Year: 1878

~ DO OFAl, oOoouoO AZ PA0sOAUSA onS As'PAN~
growth of progress IN society. The av-
erage line of society is the average de-
velopment. An ignorant mass of men
at the bottom Of any society will lower
its standard. Ignorance does not run
like water, but sticks like tar or molasses.


Men who ure of use to society should
be sent up by a popular current, and
when their usefulness has ceased they
ought to be sent down by another cur
rent. Society should never be stagnant.
There ought to be a constant filing and
emptying of the scuppers. Send man
up full. Take him down empty. There
is always this kind Of movement in So
ciety. Two generations show it. The
father makes money. The son spends
it. The son goes to work again. Wher-
ever there is mass of men, be it top,
middle. or bottom, there is danger Of an
explosion. The ignorant masses were,
however, much more readily imposed up
on and seduced than the intelligent.
Hence ignorance was an evil Of the
worst kind. Mr.. Beecher then consid-
cred ignorance in the line of property.
Brain and muscle commanded respect
and advancement, while muscle, without
brain, made man the compeer and rival
of the OK or the ass.


MIR. Beecher next devoted himself to
discussing the obstructive forces in the
way of civilization. A chief obstacle
was division and dissension among sects,
which wasted more hatred on each other
than on the common enemy. Even the
temperance movement, grand as were its
origin and objects, had developed half a
dozen factions, all at daggers drawn with
each other. So it was in religion. "Peace
on earth, good will to men, so sang the
angels, and having sung it. they stayed
to witness the effect on the earth, and
having seen it. they went back into
heaven, and have never come back again.


There was nothing SO scarce on this
earth as peace, and no calendar of crime
was blacker than that of the churches
warning on each other in days gone by.
If there had been nothing but the ezter-
nal church, religion would have gone
over the dam of infdelity long years
ago. The churches wasted most of their
forces in battling one against the other.


Mr.. Beecher then gave most anus
ing sketch of parents, having five boys
and two girls, talking over what ought
to be done for them. The girls, of course,
had no living to make-their duty was
to get married.


Says the father: "James is a very
truthful and honest boy-let US make q
lawyer of him." They do, and he utter.
ly fails in his profession. He might
have made an admirable mechanic, but
he was no lawyer. And the mother says
''Our dear Henry is not very bright, but
he is so good-let us make a parson Of
him. They do-to the great regret o.
his parish throughout his life. And SC
on through the whole list. Parents chose
for their sons the very professions tc
which they were most unsuited.


In his experience with churchmen he
had found them honest, truthful and
virtuous, but, to be an efficient minister,
it was necessary TO be good preacher
Many men now occupying pulpits are
well fitted to be professors or teachers
but are utterly unfit to preach the gos
pel-they are dull preachers.


The next waste to which he would al
lude was one which his audience would
not understandable waste that came tt
society by lying. Judged from the stand
point of political economy, lying is 1
tremendous evil. The lies that do th,
least harm are the monstrous big fellows
It is the little atmospheric lies that fill
the air like gnats, or PARTICLES of ice
that make the trouble. This is atmos
pheric insincerity. It is hard to dea
squarely with men, because they ar
more or less insincere, and are educated
SO to be. He ascribed most of this lax
ity in public sentiment to political cam
paigning. when partisans lied, editor
lied, and even politicians lied. He hat
no faith in oaths. He abhorred them
No officer was the better for what j
called the oath of Office. Oaths of tina
kind induced perjury. So it was in Gus
tom house and other formal oaths. Th
courts of justice, too, bred infinite lying
Witnesses were sworn to tell ssthe truth
the whole truth, etc. and when tn
man began to tell the truth, he wa
blockaded by a lawyer who said: '.Stop
sir +; we want none of that He pro
ceeds again, and is stopped by the othe
lawyer, and SO is prosecuted until b
contradicts himself out of very confusion
and leaves the stand in grave doubt a
to whether he is knave or fool, or


combination of the two. And yet b
went on the witness stand resolved t
tell the truth. So much for oaths.


A judge in Pennsylvania, a man Q
eminence, told him that if they were t
prosecute all the cases of palpable per