During half a century we have been moving nearer and nearer to a suffrage all but universal, and we have, during the same period, been growing more corrupt. The undisguised frauds at elections, the open accusations of bribery in legislative assemblies, the accusations of corruption connected with still higher offices--of these we read daily in the public prints. And these accusations are not disproved. They are generally believed. It is clear, therefore, that something more effectual than universal manhood suffrage is needed to stem the torrent. And it is simply ridiculous to suppose that womanhood suffrage can effect the same task. Who can believe that where men, in their own natural field, have partially failed to preserve a healthful political atmosphere, an honest political practice, that women, so much less experienced, physically so much more feeble, so excitable, so liable to be misled by fancy, by feeling, are likely, in a position foreign to their nature, not only to stand upright themselves, but, like Atlas of old, to bear the weight of the whole political world on their shoulders--like Hercules, to cleanse the Augean stables of the political coursers--to do, in short, all that man has failed to do? No; it is, alas! only too clear that something more than the ballot-box, whether in male or female hands, is needed here. And it is the same in social life. The public prints, under a free press, must always hold up a tolerably faithful mirror to the society about them. The picture it displays is no better in social life than in political life. We say the mirror is tolerably faithful, since there are heights of virtue and depths of sin alike unreflected by the daily press. The very purest and the very foulest elements of earthly existence are left out of the picture. But the general view can scarcely fail to be tolerably correct. Take, then, the sketch of social life as it appears in some half dozen of the most popular prints from week to week. You will be sure to find the better features grievously blended with others fearfully distorted by evil. There are blots black as pitch in that picture. There are forms, more fiend-like than human, photographed on those sheets of paper. Crimes of worse than brutal violence, savage cruelty, crimes of treachery and cowardly cunning and conspiracy, breach of trust, tyrannical extortion, groveling intemperance, sensuality gross and shameless--the heart sickens at the record of a week's crime! It is a record from which the Christian woman often turns aside appalled. Human nature can read no lessons of humility more powerful than those contained in the newspapers of the day. They preach what may be called home truths with most tremendous force. From this record of daily crime it is only too clear that universal suffrage has had no power to purify the society in which we live. If no worse, we can not claim to be better than other nations, under a different political rule.
This admission becomes the more painful when we reflect that in America this full freedom of fundamental institutions, this relief from all needless shackles, is combined with a well-developed system of intellectual education. We are an absolutely free nation. We are, on the whole, and to a certain point, intellectually, an educated nation.
Yet vice and crime exist among us to an extent that is utterly disgraceful. It is evident, therefore, that universal manhood suffrage, even when combined with general education, is still insufficient for the task of purifying either social or political life. The theoretical infidel philosopher may wonder at this fact. Not so the Christian.
Great intellectual activity, and the abuse of that power for evil purposes, are a spectacle only too common in this world. Look at the present condition of the most civilized nations. Of all generations that have lived on earth, our own is assuredly the most enlightened, in an intellectual sense; mental culture has never been so generally diffused as it is to-day, nor has it ever achieved so many conquests as within the last half century; and yet mark how comparatively little has this wonderful intellectual progress accomplished in the noble work of improving the moral condition of the most enlightened countries. To the mind humbled by Christian doctrine, living in the light of a holy faith, these facts, though unspeakably painful, can not cause surprise. We are prepared for them. We have already learned that no mere legislative enactment and no mere intellectual training can suffice to purify the human heart thoroughly. An element much more powerful than mental culture is needed for that great work. For this work light from on high is sent. A thorough MORAL EDUCATION is required, and the highest form of that education can be reached in one way only--by walking in the plain path of obedience to the will of the Creator, as revealed in Holy Scripture. We must turn, not to Plato and Aristotle, but to inspired Prophet and Apostle. We must open our hearts to the spirit of the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount.
We must go to Sinai and to Calvary, and humbly, on bended knee, receive the sublime lessons to be learned there.
