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. Henry Ward Beecher is the
only clergyman we ever heard who habitually promulgates
the truth, that to be ill is generally a sin, and
always a shame. We never heard him utter the
demoralizing falsehood, that this present life is
short and of small account, and that nothing is worthy
of much consideration except the life to come.
He dwells much on the enormous length of this life,
and the prodigious revenue of happiness it may yield
to those who comply with the conditions of happiness.
It is his habit, also, to preach the duty which devolves
upon every person, to labor for the increase of his
knowledge and the general improvement of his mind.
We have heard him say on the platform of his church,
that it was disgraceful to any mechanic or clerk to
let such a picture as the Heart of the Andes be exhibited
for twenty-five cents, and not go and see it.
Probably there is not one honest clergyman in the country
who does not fairly earn his livelihood by the good
he does, or by the evil he prevents. But not
enough good is done, and riot enough evil prevented.
The sudden wealth that has come upon the world since
the improvement of the steam-engine adds a new difficulty
to the life of millions. So far, the world does
not appear to have made the best use of its too rapidly
increased surplus. “We cannot sell a twelve-dollar
book in this country,” said a bookseller to us
the other day. But how easy to sell two-hundred-dollar
garments! There seems great need of something
that shall have power to spiritualize mankind, and
make head against the reinforced influence of material
things. It may be that the true method of dealing
with the souls of modern men has been, in part, discovered
by Mr. Beecher, and that it would be well for persons
aspiring to the same vocation to begin their
preparation by making a pilgrimage to Brooklyn Heights.
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