Chapter C: L. S. C. Reunion (3)

The prohibition amendment, submitted to the voters of Ohio, is defeated, and our cherished hopes of its success, for the present, sadly disappointed. The non-partisan temperance people, everywhere, felt deeply interested in the issue, and will hear the result with profound sorrow. Multitudes of Ohio’s best men and women, who had prayed, worked, and hoped that deliverance might come in that way, and that from the 9th of October we would see the unspeakable curse of the liquor traffic placed where it ought to be, under the ban of the constitution, from which corrupt tinkering politicians would be unable to protect it, will confess their disappointment, but neither suppress their prayers nor cease their efforts. They are clearly in the majority, and when united will succeed.

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Telegraphic report says the Vicar of Stratford has authorized the exhumation of the remains of Shakspere that they may compare the skull with the bust that stands over the grave. Dr. Ingleby, of London, who is a trustee of the Shakspere Museum at Stratford, wishes, it seems, to photograph the face and take a cast of the skull. The absurdity of the proposal makes it almost incredible, and should itself prevent the desecration. We are not surprised that the bishop and local authorities have protested, and the intended outrage will hardly be perpetrated. By the terms of the deed of interment the consent of the Mayor of Stratford-on-Avon must first be given before the body can be moved. To this proposal, that official has given a decided refusal, and the dust of the poet will not be disturbed. Shakspere has been dead two hundred and sixty-seven years. The type of face and head, universally accepted as his, is sufficiently accurate. If it were not the correction of any fault in that likeness is now impossible.

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The Pittsburgh Exposition building, with most of its contents, was entirely consumed by fire during the exposition week. The principal loss was the goods on exhibition, including many articles of exquisite workmanship, and valuable relics that can not be replaced. The building itself, though a wooden structure, was large, and seemed suitable for the purpose. It was valued at $150,000 and not heavily insured. Perhaps sufficient care was not taken to secure the property against the calamity that, in so short a time, destroyed the whole. The company, who had before suffered some reverses and losses, and were struggling into what seemed a safe condition, with hopes of future prosperity, have the sympathy of the public.

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During the last decade, and especially since the great Centennial, expositions have been numerous, and, in many cases, attended with most gratifying results. When the associations providing them are controlled by men of culture, they are generously sustained. The articles they have to exhibit are not only numerous, but in kind and quality, worthy of our advanced civilization. These American expositions are becoming notably rich in manufactured articles, and in the extent and variety of useful machinery. For inventive genius the Yankee nation is unrivaled, while in the mechanical execution of the designs our skilled artisans have few, if any, superiors. In the principal western cities the holding of at least annual expositions is no longer a tentative measure. The institutions are established, and their continuance, in most cases, pretty well assured. An example of these is the “Detroit Art and Loan Exposition” of recent origin. Already it has fair proportions, being from the commencement, in most respects, equal to the best. Evidently the project for having there a creditable, first-class exposition was clearly conceived, generously sustained, and most successfully executed.

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Before Congress opens General W. T. Sherman will close up the affairs of his office, and General Sheridan will succeed him as commander of the United States Army. General Sherman has made a good officer, but his reputation in history will rest chiefly on his bravery and skill as a general in his famous march to the sea. The Sherman family have served their country well. John Sherman, in the Senate, and as Secretary of the Treasury, in times when great abilities were in demand, has made a name as great in his line as the general in the army.

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The receipts of the great Brooklyn bridge for nineteen weeks from the opening, were: For passengers, $34,464; for vehicles, $31,563; for cars, $3,936. Total receipts, $69,163. The average per day was $526.04. The total expenses during the nineteen weeks were $51,418.08.

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The C. L. S. C. continues to grow with great rapidity in all parts of the country. There is no sign of the interest waning in any community from which we have heard. From Plainfield, N. J., the central office, we receive news that the new class will be the largest of our history. New England is rolling up a large membership. All over the West and Northwest there is an interest among the people amounting to enthusiasm. Mr. Lewis Peake, of Toronto, reports a C. L. S. C. revival in Canada. This is the time to circulate C. L. S. C. circulars, and to use your town, city, and county papers to call the attention of the people to the aims and methods of work. By these means a C. L. S. C. fire may be kindled on every street in every town and city in the land.

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The recent pastoral letter of the Cardinal and other high officials in the Romish Church, caused a reporter to ask one of these officers some questions about marriage and divorce, to which he replied as follows. It is wholesome truth: “Marriage is a divine institution, and the Catholic Church under no circumstances whatever permits the sacred contract to be broken.” To the question, “Is there no such thing as separation between husband and wife recognized in the Catholic Church?” he answered: “Separation, yes, for the gravest reasons and under restrictions that do not admit of the remarriage of either of the parties to the original contract while both are living. But divorce in the sense generally accepted, never. Rather than permit divorce, the Church let England separate from the Holy See. The same question was raised by the first Napoleon, and it was ruled against him by the Pope. You will find that if anything bearing the appearance of divorce has been allowed in the Catholic Church, it has always been a case where the most careful investigation showed that the marriage was originally invalid.”

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The Germans on October 8 in many towns and cities celebrated the bi-centennial of the arrival of the first German immigrants in this country, on the ship “Concord.” Their singing, secret, and literary societies paraded in regalia, with banners and music. It was a notable day among the Germans of America.

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Bishop Paddock, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in charge of the diocese of Washington Territory, when speaking of his field of labor before the Episcopal Council in Philadelphia last month, said: “I am decidedly opposed to separating the colored people in their worship from the whites.”

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We learn from an exchange that the authorities of the Erie Railway have decided to discharge every employe who uses liquor as a beverage, whether he gets drunk or not. It is plain that for the safety of passengers a drinking man should not be entrusted with an engine, the care of a switch, with messages as a telegraph operator, or as a superintendent in charge of a division.

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The Methodists of Canada have eliminated the words “serve” and “obey” from the woman’s part of the marriage ceremony. Even the argument that the New Testament enjoins this kind of obedience on wives, did not preserve the words in the ritual. We congratulate the wives on the change.

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Professor W. F. Sherwin has been appointed by Dr. E. Tourjee chorus director in that prosperous institution, the New England Conservatory of Music, in Boston, Massachusetts. The Professor will make Boston his home, and continue to lecture and conduct musical conventions, as heretofore.

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The Cooper Union was crowded one evening last month to welcome Francis Murphy home from England and his own native Ireland. Judge Noah Davis presided and delivered the address of welcome. “In speaking of Mr. Murphy’s work in England and Scotland he quoted the statistics of the United Kingdom to prove that Mr. Murphy’s efforts had been effectual in reducing the excise revenues many thousands of pounds sterling. He said that during his two years’ stay in England and Scotland he had obtained half a million signers to the pledge. Mr. Murphy responded in a few brief words, declaring that the occasion was the happiest of his whole life. A number of short addresses were made by clergymen, and with the singing of songs and choruses, in which the whole assembly engaged, the ceremonies were prolonged until about half-past ten o’clock.”

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The C. L. S. C. is rapidly becoming an established institution among New England people. This is to be accounted for in part by the fact that the religious press of Boston and other New England cities has favored the work with earnest, strong words. The Rev. Dr. B. K. Pierce, editor of _Zion’s Herald_, closes a leading editorial on the C. L. S. C., in his paper of a recent date, with these words: “There is another reason why we look with great satisfaction upon this widely-extended home-university. We have fallen upon an era of doubt. The literature of the hour is full of sneers at revealed religion and of arrogant and destructive criticism upon the Holy Scriptures. The daily, weekly and monthly press is strongly flavored with this. Our young people breathe it in the atmosphere of the school and of the streets. Here is one of the best, silent, powerful, positive correctives. This carefully-arranged plan of study and reading for successive years is entirely in the interest of the ‘truth as it is in Jesus.’ It is not narrow, nor dogmatic, nor polemical, nor confined to purely religious subjects, but the whole system is arranged and followed out upon the presumption of the inspiration of the Bible, the divine origin of Christianity, and its ultimate triumph upon the earth. It will powerfully strengthen the faith of young Christians, preserve them from the insidious attacks of infidelity, and enable them to have, and to give to any serious inquirer, an answer for the hope that is in them.”

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The jury system has some glaring defects which should be laid bare and made the subject of agitation till they are corrected. Recently in a famous bribery case (so called) at Albany, N. Y., when jurors were being called and questioned, one of them said, “I don’t know who were the United States Senators two years ago from New York.” Yet this ignorant man was accepted as a juror. This is a common custom in the selection of jurors. It is exalting ignorance at the expense of intelligence and justice. Some remedy should be found for this growing and terrible evil.

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A new field of artistic ability is being developed in the East. It is the decoration of the interior of private residences. Already in New York a number of young artists, who find it difficult to sell all the pictures they paint, are giving their attention to this work, which promises to be very remunerative and very extensive.

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The Chicago agency of Alice H. Birch has been abandoned, and her old patrons may order any game previously advertised by her, at her home, Portland, Traill Co., Dakota.

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The Commissioner of Education has prepared a table showing the illiteracy among voters in the South, which presents a painfully interesting study for educators and statesmen. In the formerly slaveholding States there are 4,154,125 men legally entitled to vote. Of these, 409,563 whites, and 982,894 colored, are unable to write even their names, and their ability to read is very limited. Many, who profess to be able to read, can only with difficulty spell out a few simple sentences in their primers, and really get no knowledge, such as the citizen needs, from either books or papers. Thousands of them have neither books nor papers, and could not read them if they had. Surely a great work must be done for these freed men and poor whites before they are quite equal to all the duties of citizens in a country like ours.

EDITOR’S TABLE.

Q. Dec´orus or deco´rus, which?

A. Webster authorizes both, giving preference to the latter. The former has the advantage of placing the accent on the root syllable, a rule that is very helpful in settling questions of pronunciation, and conforms to usage in the accentuation of cognate words, as “dec´orate,” “dec´oration,” etc. We prefer it.

Q. What is the meaning of “liberal,” in the phrases, “liberal education,” and “liberal religious views?”

A. An education extended much beyond the practical necessities of our every-day business and social life, is liberal. It is not a possession belonging alone to the alumni of colleges and universities. Any person of culture, who, with or without the aid of teachers, has mastered the curriculum of studies prescribed by colleges, or its equivalent, is liberally educated. In the best sense, a man of “liberal religious views” is generous, freely according to others the right to their opinions on all subjects about which good men may differ. He is not creedless, but not bigoted; and cordially approves “things that are most excellent,” wherever they are found. The claim to great liberality, set up by those who have no rule of faith, and no views they are willing to formulate, does not seem well founded.

Q. Where is the line, “Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife” found? and should not the word “madding” be “maddening?”

A. The line is from Gray’s Elegy (73). The adjective “mad” is made a causative verb, without the usual suffix, “en.” We do not find the form in prose, and would not use it.

Q. Are there any books purporting to prove scientifically the immortality of the soul?

A. If by “scientifically,” the querist means, as we suppose, rationally, philosophically, our answer is, yes, very many. More books have been written upon this one subject than one could read carefully in a lifetime. Several thousand distinct works, written in Greek, Latin, English, and the principal languages of Europe, have been catalogued by Ezra Abbott. The catalogue itself, published as an appendix to Alger’s “Doctrine of a Future Life,” would make a respectable volume, containing, as it does, a list of more than five thousand books, by almost as many authors, who discuss, more or less satisfactorily, the great problem of the soul. Some propose, not argument, but only a history of the doctrine of a future, immortal life as held by the different races of men, with various shades of opinion respecting it. Some doubt, some disbelieve, and some, discarding all rational processes, accept the dogma as a matter of faith alone, lying beyond the field of our reason. But many Christian writers, thankful for the “more sure word of prophecy,” and that “life and immortality are brought to light by the gospel,” hold also that outside the realm of faith, it is a fit subject for rational investigation, and as capable of proof or demonstration as other moral and psychical problems. Perhaps most of the works named in the catalogue consulted, treat of the soul and its immortality in connection with other principles and facts of the religious systems accepted by the authors, and are too voluminous for common use. Drew’s “Essay on the Immateriality and Immortality of the Soul” founded wholly on psychological and rational principles is regarded a masterpiece of metaphysical argument—clear, logical, satisfactory.

Q. Is the expression “as though” ever correct?

A. “Though” is often used in English, taking the place of the conditional _if_, especially in the phrases _as though_ and _what though_, which interchange with _as if_ and _what if_; _e. g._:

“If she bid me pack, I’ll give her thanks _as though_
she bid me stay by her a week.”—_Shakspere._

“A Tartar, who looked _as though_ the speed of thought
were in his limbs.”—_Byron._

Other examples need not be given. These approve the expression as correct, though not much used at present.

Q. Will the firing of cannon over water bring a dead body at the bottom to the surface; if so, why, or how?

A. The concussion or violent agitation of the water may loosen a body slightly held at the bottom, when, if specifically lighter than water, it will rise.

Q. In “Recreations in Astronomy,” p. 163, it is said 192 asteroides have been discovered, with diameters from 20 to 400 miles; and on the next page it is “estimated” that if all these were put into one planet, it would not be over 400 miles in diameter. How can that be?

A. Allowing, as the author does, that the density of the masses remains the same, it would, of course, be impossible. We have not the means at hand to either verify or correct the diameters given, and can not locate the error.