Governor Butler, of Massachusetts, is the sensational Governor of these times. He turned his attention from the duties of his office long enough, recently, to remark that, “For thirty years both political parties have looked for their presidential candidates to four pivotal states—New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.” He thinks this explains Mr. Blaine’s failure to receive the nomination—he was from Maine; Mr. Hendricks is from Indiana. And then he goes on to give this as a reason why some men who aspire to the place will not reach it. As with a judge, Governor Butler’s conclusion may be right, but his reasons are not satisfactory. Our whole political system needs reconstructing, if his theory about electing presidents be true.
Many years ago a quaint old divine named Dr. Richards preached in Hanover, N. H. At a conference of ministers once held in that town each clergyman was called upon to give some of his more remarkable experiences. When Dr. Richards’s turn came he said that he had no experiences to give. “But,” said one, “you must have had a difficult congregation to preach to, composed as it is of the villagers, the faculty of Dartmouth College, and the students.” “Well,” said the doctor, “the fact is the villagers don’t know enough to make me afraid of them; as for the faculty, I know more than all of them; and in regard to the students, I don’t care a copper for any of them.”
One life, fertile in resources, consecrated to a good cause, may be a giant in the earth. Read this: “The Rev. William Taylor says, ‘I have sent to India, from America, within about six and a half years, fifty missionaries—thirty-six men and fourteen women. Besides these missionary workers, we have fifty-seven local preachers, of Indian birth, who support themselves, and preach almost daily in the churches and in the bazars. All these are backed up by over 2,040 lay members, who are workers also, and who pay the running expenses of the whole movement.’”
We complete the “Required Readings” for the C. L. S. C. for 1882-’83 in this number of The Chautauquan.
At the recent celebration of the one hundred and fifteenth anniversary of the Chamber of Commerce in New York, Rev. Dr. J. P. Newman replied to the toast “Commerce.” He referred to the present commercial relations between the United States and Mexico as a step toward the brotherhood of the races and the unification of the nations of the earth. He hailed the chamber of commerce as the new John the Baptist, inaugurating a wise commercial era and a higher morality. He hoped there would be more Christian merchants like Peter Cooper and Governor Morgan, and William E. Dodge. He said that American petroleum now lights up the Garden of Eden, the Acropolis, Jerusalem, and the Bosphorus, and that America is the light of the world.