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

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