The fourth volume of THE CHAUTAUQUAN closes with the present number. In
the month of August we shall issue at Chautauqua the _Assembly Daily
Herald_, with its numbers of invaluable lectures, its racy reports
and varied sketches of Chautauqua life. For the advantage of our
friends we make an attractive combination offer of the fifth volume
of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, and the _Assembly Daily Herald_, for $2.25. See
advertisement.
* * * * *
Among the great figures missed at the Republican National Convention
this year was that of ex-Senator Roscoe Conkling. Not having admired him
politically, we are the more free to express our respect and admiration
for the courage with which he declined a seat on the supreme bench, and
the splendid success he is achieving at the bar. A certain intense ardor
which marks him as a man give assurance of still higher success and
permanent fame in his profession.
* * * * *
The unveiling of an imposing statue of Martin Luther, in Washington, is
one of the events which reminds us of the granite character of Luther;
and in the same breath set us thinking of the solidarity of humanity.
Luther is a great way from home in Washington, four centuries after his
birth; but he is among his own people and as much alive as he ever was.
* * * * *
The cap-sheaf of official negligence is put on in the case of a bank
which wallows for years, perhaps, certainly for months, in insolvency,
and is never in all the time honestly and thoroughly examined by the
various persons whose duty it is to know the facts.
* * * * *
“Men were giants in those days.” The five hundredth anniversary of the
death of John Wyclif was celebrated in England in May last. The Bishop of
Liverpool preached, dissenters of all denominations were represented. The
public was told again that Wyclif was the first Englishman to maintain
the supremacy of the Scriptures. The Lord Mayor of London presided over a
great conference, and a fund was founded to print and circulate Wyclif’s
works. After five centuries of all kinds of progress that man’s memory is
still as fresh as a May morning.
* * * * *
The State Superintendent in New York has decided that no religious
exercises are in order in public schools. The schools are for all, and
until some common system of religious instruction is agreed upon, there
should be none. This is the substance of the decision, and we can not
help thinking it sound. Religious instruction is amply provided in other
ways; and in order that Protestant and Catholic children may study
together in peace, it seems wisest to let each class be religiously
instructed elsewhere, according to the wishes of their parents.
* * * * *
The most effective speech in the late Methodist Episcopal General
Conference was made by a colored delegate, the Rev. Dr. Taylor of
Kentucky. The effectiveness came of the fact that he had not only
considered what he had to say, but also meditated on the best way of
saying it. We are often told that oratory is a lost art. Is it not a
faded art merely because speakers give too little attention to the manner
of their speech?
* * * * *
Charles O’Conor, the greatest jury pleader of the century, died in May,
at the age of eighty. Four years before his death, having been very ill,
he had the pleasure of reading the longest obituary notice that any
convalescent ever perused with personal interest. His power over juries
was such that cases were often given up by the other side in advance
of the pleading. He was an Irish Catholic whose warmest friends were
American Protestants.
* * * * *
Several additions have been made to the evidence that it does not
destroy women to educate them. Professor Seelye of Amherst is among the
new witnesses. We are at a loss to know why it ever needed testimony.
Professor Seelye gravely says that some hard-worked women students
were carefully examined by a competent woman and found to be perfectly
healthy! When our readers recover from their astonishment let them enter
their girls for the C. L. S. C.
* * * * *
The new scheme for registering time seems to encounter a resistance which
in physics is called the _vis inertia_. Most towns of any size—except
the largest cities—still maintain local time. We respectfully hint
to the almanac makers, that they have a great opportunity to spread
intelligence on this subject. It will not be long before all towns within
the meridional divisions will have common time. Why protract the agony of
computing a dozen times a day the differences between several standards
of time in the same community?
* * * * *
They continue to find Charley Ross. One was found last month. But each
time it is not the true Charley Ross. What an amount of agony his parents
have suffered! What a mercy were the knowledge that the boy died long
ago! But reflect, too, on the uses of that tragedy. Thousands of children
are watched over with more diligence because that tragedy recurs daily to
the minds of parents as a solemn warning.
* * * * *
Psychologic classification is getting into disorder. Sir William Thompson
has defined a “Magnetic Sense,” and a critic of him says: “We might as
well be logical and liberal, and add to the present senses the touch
sense, the self sense, the power sense, the logical sense, and the
psychic, muscular, and electro-magnetic senses.” We suppose it is a wise
thing to be “liberal;” but it is better to be accurate, and this use of
the word _sense_ is not accurate.
* * * * *
The nomination by the Chicago Republican Convention of the Hon. James G.
Blaine, of Maine, for President, and Senator John A. Logan, of Illinois,
for Vice President, seems likely to precipitate a political contest over
the tariff. Mr. Blaine and the platform on which he stands speak for
protection, while the opposition will favor free trade.
* * * * *
Members of the Class of ’84 who expect to be at Round Lake, N. Y., on C.
L. S. C. Day (Wednesday, July 10), and who wish to receive their diplomas
there, should report to Miss Kimball, at Plainfield, N. J., by July 10.
* * * * *
We burn up, in this country, three hundred and fifty-nine hotels in a
year. In the last eight years the aggregate is set down by the National
Board of Underwriters as two thousand eight hundred and seventy-two. Here
is another wound in the economic body through which our life-blood is
pouring in a great stream, and nothing will stanch the wound but a better
moral character in the people. Unsafe buildings are built for the most
part by people who are smart and wicked.
* * * * *
All over the country Salvation-army captains, lieutenants and corporals
are getting into trouble, and the organization is falling into disgrace.
The movement may as well be voted a failure. It is, however, the only
religious failure of any importance in the last two decades. In London,
where it is held in vigorous hands by General Booth, it is still a
respectable success; but no one else has been able to work it on a large
scale. Petty successes here and there do not disprove the general rule of
failure.
* * * * *
In Baltimore, last month, the fourth floor of a warehouse fell and six
persons lost their lives. Accidents in buildings are becoming far too
numerous. In such cases, as well as in broken banks, we have a proof
that our complex civilization requires a higher grade of conscientious
character—or more of it—than we are producing. Our brains are good
enough; we want better morals.
* * * * *
It is reported from Europe that Prince Napoleon and his son Victor are
both “running” for the office of Emperor of France. The office does not
exist at present, and there is no prospect of its being created—the
gunpowder facilities are lacking. But father and son are said to be
quarreling over the matter. If France wants a monarch she now has a
chance to get a gentleman in the person of the Count of Paris, who was
with our army of the Potomac for some months, and has written a capital
book on the civil war in our country.
* * * * *
It was a pleasant thing to see the Governor of Pennsylvania taking the
lead in the Methodist General Conference when the resolutions against
polygamy came up for discussion. Governor Pattison was a lay member of
the body, and made a vigorous speech in favor of energetic measures to
suppress this evil.
* * * * *
A distinguished Israelite of New York said to a reporter last month
that he expected to see the synagogues opened for religious services on
Sunday. The movement would begin with the religious use of both sacred
days; but it will probably end in the general neglect of the seventh day.
The inconvenience of having a different Sabbath from the rest of the
people is doubtless a great embarrassment to the religious teachers of
the Hebrews.
* * * * *
It is a proper prayer, “Remember not against me the sins of my youth.”
But it is as well for young people to remember that human society does
not readily forget our errors. And somebody has said that “God can afford
to forgive when men can not afford to forget.” Perhaps he is not quite
right; to forgive is not to give a man an office or a farm. We have
forgiven all who have wronged us, if we are good Christians, but that
does not oblige us to indorse their notes.
* * * * *
An ungracious thing is the fault-finding with Mr. George I. Seney,
because, before the late troubles in Wall Street, he gave away some two
millions of money to philanthropic uses. People who never give away
things seem to think that, having given largely, Mr. Seney should have
rolled himself into a safe nest and remained there. It occurs to us that
no man has a better right to risk his own money than the man who has
acquitted himself generously of his obligations to humanity. We have seen
no proof that Mr. Seney was guilty of even an irregularity in the conduct
of his business, or that he is not able to meet all his engagements.
* * * * *
Mr. Ferdinand Ward is the most picturesque and romantic figure in the
late crisis in monetary New York. His success in Wall Street, by which
a poor youth laid his hands on a dozen or more millions of other men’s
money, appropriately climaxed by his enforced visit to the cell formerly
tenanted by William M. Tweed, is a romance of rascality; and yet no
one can tell just how he succeeded in using the cupidity of mankind to
blind their eyes to the plainest principles of finance. The scheme was
simple enough: Loan $70,000 on securities worth $100,000. Then take the
securities to a bank and hypothecate them for $90,000. To a thief the
profit is just $20,000. But the genius lies in concealing the simplicity
of the business.
* * * * *
It was not strange that General Grant was deceived by young Ward. No one
supposes that the General is an acute and expert man of business. But
men who ought to be acute and expert men of business—for that is their
calling—were as completely deceived as General Grant. There are always
hindsight philosophers and small-eyed sons of detraction to seize such
an occasion as the late panic to criticise great and good men. General
Grant’s vindication lies in the fact that there are very few moneyed men
in New York whom Ferdinand Ward did not deceive.
* * * * *
The zeal with which some persons labor to make benevolence unpopular is
one of the worst manifestations of human nature. Why can not the critics
remember that very few men ever catch the disease of giving away large
amounts of money? So uncommon a disorder ought to be given the benefit of
a corner of that mantle of charity which is usually employed to cover a
multitude of sins.
* * * * *
One of the most remarkable statements we have lately seen was made by
the president of a brewers’ convention recently held at Rochester, N. Y.
He said: “Our hope is based on the fact that prohibition can not last
in a progressive state.” We have tried to analyze this “hope,” and the
result is this: A progressive state is one in which the drink-sellers
are powerful enough to overthrow prohibition. _Progress_ has a peculiar
signification in the drink-seller’s dictionary. We are at a loss to
conjecture what truly progressive elements of a population should rise up
to put down prohibition.
* * * * *
Among our reformers no class deserves more support than those who seek to
improve the health of mankind. Some of them have exaggerated the value
of this or that means; but the end they seek is a very useful one. We
are coming to agreement on everything but food and sleep. We shall agree
about these by-and-by. Plenty of sleep _in the night_—and wholesome
food _in moderation_—these are two articles of the coming man’s health
creed. The italicised words express the best evidence on the subject of
longevity. A recent writer says that gluttony kills more people—who it
may be said by parenthesis know no better—than tobacco and drink. Eating
too much is the next evil to be reformed; then sleeping too little.
* * * * *
One of the beautiful customs of Brooklyn, N. Y., is to have a parade of
the Sunday-school children of all denominations on one of the first warm
days of May. This year fifty thousand children were in line, and the city
kept holiday. The custom would bear transportation to other cities and
towns.