The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864

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THE

CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY:

VOL. VI.--AUGUST, 1864.--No. II.

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|Transcriber's note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. All |
|other inconsistencies are as in the original. |
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AMERICAN CIVILIZATION.

SECOND PAPER.

As a nation we are fast losing that reverence for the powers that be
which is enjoined by Holy Writ, and without which no form of government
can be lasting, no political system can take a firm hold upon the
affections of the people. The opposition press teems with vituperation
and personal abuse of those whom the people themselves have chosen to
control the public policy and administer the public affairs. The
incumbent of the Presidential chair, so far from receiving that respect
and deference to which his position entitles him, becomes the victim of
slander and vilification, from one portion of the country to another, on
the part of those who chance to differ with him in political sentiments.
Even beardless boys, taking their cue from those who, being older,
should know better, are unsparing in the use of such terms as
'scoundrel,' 'fool,' 'tyrant,' as applied to those whom the people have
delighted to honor, either unconscious or utterly heedless of the
disgust with which their language inspires the older and more
thoughtful. And thus it has become a recognized fact that no man's
reputation can withstand the trial of a four years' term of service in
the Presidential office. While this is in a great measure the reaction
from the king worship of the Old World, it is nevertheless a blot upon
our civilization, a departure from those lofty and noble sentiments
which characterize every advanced stage of human intellect, in which the
supremacy and inviolability of the law is acknowledged, and in which the
ruler is reverenced as the representative and impersonation of the law.
And as, in such a stage, respect for the magistrate and the law mutually
react upon each other, so in the present state of affairs the tendency
is, in the course of time, to reach from the ruler to the edict which he
administers, and thus to beget a disrespect and disregard of law itself,
paving the way to that violence and mob rule which, in the present state
of humanity, must inevitably attend the establishment of the democratic
principle.

The remedy is to be found in reform in the education of our youth,
whereby the utmost respect for the law and for those by whom it is
administered shall be inculcated as the groundwork of all patriotism and
national progress, while at the same time cultivating a loftier
appreciation of the blessings of social order and harmony, and of
well-regulated liberty of thought, speech, and action, and a purer
standard of right. Yet even this will be of little avail except in
connection with the abatement, through the strong good sense of a
thinking and upright people, of that national nuisance of bitter and
unmerciful political partisanship of which we have spoken, all of whose
tendencies are to evil, and so removing from the eyes of our youth a
low, unworthy, and degrading example, which they are too prone to
follow. The child will tread, to a great degree, in the steps of the
father, and the whole course of his intellectual life be governed, more
or less, by the principles and prejudices which he is accustomed every
day to hear from the lips of a parent, who is necessarily the teacher
and, in a great measure, the moulder of his infant mind. How careful,
then, ought every parent to be of the principles which he inculcates and
the examples which he sets in his conversation, especially when that
conversation is directed to a condemnation of the motives or the acts of
the ruling powers!--lest the child be some time inclined to enlarge upon
his views, and carry his deductions farther than he himself ever
dreamed, till he shall finally be led into a contempt of the
institutions as well as of the rulers of his native land, through a
father's teaching, and so grow up an embryo traitor, ready at the first
signal to embark in any revolutionary scheme or wild enterprise of
visionary reform, such as have been and are still the disturbers of our
national prosperity. For an example of such a result in our day we have
but to look at the youth of the Southern States, whose fiery treason,
far exceeding that of their elders, is nothing more than the outgrowth,
the legitimate extension and development of that bitter denunciation of
rulers who chanced to be unpopular with their fathers, of that
unrestrained license of speech which left nothing untouched, however
sacred, however holy it might be, which chanced to stand in the way of
gross and sordid interest. The ideas of the hot-blooded, fire-eating
Southern youth of to-day, the recklessness and the treason, the
denationalizing spirit of revolution and blood which so readily
manifests itself in contempt of the old flag, and the direst hatred of
all that their fathers held sacred and laid down their lives to
sustain--all this is but the idea, intensified and developed, of the
Southerner of a bygone generation; it is but the natural deduction from
his conversation and life, pondered over by the child, fixed deeply in
his heart as the teaching of a revered tutor, and carried out, by a
natural course of reasoning, to its extreme in the parricidal rebellion
of to-day. And yet that idea was, in its inception, apparently harmless
enough, being nothing more than that denunciation and vituperation of
the political leaders and the ruling powers which chanced to be in the
opposition, whereby the child was in due course of time weaned from his
country, and taught to look lightly upon and speak lightly of that which
of old time was only mentioned with love and reverent awe.

Nor is this the only reform which is needed in the education of our
youth. The phrase 'completing one's education' is used to-day with utter
looseness, and applied to that period when the youth leaves the school
or college for the busy walks of life. How much of error is contained in
such an application of the term he well knows who, after some years of
world life, can look back upon his college days and see what a mere
smattering of knowledge he gained within the 'classic shades,' and how
poorly _educated_ he was, in any and every sense of the word, how ill
fitted for the realities of work-day life, when first he emerged in
self-sufficient pride from the sacred walls, and launched boldly out
upon the world. At the time when, according to the popular acceptation
of the term, the education is completed, it is in truth but just begun;
and he who, upon the slender capital of college lore, should set himself
up for a finished man, one competent to take upon himself the duties,
responsibilities, and labors of active life, would soon find to his
sorrow that he was yet but a babe in wisdom, and yet needed a long and
severe discipline ere he could be considered one of the world's workers.
In the few years devoted, in our country, to the education of youth,
little more can be done than to teach them the value of knowledge and
the proper method and system of its acquisition, leaving to the
exertions of the after years that education of the mind and development
of the intellectual powers which constitute the finished man. And this
should be the object of all our schools, for females as well as for
males, to inculcate the truth that the true education begins where the
schools leave off, and depends entirely upon the scholar himself, aided
only by that groundwork of preparation, that systematizing of effort,
imparted by the tutor in the tender years. This end should be ever
before the teacher's eyes, and the whole course of study adjusted with a
view thereto. And the instruction imparted should be of such a character
as most thoroughly to fit the student for future study, giving him a
firm foothold upon the most essential branches of knowledge, from which
he may advance steadily and securely when left to himself; frequently
warning him that this is but the beginning of great things, and that the
abstrusities of wisdom, wherein is all its aesthetic beauty and its
holiness--all its moral good--lies far beyond, where it can only be
reached by the most patient, persevering, and unremitting toil; not
forgetting, at the same time, to point out the glorious reward which
awaits the seeker of truth. The effect of such a system would soon be
felt, not only in our national life, but in our very civilization. For
thus would be thrown out upon our society, year after year, a class of
thinkers, of earnest, working, strong-minded men and women, searchers
after truth and disciples of the highest good, instead of the crowd of
half-fledged intellectual idlers who yearly emerge from our schools with
the conceited idea that the course of study is finished, the paths of
investigation fully explored, and that life is henceforth a holiday from
study. Under such a giant impulse our society could not but advance with
enormous strides in all that pertains to true civilization, since
thinkers would then be the rule instead of the exception, and talent
almost universal, which is now, like angels' visits, comparatively 'few
and far between.' This is no Utopian vision: it is a reality within the
scope of human exertion and the capacity of our people of to-day, if men
would but exert themselves to such an end, and properly apply the energy
and labor which is now too often excited upon unworthy and trifling
objects. The realm of knowledge is so boundless that a lifetime is
little enough and short enough to give to mortals even a smattering of
that sea of wisdom which swells around the universe, and he alone can
claim to be a seer who devotes the whole of a long existence to the
investigation of truth; and only when this fact is impressed upon the
minds of youth can they be made to appreciate their true position in
existence, and made efficient workers in the great cause of humanity.

Yet all education is vain, all intellectual development is of little
benefit, all civilization hollow in its nature and ephemeral in its
duration which lacks the moral element. And by the word _moral_ in this
connection is intended to be understood not only what is usually
conveyed in the term morality, but also all religion. It is a
well-established fact, more particularly exemplified in our own history,
that all political parties founded upon an ephemeral issue, inevitably
disappear with the final adjustment of the questions upon which they are
based, having nothing left to rest upon, so it is in the affairs of
nations. In the weakness of human nature and the fallibility of all
human prescience, no system or theory can be devised which shall endure
through all time, which shall not become effete, useless, and even
erroneous in the progress of human development, and in the ever-shifting
condition of human society. Hence any government and society founded
upon a system of merely human devising, must, in the progress of events,
fall to pieces, and give place to the results of a new and younger
development. The law of God, as contained in Divine revelation, is alone
unchangeable, unmodifiable. It is adapted to meet the requirements of
all lands and all ages, to answer all the necessities of which human
nature is capable, even to its extremest verge of development. Hence all
political systems are durable only in proportion as they, in their
organization, conform to the precepts of Divine law.

We have used the term 'moral element' as necessarily comprehending all
religion, for the reason that upon religion is necessarily based all
true morality. There is nothing in the physical, and more especially in
the intellectual world, without a final cause; and that so-called
morality which exists entirely separate and distinct from religion, can
be based upon nothing other than self-interest, which, under different
conditions and circumstances, would as unhesitatingly lead to evil. The
'moral man' without religion could as easily be evil minded and
dissolute in a community purely evil as he is upright and honorable in a
civilized and enlightened community of to-day, for the reason that his
morality is nothing more than deference to a certain standard of
honor--in other words, to the _tone_ of the society by which he is
surrounded, bringing with it all the benefits of high public estimation
and a lofty position in society, which tone it must follow, be it good
or bad: it is founded and built up in self-interest. Yet this very tone
of society, and all these standards of honor and uprightness, when
traced to their origin, are found to arise from the precepts of
revelation. We are all, physically and intellectually, the creatures of
circumstance. Experience moulds and develops the intellect. Our moral
natures are not innate, but solely and entirely the result of the
influences by which we are surrounded. There is in the soul no absolute
standard of right; if there were, uprightness would be the same the
world over. But the right of the heathen is a different thing from that
of the Christian; the right of the Chinese or the Japanese is a
different thing from that of more enlightened nations; the right of one
Christian community is different from that of another; and this because
right, considered distinct from religion, is relative, and subject to
all the modifications of different conditions of society. The 'Evil, be
thou my good' of Milton's Satan is a delicate recognition of this fact.
But absolute right is a thing unknown to human _nature_; it can never be
innate, but comes from without. It can only be apprehended by the
intellect as a thing of God, a part of His nature, given to us as a law,
a rule of action, which we can accept or not, taking upon ourselves the
consequences of its rejection. There can be no standard of absolute
right other than the law of God; there can be no other invariable and
eternal rule of human action.

And if this position be true of individuals, most assuredly is it true
of nations, which are but individuals in the concrete, subject to the
same vicissitudes, governed by the same laws, physical and moral, and
following the same path of development. Only that form of government
which recognizes the Supreme Being as the chief of rulers, and His law
as the source and model of all human law, can be sure of truth and
justice on its side, both in its dealings with other nations and in its
regulation of its own internal affairs. Only such a form can work
steadily for the advancement of its people, both by leading them forward
and by smoothing the rugged path to perfection, and removing every
obstacle which impedes the national progress. However near the
principles of our Government may approach to those of the Divine law,
there is still room and urgent necessity for reform. Yet, in the
universal disfavor into which theocracies have fallen, and in the
intense desire which pervades our people to avoid the complicated evils
of a union between church and state, every attempt to unite religious
principles with those of government is looked upon with positive alarm;
and justly so, since the experience of past centuries proves that both
thrive best in separate spheres, however near they may approach each
other in the abstract, and that when united, the one is apt to prove a
hamper on the other, through the introduction of error and corruption;
while, separated, they act as a mutual restraint, each tending to
control the abnormal development of the other. For these reasons reform
in this particular must move from the people to the government, not from
the government to the people.

And here we come to the root of the whole matter, to the field where
reform is most needed, that is, in the moral condition of our society.
While there are few nations in which there is such a diversity of
religious views and multiplicity of religious sects, there are few
peoples which are so proverbially irreligious as our own. Yet our
condition in this respect is rather a neutral one than otherwise, for
while we are without any positive immorality which should make us
preeminent above other nations for vice, there is, nevertheless, in our
midst, little of that simple, trusting, unquestioning faith, which is
the 'substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not
seen'--little of that all-pervading and all-powerful reverence for
sacred things, that deep religious feeling which forms a portion of the
very life of most of the nations of the Old World. This is nothing more
than the reaction of the stern Puritan tenets of the colonial times. It
is the logical result of those dark and gloomy theories which aimed to
make religion not only unpalatable but absolutely repelling to the young
and the ardent, causing them to fly to the opposite extreme of throwing
aside religion to 'a more convenient season,' when the pleasures of life
should have lost their charm, and they themselves should be drawing near
the close of their pilgrimage. That theory which made a deadly sin of
that which was at worst but a pardonable misdemeanor and perhaps wholly
innocent in its nature, could not fail in time to react violently, first
through the process of disgust, then through that of inquiry, and
finally to the carrying of speculation to extremes, and practically
pronouncing harmless and innocent that which was really vice. The
popular mind, rebounding from the Puritan ideas, did not pause to
discriminate between the truth and error which were so intimately
mingled in their system, but, sweepingly denouncing all the theories
whose most prominent characteristics were revolting, involved in the
denunciation and rejection much of pure and simple truth, and ran
rapidly along the path of revolution, heedless of every warning,
unchecked by the obstacles which Truth threw in its way, down to the
present time of almost universal looseness.

Another effect of this rebellion of the national mind against the
Puritan theories is seen in the almost yearly inauguration of some new
sect in religion, in a land which is already so crowded with diverse and
antagonistic religious organizations that it might be termed the land of
sects. However right or wrong in a religious point of view, the Puritans
committed the great _social_ mistake of establishing a new church,
instead of working earnestly to reform the old in those respects in
which it seemed to them to have fallen into error, thereby destroying
the unity of the Christian world. Had the movement stopped here, less
harm would have been done; but it was not of the nature of things that
it should be so. The establishment of the principle that purity of
worship and of belief was to be sought, and diversity of religious
opinion to be gratified in separation and the erection of new
organizations, rather than in the endeavor to purify the old and
established form, at once threw wide open the door of schism, and with
it, in the end, that of scepticism. The movement once begun could
neither be checked nor controlled by any human effort. Others claimed
the right which they themselves had exercised, and the result was soon
seen in the separation of one after another denomination from the
Puritan Church, each, in its turn, to be divided into a score of sects,
according as circumstances should alter religious views. Were the
principles of true religion in themselves progressive, were the
teachings, of the gospel inadequate to or unfitting for all possible
stages of human progress, or were they capable of development, the world
might then have been the gainer. Or, again, were reason infallible, the
separation of the churches would be an incalculable blessing, by
securing to all minds a free investigation upon religious subjects. But
infidelity desires no more powerful coadjutor than human reason in its
freest exercise, because it is so liable to be led away by sophistry,
and its invariable tendency is to reject as myths and fables all things
which it cannot comprehend or for which it cannot see a material cause.
Perfect reason is the twin brother and strongest supporter of faith; but
reason as it exists in the present development of humanity is its most
deadly antagonist. The age of reason has fallen upon us, and its result
is seen in a practical scepticism pervading the whole of our society,
which in its extent and its injurious effects put to the blush the
wildest speculations of the most radical German metaphysicians. Every
day we see around us men of no religious profession, and little if any
religious feeling, calmly facing death without a tremor, without a
thought of the awful beyond. And though the application of the term
infidel to such a man would not fail to arouse his fiercest indignation,
his indifference to the events and the fate of the great hereafter can
arise from nothing else than an utter disbelief in the teachings of Holy
Writ, in the truths of Christianity. Such men are but types of a class,
and that class a very large portion of our population.

The evils of religious divisions are plain to be seen, even if they
consisted in nothing more than the division and consequent weakening of
Christian effort. The church of God, torn by internal dissensions,
becomes almost powerless for the spread of the gospel, the greater
portion of its strength and energy being exhausted in bolstering up its
different branches as against each other, and in proselytizing within
itself. Where, if united, a small portion of its wealth and energy would
suffice to support in a nourishing condition the worship of a great
people, leaving an immense surplus to be directed to the evangelization
of the heathen world, now, in its divided state, its power and immense
material resources are squandered in the support of innumerable
fragments, each one of which costs as much in labor and in means as
would suffice to sustain the religion of the whole country if united.

Worse than even this, the incessant bickerings of the Christian world
tend to invalidate, in the minds of the unbelievers, not only among the
heathen, but among ourselves, the teachings of that Word which is its
professed guide. The 'See how these Christians hate each other!' is to
reflecting minds outside the church's pale, an almost unconquerable
argument against that religion which professes to be founded upon love.
Hence arises a great portion of that practical infidelity of which we
have spoken, and which is the bane of our civilization. No nation can be
truly great or noble or progressive without religion, and by as much as
we are departing, in our every-day life, from the pure teachings of the
gospel, by so much are we tending to our inevitable downfall. The people
must have some high standard of moral excellence, something to elevate
and purify the tone of society, to lead their aspirations upward away
from the petty toils and cares and vexations, from the sordid desires
and the animal propensities of life, in order to prevent them from
falling into that decay which is inevitably the result of corruption,
following hard upon a devotion to mere self-interest. We are, in a great
measure, a nation of materialists, too much devoted to the pursuit of
selfish and so-called practical aims, too little to the spiritual and
the ethereal. Reform must come, else the soul will become gross and
grovelling, and the nobler part of our natures, the more delicate and
refined sympathies of the heart, the finer faculties of the intellect,
will rust away with disuse, and the whole race become sensual, and
finally effete, however brilliant may be its individual exceptions. From
what direction the needed reform is to come it is not for us to say.
That Almighty Providence which overrules an erring world will doubtless
provide a way for the regeneration of His people. The first great step
is to awaken the people to a sense of the necessity of such a change,
and some more powerful means must be employed to the accomplishment of
that end than have ever yet been applied to our civilization. And the
apostle who, in the hands of God, shall be the means of arousing the
slumbering faith of our people, of awakening them to a full sense of the
danger, and of imparting new energy to the recuperative powers of the
race, will win for himself a loftier position in the world's
appreciation than has yet been conceded to any mere mortal.

Another great and manifest evil in our society, and one closely
connected with that of which we have just spoken, is the inordinate love
of wealth, and the elevation of the money god to the highest seat in our
temple of worship. Human nature craves distinction. The divisions and
castes in the society of the Old World, from the present day back to the
remotest ages, is not only an evidence, but a practical exemplification
of this fact. The abolition of all these distinctions consequent upon
the establishment of our republican government upon the ground of
political equality, swept away from our ancestors almost the only means
of gratifying this innate propensity. A hard-working, practical,
agricultural people, with no literature, and little if any cultivation
of the fine arts, there was but one road to distinction open to the mass
of the population, and that lay through the avenues of wealth. Hence it
was but natural that affluence should take the place of the hereditary
honors of the olden times, and that the people should bow to the only
distinction, however spurious it might be, which elevated any portion of
themselves above their fellows. With all the evils connected with a
hereditary aristocracy, the distinction which attends upon a nobility is
in a great measure an ideal one. It is not either its wealth or power
which constitutes its charm, but a certain nameless something pertaining
to the ideal, which affects not only the tenants and retainers, but even
our republican selves. It may well be questioned whether we have been
the gainers by substituting for such distinctions a gross and material
one, affecting the bodily senses alone--the animal part of our
nature--and which contains little either to expand the mind or exalt the
aspirations. With us but comparatively few can become distinguished in
the ranks of literature or of art, or, indeed, in any of the higher or
intellectual branches of human attainment; hence for the great mass
there is but one road to distinction, one object to claim every
exertion--the pursuit of wealth. And as a natural consequence, we see
every art, every profession hinging upon this motive. Most of the evils
connected with the administration of our public affairs, the fraud and
corruption which are so prominent, the quadrennial scramble for place,
with its consequent degrading of those positions which should be those
of the highest honor, may be traced to this one source. More than this,
we find the so-called aristocracy of our great cities--a moneyed one
purely--excluding from its ranks those who earn their livelihood in the
pursuit of literature and art, and who, if true to their professions,
are entitled to the very highest rank in society. There are of course
exceptions, but not more than sufficient to prove the rule. A striking
exemplification of the power of wealth among us is seen in these days of
shoddy, when those who have hitherto moved in the humblest circles
suddenly take their positions among the 'upper ten thousand,' and are
treated with a deference to which they have all their lives been
strangers, by virtue of a successful contract or a towering speculation.
The effect of such a state of things upon our civilization is easy to be
seen. A low motive is sure to bring down its followers to its own level.
A people without a lofty and ennobling object is sure to fall into
decay. The grasping spirit which everywhere pervades our society is fast
lowering our people to the level of a race of mercenary jobbers. Truth,
justice, honor, purity, and even religion, are in a great measure lost
sight of in the general scramble for gold, until the strictest
integrity, the most self-sacrificing honesty, are beginning to be looked
upon as marvels, and we have won for ourselves among the nations of the
world the unenviable title of worshippers of the 'almighty dollar.'
Religion itself is twisted and distorted into every imaginable shape to
bring it into harmony with our all-absorbing pursuit: all our ideas of
public policy and of social progress are made to depend upon and
modified by this unworthy motive. We mean not to include those
individuals who, with loftier motives and a true appreciation of man's
spiritual capabilities, are prominent among us, battling earnestly in
the cause of true progress; we are speaking of the mass of our
population. Those few are the goodly leaven who are yet to prove the
regeneration of our race. Bad as is the state of affairs in this
respect, it will, if left to itself, become infinitely worse as each
succeeding year rolls around, for the spirit of greed is progressive in
its nature, growing fatter and fatter upon its success.

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