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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (April 3, 1897)
&. rm V0L1 2 XO-tf ESTABLISHED IN 1S-C PRICE FIVE CENTS -i w sBssssssBrli if ttr " . . LINCOLN. NEB., SATURDAY. APRIL, 3. 1807. nmion omciAii AS nOOVB-CLAM MAT rUBLUHXD XTZBT SATUBDAT CMIEBPtllllK Ul Wllliim Office 1132 N street, Up Staire. Telephone 384. .SAHAH If. HARMS. DORA BACHELLEIt EJitor. liusiuess Manager Subscription Rates In Advance. Per annum 82' CO Six months 1 CO Three months 50 One month 20 Single copies 0.1 t OBSERVATIONS. I The populist party attacked corrup tion with a virtuous vim that lead the unprejudiced to really holieve that when they got to" running things they would consider truth and justice be fore everything. Instead of that it is the same old story. Public office is a private snap to be held en to as long as possible and at the same time boost relations and friends into paying positions. Since political history began the men, who, out of office, have cried "Reform, corruption, malfeaeancc, tyranny, in office, have cast aside all precedent, have grabbed everything in sight and have broken the rules of fail' play wbieh even thieves have found it expedient to adopt. In short a party which has been on the outside a Iod, time is worse than the gang in a case of looting. The consciousness, whether true or not, that the outs have been robbed without re course for years, makes them, when a change come3, more rapacious and bold than the former incumbent;. The con temporary Nebraska populist legislature owes a grudge of many years standing to railroads, to banks, to all republican state officials. The state officials in question, to be sure have given the party a black eye which no amount of oothing applications can conctal. There is cause for the accusa tions which the state house orators make. But this recount ballot is strik ing a blow at democracy which no party can afford to deliver. From the governor down to the most insignifigant pop of all no one has shown a disposi tion to have the votes counted by methods above suspicion. It wou'd be an easy matter to have the recount con ducted in such a manner as to satisfy member of all parties. Instead of tint, when a memberof the commission made grave charges against the way in which the recount was being made, the gover nor rebuked him by withdrawing his ap pointment and refusing to investigate his charges against the other members of th? commission. If the recount is regular and ever thing fair and abovs board, why in hugger-muggir thus inter him? Party loyalty iaa tine quality but loyalty to the principles upon which this creat experimental government is founded, is better. "But nevertheless it does move." Gal lleo whispered Just after the rack of the inquisition had forced him to renounce hs belief in his scientific discoveries. This was in 1632, and he was put to the torture by order of the Spanish inquisi tion. The V. M. C. A. of this country exhibits the same spirit, though It lack the powers conferred on that sslf rlghteous inquisition by an absolute monarch. Science and religion were never opposed though protagonists have been trying to get up a tight between them since the first thinker on physical phenomena legan to announce his con clusions. The German writers on the Bible have done more to bring the Bible into the daily lives of scholarly men and to induce them to make it their rule of conduct than uny other influ ence. Ignorant preachers. like Mr. Moody, who insists that the Jonah story and all others like i tmust be ex cepted, or sinners must stay sinners and suffer in the lake of tire along with the culprits who have died in their sins before and since the christian era, go much farther than Christ's teaching warrants. He told the people when they asked Him what it was He came to teach, that it was love and love alone. Unselfishness, meekness and all the Blesseds of the Sermon on the Mount are include in the new commandment: "Love one another." That includes all the law and the prophets. If Jonah and all the miracles had been necessary to salvation, the new law would have stated it in some of the verbatim re ports of Christ's sermons, but it does not and the inference is that "love is the fulfilling of the law." This being the case, the Philadelphia Y. M. C. A. young men who shut out Dr. Lyman Abbott from their lecture-room have missed the lesson of the New Testament, though they can repeat whole chapters with the oily glibness of their kind. Oh! "It flecks me on the raw" to hear a Y. M. C. A. secretary holding a Bible In flabby covers, profusely marked with a blue pencil, and himself Just about as ignorant as the day he was born, eluci date what he considers necessary to the salvation of the people he addresses. This kind have a sort of Bible -lang. a jolly, intimate way of speaking of the Force which created everything, intend ed. I think, to impress upon any unbe lieving young man in the audience that religion is a cheerful experience, and that the speaker himself is private sec retary to the Lord. None of the hesi tation and humility which Invariably characterize an old minister is to be ob served in the young exhorter's .attitude. He speaks with a brazen flippancy that attracts some and repulses more. It was this kind that locked the doors on Dr. Lyman Abbott. It was this kind that criticised that good scholar and eloquent preacher. Dr. Duryea. It Is this kind that without desire or ability to tudy the modern critics of the Bible themselves, condemn and assault thie who do. Dr. Lyman Abbott believes that the doctrine of evolution Is not incon sistent with "God's way of doing things." Dr. Abbott says: "I believe In the resurrection cf Jesus Christ as the best attested fact of ancient history; I do not believe that the sun stood still and the mopn stayed In the valley of AJalon at Joshua's command; and I am uncertain of the interpretation of the wonderful stories of the Book of Dan ielwhether they are to be regarded as Dean Farrar regards them, as 'lofty moral fiction.' or as essentially histori cal, or as partly imagination and partly historical. Hypotheses must, however, be conformed to attested fact, we must not determine whether we will accept the evidence as to facts by considering whether they agree with our precon ceived hypothesis. If I were convinced, for example, that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not consistent with the doctrine of evolution, I shold be com pelled to abandon or modify that doc trine. That resurrection is a fact, evo lution is a theory." Dr. Abbott's preaching is instinct with the spirit of love. Self-sacrifice and reverence are as natural to him as impertinent familiarity and all-over of fensivene's is to the Y. M. C. A. ex horter. Further east, or north or south there may be a type of Y. M. C. A. work er possessing culture spiritual and so cial. In which case these strictures do not apply. The kind described has in fested the west long enough to make the office of Y. M. C. A. secretary a re proach. The opposition to Dr. Abbott will teem as unwarranted to the com ing generations of Bible students as the persecution of Galileo seems to us. Oliver Optic William T. Adams, who died last Saturday In Boston, aged 75 years, was the most prolific juvenile writer of the day. He was not versatile, he lacked style, his heroes were impos sible, twelve year old athletes, mar vels of courage, patience, chivalry, hon esty. Very tiresome reading for grown people his books. But they were not written for grown people and the an nual reports of public libraries show Oliver Optic books to be more In de mand than those of any other Juvenile writer. He knew that boys loved ad venture and he told them stories of the American boy in many lands and vic torious In nil. In tropical forests where the boy meets treachery from th na tives and from venomous reptiles, at home In America, as the poor and vir tuous lad tyranized over by a mean, cowardly rich man's son who enn not swim, nor run, nor ride, nor work sums nor do anything In the splendid per fection that the poor widow's son can. In the hundreds of stories and series the boy who represents virtue Ik the same brave lad rewarded after many trials by honors and In many cases by unexpected riches. His enemies who represent vice are always defeated and disgraced, so that the effect of hU books on the most unreflecting of the genus was good. The men are gray headed now who read Oliver Optics first stories nnd they confer upon the author o' them u Undernefs that the more brilliant purveyor to their mature taster d ei not receive. The sirong point of fraternities, as- I feaid last week, Is the fraternity which they teach and practice among them selves. "Liberte, egalite, fratr-rnite." The fraternity whih means "me and my wife, my son John and his wife, us four and no more," Is not worth as much as i: might if it were more uni versal. Everyone who knows anything about fraternities knows that the se crets are formal and of no consequence. Therefore when a group cf men osten tatiously whisper and keep silent until an outsider who has innocently ven tured near, has withdrawn, they are without excuse. By Euch lack of breed ing fraternities have made enemies whe will grow in number and power until the reformation of one eliminates the other. .Members cf a fraternity are very touchy about th discussion of questions which involve the merits of the system. But the new journalism was born to discuss these subJS". which those who consider themselves the proprietors of wcuid rather have let alone. The fraternity subject is one te be considered with gravity and im partiality, and from time to time The Courier will treat fraternities the good which they dc the jealousy which thry cause, the noise they make, and the fvil which lives after there, with im partiality. Taking everything into cons'.-Jeration Mayor Graham ha Leen a cipal.lt official. The experience of the las two years and week has made us ausp:ci .i:s of reformers, of men who have someh jw climbed iuto a biahi r place in the estimation of the publ e than they can keep when the devil tempts them. Mr. Graham has done the work he was elected to do. There is r o rtajon, judged by the standard Lis predecessors Lave l
