But
when or how is this to be done? Again, there is a call for that
scarcest of all things--statesmanship.
The bitterness of sectarian contention is another of the things which
one feels to be derogatory to an age of general progress. No longer
are men permitted to kill each other in vindication of opinion, but
how mournful to witness persecution by inuendo, vituperation, and
even falsehood. Individuals and classes are seen bombarding each other
in vile, abusive, and certainly most unchristian language, all
ostensibly in the name of a religion which has for a fundamental
principle, an utter repudiation of strife! Whether any amendment is to
be looked for in this department of affairs within the next twenty
years is exceedingly uncertain.
In the roll of disheartening circumstances in our social condition, it
would be unpardonable to omit the enormities of intemperance, which,
though groaned over day after day, remain pretty much what they have
been for years; and it is to be feared, that so long as reformers
confine themselves to attacking mere symptoms, instead of going to the
foundation of the evil--a deficiency of self-respect, growing out of a
want of instruction in things proper to be known, and for which the
education of the country makes no provision--all will be in vain.
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