The clergy are not now the political monitors of the community, as when, at the time of the Revolution, the election sermon preached in Boston, and printed in pamphlet form, was spelled by the light of the pine-knot in the cabin on the Berkshire plantation, inspiring the rustic breast with holy zeal to deliver the Israel of the New World from the yoke of the English Sennacherib. The newspaper has taken the place of the pulpit as a political beacon and guide, and, as every denomination and congregation includes members of both the prominent national parties, it would be impossible for a clergyman to indulge in even a distant partisan allusion without offending some one of his hearers. The clergyman is free, like any other citizen, to indicate his preferences and express his opinions in regard to public affairs, but the judicious pastor is not prone to use that freedom indiscreetly.
Although the preachers are no longer political leaders, there is, in the opinion of the writer, based upon what he has heard and read of the past, and observed of the present, a larger proportion of learned, talented, and eloquent men among the pastors who minister in the churches to-day, than in any generation gone by. The clergy are still pre-eminently the molders of education. The presidents and professors of leading universities are usually prominent in some evangelical sect, and this is probably owing to the fact that every seminary of higher knowledge is under the control of a branch of the Christian Church, whose influence is predominant in the faculty, and which regards the college as a filial institution, with traditions intertwined with its own. However skeptical or indifferent students may be to religion, they cannot fail to imbibe at least an esteem for the doctrines of the Saviour from the teachers who impart to them secular lessons. The impressions thus received by the plastic mind of youth are not likely to be ever wholly effaced. The man or the divinity we venerate at nineteen we instinctively bow to at forty.
The progress of the past thirty years has no doubt been due in an eminent degree to a sound and uniform currency. In the coming national election it will be decided whether that currency is to remain as it is—at the world's highest standard—or whether the mints of the United States are to be opened freely to the coinage of silver. Major William McKinley, one of the bravest soldiers of the Union army, and a statesman of recognized integrity and ability, is the candidate of the existing standard; the Hon. William J. Bryan, a brilliant young orator, is the candidate of free silver. The contest now opening is likely to be one of the most exciting the country has ever witnessed. Nothing could be more deplorable than for that contest to assume a sectional aspect, with West arrayed against East and East against West.
Come weal, come woe, this should and will remain a united country. The American nation is one people, and will remain one people. The destiny of one section is the destiny of all. North, East, West and South are traveling along a common highway toward a common future. Be that future one of prosperity or of calamity, all will share in it. Whatever the seed sown, whether of good or evil, all will reap the harvest, and it remains for all, therefore, to consider, as citizens of a common country, what shall the harvest be?
The American People.
No Classes Here—All Are Workers—Enormous Growth of Cities—Immigration —Civic Misgovernment—The Farming Population—Individuality and Self-reliance—Isolation Even in the Grave—The West—The South—The Negro—Little Reason to Fear for Our Country—American Reverence for Established Institutions.
In the Old World meaning of the term there are no classes of society here. There is no condition of life, however low, from which a man may not aspire and rise to the highest honors and the most enviable distinction, provided that he has the requisite natural endowments, favorable opportunities, and the ability and foresight to grasp them. The materials of which our American population is composed are various in origin and diverse in their ideas, their creeds, and their aims, but nevertheless full of vital force and energy, and with a less percentage of human weeds and refuse than any other nation on the globe. Nearly everybody is at work, from the manufacturer worth millions, to the tramp who earns his breakfast in the charity wood-yard. It is disreputable for any one in vigorous health and years, and even when of ample fortune, to be without employment, and for this reason rich young men frequently go through the form of admission to the bar, or of medical graduation, in order that it may not be said that they are unoccupied. The sons of wealth who ignore the industrious example of their sires are still too few in proportion to the multitude, and held in too general contempt, to more than irritate the social surface. The aristocracy of America is an aristocracy of workingmen—workingmen whose possessions are valued by the hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars, but still men who work.