Surely, there is something in all this which could be
imitated. The great talents with which he is endowed cannot be
imparted, but we do not believe that his power is wholly derived from
his talent. A man of only respectable abilities, who should catch his
spirit, practise some of his methods, and spend his strength in
getting knowledge, and not in coining sentences, would be able
anywhere to gather round him a concourse of hearers. The great secret
is, to let orthodoxy slide, as something which is neither to be
maintained nor refuted,--insisting only on the spirit of Christianity,
and applying it to the life of the present day in this land.
There are some reasons for thinking that the men and the organizations
that have had in charge the moral interests of the people of the
United States for the last fifty years have not been quite equal to
their trust. What are we to think of such results of New England
culture as Douglas, Cass, Webster, and many other men of great
ability, but strangely wanting in moral power? What are we to think of
the great numbers of Southern Yankees who were, and are, the bitterest
foes of all that New England represents? What are we to think of the
Rings that seem now-a-days to form themselves, as it were,
spontaneously in every great corporation? What of the club-houses that
spring up at every corner, for the accommodation of husbands and
fathers who find more attractions in wine, supper, and equivocal
stories than in the society of their wives and children? What are we
to think of the fact, that among the people who can afford to
advertise at the rate of a dollar and a half a line are those who
provide women with the means of killing their unborn children,--a
double crime, murder and suicide? What are we to think of the moral
impotence of almost all women to resist the tyranny of fashion, and
the _necessity_ that appears to rest upon them to copy every
disfiguration invented by the harlots of Paris? What are we to think
of the want both of masculine and moral force in men, which makes them
helpless against the extravagance of their households, to support
which they do fifty years' work in twenty, and then die? What are we
to think of the fact, that all the creatures living in the United
States enjoy good health, except the human beings, who are nearly all
ill?
When we consider such things as these, we cannot help calling in
question a kind of public teaching which leaves the people in
ignorance of so much that they most need to know.
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