Newspaper Page Text
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Banks County Gazette.
VOL 2.---NO. 9.
Bismarck’s Ideas of Practical
Religion.
The great Chancelor had Christian
sentiment running through his being
like a nervous network. It never
appeared as religious feeling, nor
rose to fervor, nor assumed the form
of concious faith, yet it was so much
a part of himself that he could neither
analyze nor formulate it. We can
only understand his religious life, or
lather, the religion in his. life, by its
outflashing in his public utterances,
which w ere usually made in connec
tion with some phase of justice, or
ns suggesting a safeguard against rev
olution on the one hand, and against
the sentimental humanitarianism that
would favh emaculate the penal laws
of the state, on the other. He was
never prophetic; his glance was rather
fixed upon past events and their nat
ural coherence.
In his great oration uttered on the
15th of November, 1840, in the Prus
sian Lower House, against civil mar
riages, and upon the subject of the
people’s Christian consciousness, he
said: “I do not believe it is to be the
legislature's dutv to ignore that which
the people hold sacred. On the con
trary, I believe it to he the legisla
ture’s duty, as the people’s teacher
and guide, to act in such sort that
popular existence in its every circmn
stance shall lean upon the staff of
faith, and not to arbitrarily cast it
away whenever it may be to hand as
a useless appendage, thus undermin
ing reverence for the Church and for
religious institutions, wherever that
reverence may have struck root in
the life of the people, and this dur
ing an epoch which has taught ns, in
letters of blood, that wheresoever the
free thinkers have succeeded in im
parting to the masses their indiffer
ence to any and evey positive pro
fesston of faith, nothing has been
left to the people of their Christianity
but such insipid dregs as consist in
ambiguous moral philosophy; that
there the bare bayonet alone inter
poses between criminal passions and
the peaceful citizen; that there the
war of class upon class is no fiction.
“Take away from man his belief
in the revealed difference between
good and evil, and you may succeed
in convincing him that murder will
be severely punished by laws which
the well-to-do have framed for the
protection of their property and per
sous, but you will nevermore be able
to prove to him that any action is in
itself oad or good. If, on the other
hand, we make article second the tol-'
eration of all creeds so far an actual
reality that we compel our gendarmes
to protect the culture of those demo
cratic minions who, during their re
cent meetings, placed their mart r
Robert Blum, upon a looting of equal-1
ity with the Redeemer of the world, 1
still hope to see the day when the
ship of the age wo live in, with its
crew of fools, will flounder on the
rock of the Christian Church; for
faith in the revealed word of God is
more firing implanted in the people's j
heart tkffn the saving force of an ar
ticyft the Constitution.”
JT" the Rejphstag of the North)
German Conference, in a speech
against abolishing the death penalty,
he said: “The opponents of the death
penalty exagerate the value of life in
this world of ours, anti the impor
tance of death. I can conceive how
capital punishment may appear har
der to those who do not believe in the
continuance of individual life after
physical diseaso than to those who
believe in the ironyortality of the souls'
granted to them by God.
“To him who does not bejieve as I
do, from the bottom of my heart, that
death is a transition from one exis
tence to another, and that we are
justified in holding out to the worst
of criminals the comforting assurance,
Mors janua vita:, I say that for him
who does not hold t at conviction,
the joys of his life must possess so
great a value that I could almost envy
him the sensations they procure to
him.” He was taunted on one occa
sion by an Ultramontane with the
sentiments delivered yi his speech in
1313. His reply was, “Whatever my
former opinion may have been when
applied to a profession of the living
Christian faith, I confess quite openly
to-day, and I do not flinch from mak
ing this public profession, in my own
house at any and every time, that it
is precisely my living, evangelical,
Christian faith which imposes on me
the obligation to protect in every way
the high office confided to me in the
country of my birth.”
The Chancellor was not a man who
did not, when necessary, consider and
and reconstruct the foundations of
his religious belief. In a speech al
ready quoted, in which he opnosed
marriage by the Sta e, but afterward
changed his views, he defended him
self in the following words: - T am
convinced that the State, in the situ
ation to which it has been brought by
the revolutionary conduct of the
Catholic bishops, is constrained by
the dictates of self-defence to enact
this law, in order to avert from his
Majesty’s subjects the evils with
which they are rnenacee by the bish
ops’ rebellion against the laws of the
Stale.”
lie has another form of faith which
has been to him a guiding star, that
neither changes place nor light, which
is his controling force when called
upon to choose the right—a never
failing support, ever attainable to the
struggling soul. Certainty is life and
impulse to the hero's heart. He must
j ground himself on moral certitude.
Creative activity is impossible if a
man’s convictions do not rest upon an
immovable basis. Luther’s life radi
ated from the first verse of the cxlviii.
Psalm, “Our God is a firm tower.”
It hardly need be stated again that
Prince Bismarck has nothing in him
or about him of the theo
logian; lie has not oven what could
be called a system of belief. His be
iiefs have a certain scrappiness; they
are not deductions, hut tools to he
used as exigency requires. His re
ligious life is a kind of help-seeking.
In a letter to his wife, September,
1863, this phase of his religiousness
appears. Speaking of the dissolution
of the Chambers lie says, “God knows
the good of it. By God’s help I am
well enough, but humble faith is
requisite in order not to dispair of
our country’s future.” In another
national trial he says, “I am animated
by an ever increasing thankfulness to
God for his support in the belief iltat
he knows how to turn even our mis
takes to good account. This I expe
rience dailv t;> my most salutary 1m-
milittion.” That his religion, as far
as it. goes, is personal and private, as
well .as public and intensely practical,
! will be understood from the fact that
! early in the morning after the battle
|of Sedan the Chancellor was sum
moned by General Eeil e to meet the
Emperor of the French. On a table
beside him close to his bed lay “Daily
Solutions and Instructive Texts of
Fraternal Congregation for 1870;”
on the fioor was another manual of
devotion, “Daily Refreshments for
Believing Christians.” His servant
said his master always read out of
these books before going to sleep.
In reply to the Socialist in 1878, he
said, “My position and honors would
be no inducement to live one day
longer did I not, as the poet says,
believe in God and a better future.”
In an after-dinner speech at the
Rothschild chateau, at Eerrieres,
September, I*7o, lie spoke of his faith
in giving him patience and power of
endurance in the ordeal of the French
war. “If I were not a Christian, I
would not continue to serve the king
another hour. Did I not obey my
God, and count on him, I should cer
tainly take no account of earthly
masters. I know not whence I should
derive my sense of duty if not from
God. Orders and titles have no
charms for me. I firmly believe in
a life after death. To my steadfast
faith alone do I ow’c the power of re
sisting all manner of absurdities,
which I displayed during the last ten
years. Deprive me of this faith, and
you rob me of my Fatherland. Were
I not a staunch Christian, did I not
stand on the miraculous basis of re
ligion, you would never have pos-_
HOMER, BANKS COUNTY, GEORGIA, WEDNESDAY. JULY 8, 1801.
sessed a federal Chancellor in my
person. Sever my connection with
God, and I am the man to pack up
my tranks to-morrow, and be off to
Varzin to reap my oats.”
Ilis views on tbe Sabbath question
are above the average German ideal.
“On the whole, I am by no means
opposed to keeping the Sabbath holy;
on the contrary, as a landed proprie
tor, I do what I can in this direction,
only I will not permit any compulsion
to he exercised over my people.
Every man must know how best to
prepare himself for another world.”
In Frankfort he remarked, “When
I was even less particular than I now
atn, we ate very plain food on Sun
days, and I never had the carriage
out on account of the servants.” One
Sunday, at Varzin, the Prince discov
ered a number of his peasants work
ing on Sunday. “What men are over
there?” he inquired of the bailiff.
“Our laborers, your highness,” was
the answer. “We cannot spare them
from our fields during the six days,
and so they are obliged to till their
own plots on Sundays.”
The Prince went home and wrote
to all his bailiffs and land stewarts
definite instructions that henceforth
the tillage of his laborers fields was
to precede his own, anil for the future
no work whatever was to be done on
his estates on Sunday.
Tho Chancellor reminds us of
Cromwell's application of religious
principles to all political and moral
exigencies, but the difference is that
Crom well looked on religion not only
as a helper in every time of need, but
as a source of daily enjoyment. It
was to the great British commoner
and soldier not only a fortress, hut a
song. He like David, was disposed
to make the statutes of the Lord his
songs in the house of his pilgrhjiago.
There lias been great mdefinite
ncss, if not unbelief, as to the relig
ious views and character of Prince
Bismarck, and we hope our labor in
culling and putting in consistent rola
lions these facts, uttered during the
responsible life of the Prince, may
give a higher and fuller estimate of
this great man, one of a century,
passing into life’s neglected sunset
ting. It is human to turn from a
setting to a rising sun. Men, however
great, must go into temporary ob
livion before rising to glory in history.
There must be an eclipse before the
final resurrection.—Presbyterian Ob
server.
Worhlliness.
The terms “world y” and “worldli
noss” are most difficult to define or
describe; they are too volatile to lo
cate, too diffuse to be precipitated to
a point,-too ethereal to materialize
into words. Worhlliness, like mala
ria, is a vapory, intangible, invisible
thing, hiding itself in the blood and
bones of our spiritual being, prostrat
ing and depraving ail its energies. It
cannot be seen by a feeble spiritual
light, nor felt save by a truly spiritual
nature. It doe; not come into view
in the simplicity and twilight of
patriarchal times. The legation of
Moses is not searching or luminous
enough and too nomadic to discover
it. It is the reigning sin of a high and
refined civilization, the giant hydra
evil of the Ncw r Testament. Jt is es
sentially a spiritual sin, mixing with
all spiritual acts, not arresting their
flow nor lessening their tide, but soil
ing their purity and perverting their
channel.
The world is the whole range of
good which belong to this earth and
which stir our desires, inflame our
passions, engage our efforts, win our
hearts, and cheek their progress to
God and heaven. Worldliness is the
looking at the things that are seen,
and letting them shut out or dim the
sight of the unseen and the eternal.
To lose our relish for heaven, to chill
our longings and check our sighs for
it, to stop oiir pilgrimage, and settle
down as citizens here, is to become
worldly.
The Xew Testament divides world
liness into three departments: The
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye,
- the pride of life. Lust means desire.
The world awakens and inflames the
festering corruption within, or stirs
by the lust of the eye. We look ‘and
desire, or we desire and look, and the
self-swellings of this world-principle
is seen in the silent or expressed
vnuntings of the things we possess or
or desire.
Mr. Wesley defines these thus:
“The desire of the flesh takes in all
the pleasures of sense, the gratifica
tion of any of the outward senses,
although more particularly of the
throe lower senses: tasting, smelling,
and foiling. It is a genteel sensuali
ty, such a elegant course of self
indulgence as does not disorder either
the head or the stomach. The lust
of the eye is seeking happiness in
gratifying the imagination by such
objects as are either grand or beauti
ful or uncommon. The pride of life,
the desire of honor, of the esteem,
admiration, and applause of men.”
The world charms us with most
engaging force, hut we will he delud
ed if we deem that our rejection of it
will cost us nothing but the loss of a
t eal or fancied present good. Hell has
no hate like tljo world rejected. This
beautiful, bright world, so attractive
and seemingly so innocent, awakens
the most inveterate and malignant
halo against those who dare reject its
proffered good or forswear its alle
giance; it pours its vials of fiery tribu
lations on their deveted heads.
The world to us is that phase of
these worldly affairs which binds us
to the earth. The world lies hidden
in every segment and atom of these.
One single phrase of it is enough to
engage our hearts and shut out heav
en. Its insidious and deadly ills do
not lie only in its inherent or offen
sive evil, but in its native charms. It
destroys us by the voice of a siren, it
shuts out heaven above by opening a
hea ’em below. It robs us of God by
nJA'i-P-r itself with the authority and
glory of a god. Our conversation,
our life, our desires must be in heav
en where Christ is, and he whose
heart is not alienated from earth is
worldly. This all-pervasive, al sur
rounding thing—this thing that lies
in such wondrous and beautiful folds
outside of us and against us, that gets
into us by a thousand pleasant am:
useful channels, is in tiie Bible called
Uie world. To love it is to hate God,
to he its friend is to be God’s enemy.
Its pleasures choke the divine seed,
its touch and contact defile, its lusts
are to bo denied, it is to he overcame
by the fierce conflict of a victorious
faith, it is to be crucified as the worst
of criminals. The Church knows
full well her enemies; it has tried
and classified thorn by the fiercest
struggles. They are rar gel: the
world, the flesh, and the devil. The
world is in the forefront; without the
world, the flesh would loose half of
its potency and filth; without the
world, the devil's occupation would
be gone. The world is fitst, foremost,
most enticing, most powerful.
The disease of worhiliness must
not bo confused with its symptoms.
Fatal mistakes are made here. Moral
diseases often have no alnrmidg symp
toms. Death frequently takes place
without notification; often his ap
proach is disguised by the slightest
symptoms. The dance may be a little
thing, but it is symptomatic; it is the
.adoptive hectic that looks to the uu-
Sff.llcd eye as the colorings of a rich
young life, but it is the -colorings of
death. Symptoms are to be weighed
and watched with care. I>y them we
name and locate the disease and
gauge its virulence. To neglect syrtip
toms betokens carelessness or igno
ranee; to mistake them is more seri
ous still. Worldly symptoms are so
various and so diversified—differ so
greatly in type and degree, that we
are easily confused by, and readily
mistake them; and, withal, the world
is so near us and every shade of our
being takes some of its colorings from
worldly hues, and these colorings
seem so natural aud fitted that their
very nearness and commonness cease
to offend or alarm. While these
symptoms are to be treated with the
disease, yet to expend solicitude and
skill in doctoring the symptoms and
leave the disease untouched, is quack
ery of the first degree. Many of the
symptoms are seen at a glance, but
others are so concealed as to almost
elude the most practiced eye.
This worldliness is a fearful disease;
our civilization reeks with it; it floats
in the atmosphere of every-dav life;
business by it is hardened and chang
ed from an instrument to an end,
stimulated to un,seemingly activity,
made engrossing and thoroughly
enrthened by the poisened exuvice of
the world. Religion by it has its
wings clipped, and never rises above
the mists and clouds of earth. Its
mortal form is seen in the gorgeous
ceremonials and dim religious light
of many Churches, v hile jt fastens
itself on the simpler service and
tamer Church ceremonies and makes
them the channel of a double death.
The disease of worldliness may lie
hidden in the dance, the theatre, in
money making, in rich dis
play, in mean display, in place seek
ing, fine houses, fine furniture, the
gratification of a worldly taste, in tin
hoard: dor vaunted, the vaulted or
invested treasures of the millionaire,
in the rags, hut, or meanness of the
beggar or the miser. It may l
found in the preacher, in the sermon,
in the pew, in the young, in the old.
We may have worldly views for our
children, worldly ways for running
the Church. The world may im
pregnate like salt our religious doings.
It finds its point of contact and
alliance in she manifold lust-roots
which we allow to re mailt—broken
perhaps, hut undestroyed—in our
hearts, serving the same disastrous
ends of tlio.se nations which the Jews
sinfully allowed to remain in frag
ments in Canaan, which served as
constant snares, the prolific sources
of weakness and apostasy.
But wherever found and with
whatever symptoms, it is death anj
only death. By us who are called
Methodists the world in all its forms
and phases is forsworn. A memor
able hour was that, and a memorable
oath! It rati thus: “Dost thou re
nounce the devil and all his works,
the vain pomp and glory of the world,
with nil covetous desires of the same,
and the carnal desires of the flesh,
so that thou wilt follow or be led by
them ? I renounce them all,” we
solemnly said in that solemn hour,
and the preacher and the people and
our own hearts, if true, said, “Amen;”
and Amen let i- be now and forever.
—Christian Advocate.
Rcllton.
Col. J. N. Coggins, our ex-repre
sentative, has been down on his farm
with a number of hands battling with
the grass. The colonel pulls the hoe
pretty lively himself.
Mr. Thomas J. Carter, and old gen
tleman of seventy-four years of age,
in this community, is suffereing very
much from a cancer on his ear. We
have been told that the cancer has
been coming on for seventeen years.
He has labored hard on the farm for
his living, and has trained up his chil
dren to work.
The people in this section are just
getting out of the grass. They have
worked hard for some weeks. The
cotton and grass come up together.
Crops look well considering, 'The
corn crop at present is fine. The
cotton looks well to be young, as the
most of it did not come up until after
the rains.
Mrs. James H. Huggins, of Lula, is
quite sick in Atlanta. Dr. C. C. Whel
chel, of Lula, has been down to see
her and pronounces her case a serious
one. John C. Smklley.
An Honest Dollar.
If there is any one thing, more than
all others, calculated to “make us
tired,” it is the eternal cant indulged
in by the boodlo politicians and the
monopolistic and subsidizes] press
about an “honest dollar.” If they
know what an honest dollar is then
may the Lord have mercy on their
poor shriveled souls. This cry for
an “honest dollar” originated at a
| time wheu the republic was struggling
for existence—when its best blood
SINGLE COPY THREE CENTS,
was being poured out on the altar of
liberty. It originated m the hearts of
men who were tenfold deeper dyed
traitors than the men who took up
arms against the government to do
battle for their cherished institutions,
their homes and their property. They
stood in the lobbies of congress and
boldly and arrogantly proclaimed
themselves usurers and axtortionists.
They boldly asserted their intention
to make money out of the Avar—to
speculate on the misfortunes
of the government and
the blood of its patriots. A million
patriots left home and family and all
they held dear in this life, and freely
offered up their blood upon their
country’s altar. On tented field, in
bivouac, ou weary march and sang n
nnry battle field, they freely offered
their lives. These brave, fearless
and patriotic men had a right to ex
pect their meager pay in “honest dol
lars.” Government was hound by all
moral and legal considerations to dis
charge its obligations to them “not
only according to the letter but the
spirit of the contract.” Then ap
peared on the scene the cormorants,
the traitors, the thieves and robbers,
assisted by the sycophants, dema
gogues, boodlers and blood-suckers,
and demanded of the nation “its
money or its life.” It was the grand
est ‘fliold up” or “stand and deliver”
in the annals of history. They came
with their “exception clause” and
created a “dishonest di liar.” They
purposely depreciated it, and then
through their bond system began to
gobble it up. The soldier took it
without murmuring, though it would
only buy half as much for his desti
tute family as the money of his con
tract. The widow received it thank
fully, although it was the price of her
husband’s life. The orphan gladly
accepted it as a substitute for llio
support of a father who had yielded
up his life that the nation might live.
The producer received it without
complaint, for the products of his la
bor. But the lecherous trators, the
fiends in human s.tapc, tlm ghouls of
perdition, who had purposely- depre
ciated it, spurned it with contempt.
They bought up this “dishon st dol
lar” at its depreciated value and ex
changed it for bonds at its face value.
They secured the payment of tho
interest on the bonds “in coin,” or
what they called an “honest dollar.”
The law creating the bonds made
them (the principal) payable in “law
ful money.” The law creating the
greenback or treasury note, proclaim
ed it “lawful money,” and on the back
of every note was printed this inscrip
tion: “This note is a legal tender
for all debts, public and private, ex
cept duties on imports and inteiest on
the public debt.”
Although the bondholder had ex
changed treasury notes which he
termed “dishonest money” for the
bonds, ho came again, after the war,
with the cry for a “honest dollar,”
repudiating the “dollar” he had paid
for the bonds, and demanded “coin”
for them. And, strange as it may
seem, congress, in 1809, turned over
what was left of the citadel of Ameri
can liberty to the bondholders, the
worst traitors that ever went unhung.
The whole, thing summed up in a nut
shell is this: The soldier who risked
his life in defense of his country was
promised 100 cents and received 50
cents. The capitalist who said to the
government, in the hour of peril,
“your money or your life” was prom
ised 50 cents ami is now receiving
130 cents. There is no other W'ay to
look at it. The records show' this to
he the fact. Men prate about the
“money of the contract” and charge
the reform movement with repudia
tion. We say without fear of success
ful contradiction that the labor organ
izations of to-day are making the
only plea for an equitable liquidation
of debts that has been made since the
war. We call to witness the millions
of freemen and command the leaders
of the republican and democratic
parties to stand up and answer to the
following indictments.
You have repudiated your contract
Continued on 4th pa ye.