The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, January 1885, No. 4

The Chautauquan, Vol. 05, January 1885, No. 4

President, Lewis Miller, Akron, Ohio. Chancellor, J. H. Vincent, D.D., New Haven, Conn. Counselors, The Rev. Lyman Abbott, D.D., the Rev. J. M. Gibson, D.D.; Bishop H. W. Warren, D.D.; Prof. W. C. Wilkinson, D.D.; Edward Everett Hale. Office Secretary, Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J. General Secretary, Albert M. Martin, Pittsburgh, Pa. If we consider the manifold afflictions which in the after years of so many millions of our fellowmen outweigh the happiness of childhood, we can hardly wonder that several great thinkers have expressed a serious doubt if earthly existence is on the whole a blessing. Yet for those who hold that the progress of science and education will ultimately remove that doubt, it is a consoling reflection that the greatest of all earthly evils are avoidable ones. The earthquake of Lisbon[2] killed sixty thousand persons who could not possibly have foreseen their fate. In 1282 an irruption of the Zuyder Sea overwhelmed sixty-five towns whose inhabitants had not five minutes time to effect their escape. But what are such calamities compared with the havoc of wanton wars, or the ravages of consumption and other diseases that are the direct consequences of outrageous sins against the physical laws of God? The cruelty of man to man causes more misery than the rage of wild beasts and all the hostile elements of Nature, but the heaviest of all evils in our great burden of self-inflicted woe is undoubtedly the curse of the poison vice. The alcohol habit is a concentration of all scourges. In the poor island of Ireland alone one hundred and forty million bushels of bread-corn and potatoes are yearly sent to the distillery. The shipment of the grain, its conversion into a health-destroying drug, the distribution and sale of the poison, are carried on under the protection of a so-called civilized government. Waste is not an adequate word for that monstrous folly. If the grain farmers of Laputa[3] should organize an expedition to the sea-coast, and under the auspices of the legal authorities equip an apparatus for flinging a hundred million sacks of grain into the ocean, the contents of those sacks would be lost, and there would be an end of it. The sea would swallow the cargo. The distillery swallows the grain, but disgorges it in the form of a liquid fire that spreads its flames over the land and scorches the bodies and souls of men till the smoke of the torment arises from a million homesteads. We might marvel at the extravagance of the Laputans, but what should we say if the priests of a pastoral nation were to slaughter thousands of herds on the altar of a national idol, and in conformity with an established custom let the carcasses rot in the open fields till the progress of putrefaction filled the land with horror and pestilence; if moreover, among the crowd of victims we should recognize the milch cows of thousands of poor families whose children were wan with hunger, and if furthermore the intelligent rulers of that nation should supervise the ceremonies of the sacrifice, distribute the carcasses and calmly collect statistics to ascertain the percentage of the resultant mortality? ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 55251
Author: Chautauqua Institution
Release Date: Aug 3, 2017
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Contributor (Author): Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Editor: Flood, Theodore L., 1842-