argues
permanent decay of faith among the
American people or only, as DR.. Chaplin
seems to think, the prevalence of pass
ing disorder, we leave others to debate.
For the present, certainly, our spiritual
life does not seem to be vigorous enough
to cause the Communists much uneasi-
ness.


The popular respect for law and order
is indeed strong. But this feeling trans
lates itself into action only when the
laws are violently defed, and the expe-
rience OF last Summer is enough to show
us that the worst sxcesses of Communism
are sometimes committed under the forms
of law. Communism caused criminal in
dictments to be returned against good
citizens of Pennsylvania, who armed
themselves to support the officers of the
| peace in putting down a riot, and caused
militia officers to be tried for their lives
because they fired on murderous mob.
| Communism has placed some of the worst
| kind of demagogues on the bench in
Pennsylvania, and these men are perse-
cutting respectable people and setting ruff
fans free. Communism is organizing it.
self into leagues, and holding conVen-
tions, and asking for an alliance with po-
litical factions. We do not believe that
it can ever be the ruling power in ihe
United States, but it can easily become
the tyrant of certain localities-the min
ing district of Pennsylvania, the turbu-
lent city Of San Francisco, and some 9TH
er regions; and whenever the fame of
insurrection breaks out, we in New York
can hardly escape attack 1t is well to


look at the situation carefully and con-


slider how we shall meet it; above all,


how we shall awake in our children the
conservative religious sentiment which


animated our fathers.