ISTew Series, "Vol. IV, ISTo. 3.
gramtra Jtoslnjtnm
THURSDAY JANUARY 17,1867.
OUR NEW DRESS.
For some months past, we have not been
satisfied with the external appearance of our
paper, and have been meditating a change,
which,' as our readers perceive, has at length
been accomplished. In order to secure a
clear and handsome impression from the
type, we have resorted to a different sort of
press from the one hitherto in use, and this
has necessitated a slight change in the form
of the paper. We have judged that a wider
column would be more agreeable to the eye.
This, with the handsome new type, and fine
white paper, places the American Presby
terian again in the front rank of news
papers—so far as externals are concerned.
As to internal character, that we are content
to leave to the judgment of our readers.
Next week, our subscribers who receive
their paper by mail will find a small label
pasted ou their paper, with the name\)f the
subscriber, and the time to which his sub
scription is paid, printed upon it. This will
facilitate the work of mailing, and will place
before the subscriber, every week, the exact
state of his account. The receipt of money
will be acknowledged by changing the figures
on the label, which will be equivalent to a for
mal receipt, and far better, as it cannot be
lost, but is renewed,from week to week.
HOW THEY PERISH 1
The startling computation has been made,
that there are in this city to-day, three hun
dred thousand souls who would sink to perdi
tion if summoned immediately to the bar of
(lod. So far as man can judge, this immense
number are without evidence of a change of
heart or of fitness for heaven.
We are all deeply interested in cases of
great physical suffering. The wounded and
dying soldier, oven oh the battle-field, can
generously turn the attention of the surgeon
from himself to a comrade moro needy or
more likely to be saved than he. The poor
and the suffering arouse our sympathies
and stir us up to efforts for their relief. A
great city visited by a devastating plague
moves us with the profoundest pity, and
philanthropy and skill exhaust themselves
in ministering to its dire necessities. Some
of these visitations form famous passages in
history. The plague of Athens called forth
all the powers of description of the great
historian, Thuevdides. Then one-fourth of
the citizens perished, including the great
statesman, Pericles, and his children. The
great plague in London, in 1665, is also
famous in history. One-third of the inhabi
tants of the city perished.- It is. indeed an
awful recital, and may well stir our sympa
thies.
But one-third of the population of Phila
delphia, nay, wo might say more than half of
that part of it which has reached the age of
accountability, is smitten with a more des
perate disease, and is hurrying on to a far
more dreadful doom. Not their bodies, but
their souls arc infected. They may go in
and out, and mingle in the ordinary affairs
of life, but it is a fact that one-third of this
vast busy population is plague-stricken, and
they are perishing forever every day. Is not
this a case for pity, for sympathy, for earnest
importunate prayer, for energetic effort?
Historians, indeed, make no record of it.
True, their writings are continual testimo
nies to the power and prevalence of sin in
the world. But they spend no eloquence in
expatiating upon the devastations ■of the
great destroyer in the soul of man. We
turn to the word of God, and there we see
the incarnate Son of God, the central point
of all history, expostulating with just such
a city, and weeping over its coming doom.
He, too, had a compassionate heart for all
the commoner sufferings of men, but it was
not disease or bodily suffering, or political
disaster that brought from the mysterious
depths of his nature those tears over Jerusa
lem; it was their obstinate, hopeless rejec
tion of himself.
But it is a small service to stir the feelings
and bring tears at such a solemn and dread
ful fact. The great question is, What can we
do to save them? What can the two
hundred thousand nominally converted per
sons of the city do for these perishing
masses? Why, if the love of Christ, and
PHILADELPHIA, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 1867.
the love of souls possesses us, cannot each
one of us think of, labour and pray for, at
least one of these perishing ones during the
year? Is not each true Christian good for
one sinner’s conversion in a year? Is not
this little .enough to expect from followers
of Christ; from those who have the promises
of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit on
their side? Yes, with us is the balm of
Gilead, and we know of the Great Physician
who can-heal these sin-stricken thousands,
and did we but use our powers, were we but
roused to a, reasonable degree of Christian
effort, were the Evangelical church in this
city but for one year fully herself, can we
doubt that the three hundred thousand would
be saved, and the city converted to Christ?
Were the three or four million, members of
our Evangelical churches in this country,
but for one year, wide awake, might not the
nation be practically won for Christ? And
who, then, is responsible for the slow pro
gress of his cause, and for the continued, ter
rible ravages of the .plague of sin ?
ONE THOUSAND CONDUCTORS AND
DRIVERS.
It is; proposed, at Harrisburg, to throw
open the (Sabbath to one of the largest,
noisiest arid most lucrative forms of traffic
carried on in our city. Every three or five
minutes, cars, capable of carrying thirty or
forty people, are to be allowed to drive at a
rapid rate through all our leading thorough
fares and in every part of the city. For
seventeen hours out of the sacred twenty
four, this work is to go on. Five hundred
cars, one thousand horses and one thousand
conductors and drivers, with many thousand
passengers, are to be exempt from laws in
force upon all other forms of business, except
those of necessity and charity, and from
laws, which, in every other part of the
State, will continue to forbid this business
also.
The gross inequality and unrighteousness
of such legislation is to.o_plain to need argu 7
tnefit.,'' We do not intend here to argue it.
But we put in our plea for the one thousand
conductors and drivers, who will be deprived
of that great defence against the exactions
of soulless corporations, that most powerful
friend of labor in its struggles with capital,
the Sabbath. They will be the helpless vic
tims of a mere greed of gain, which is.ut
terly reckless of God and nature’s ordi
nances requiring a suspension of man’s
activity, one day in seven. We know they
will be ruthlessly required to choose between
seven days’ labor and none at all. We know
that many, very many of them, not religious
men, but with conscientious scruples, as
well as with the natural cravings of a tired
body for rest, will reluctantly yield to the
pressure brought upon them and vrill sacri
fice their God-given right to liberty one day
in seven. We pity them. They will be
crushed under the heel of an unscrupulous
lust pf gain.
Workingmen are accustomed to combine
in order to protect themselves against the
exactions of capital during the week. Their
trades-unions are powerful, and if they unite,
they cannot fail to secure every reasonable
wish. We suggest to them that there is no
right of theirs so valuable, or so necessary
to their true elevation, as this of a Sabbath
exempt from labor. Hitherto, the laws of
the State have protected them amply in this
right. That the workingman is contem
plated in the laws instituted by William
Penn and the first legislators of the colony,
appears from the peculiar phraseology em
ployed. The law is declared to be “ for the
Ease of Creation,” and requires people to
“ abstain from common toil and labor.”
These laws, the ancient defence of the Penn
sylvania workingman, it is now proposed to
abrogate, and the beginning is to be made
in the part of the Commonwealth where
laborers are most numerous, the city of
Philadelphia.
True, only one class of laborers is struck
at in the proposed abrogation. And the
other classes, it is cunningly argued, will
have their own liberty enlarged and enjoy
ments increased by this sacrifice of conduc
tors and drivers. They are to ride about on
Sunday, while for their enjoyment, their
fellow-workmen stand at the reins and at
the door of the car all day long, just as on
other days of the week. It is supposed in
the argument, that workingmen are so su
premely selfish that they can be brought to
take a part in a systematic oppression of
any of their class. And it is also implied,
that they are so ignorant as nqt to see that
when once the Sabbath laws .are broken
down, upon any plea and for any class of
employments, the whole principle and pro
tecting influence of those laws,’are under
mined ; and at any time they may be abro
gated for some other class or for the whole
body of workingmen in the State*-
We call upon the workingmen'of this city
to rally to the defence of their Sabbath, and
to say, as one man, in the spifit of John
Quincy Adams, when once the . House of
Representatives was about to hold a Sunday
session :—“ This House has to
compel ine to stay here on the Sabbath day!”
Only thus will the workingmep of Ame
rica retain their remarkable pre-eminence for
thrift, comfort and intelligence, and for real
liberty over all the work people 'of the rest
of the world. V
WHERE SHALL WE BEGHT
In the great work of supply
of ministers, a question arises as toithe field of
labor whose necessities we should ©ndeaver
tosupply first. Perhaps there is ah order of
Providence which, carefully noted, may lead
us soonest to the full accomplishment 0 f our
wishes. There are old fields languishing;
there are important charges in feui: cities
vacant; there is a great and growing cry for
more laborers in the rapidly openiij’g. regions
of the West and the Pacific coast; and the
vast fields of work in foreign anc| heathen
countries are, in fact, partially abandoned
from lack of men.- The American Board,
needing over thirty new laborers 1 ast year,
could find but one to send to the h lathen.
Mr-. Barnes, in his admirable Missionary
Address on the first Monday of .he year,
which ought to have been heard by many
more than the seventeen laymen who were
present, made some remarks suggestive of.
the true way of relief from the exi|ting eth
barrassmentS of the Church on'
substantially, “ God * his ’
churches just in proportion as they take an
interest in the cause of Foreign Missions.
In proportion as the churches rise to the
great work, and send out their strong , educated
young men, God raises up others to take their
places."
It may be that we here have the secret for
which we are groping ; the key to the pro
blem, now so dark,' of an adequate supply of
ministers. Our withholding from the foreign
field may be the true secret of our poverty.
It may be that true Christian policy demands
that our attention should be turned first —
nay, for a time, almost exclusively—to the
foreign fields. Certainly that spirit of con
secration and of self-denial which is required
as a due preparation for the foreign work, is
the very best preparation for the work at
home. If we could, by divine aid, create
among our Christian young men an enthusi--
asm for the work anions the heathen, we
may be sure it would be attended with a
readiness for the work of the ministry in any
and all its aspects.
It might be policy, even, for many now
settled in the ministry at home, to break up
the pleasing domestic and pastoral ties which
they have formed, and to go abroad and give
themselves to the foreign work. That, many
will exclaim, is too perilous. Perilous it
would be indeed; but how do we know that
the neglect of the foreign field is not even
more perilous to the interests of Zion than
neglect of the home ?—and that God will not
judge the former more severely than the
latter fault, in his churches ? Evidently, the
church is more or less under a cloud as to
the supreme matter of the supply of the min
istry, and as yet we seem to have found no
way of deliverance. May God guide us into
His own providential way, difficult and mys
terious though it be.
THE WEEK OF PRAYER.
Our people entered heartily into the ser
vices of last week, and a deep and salutary
impression appears to have been left, though
not, in human judgment, equalling that of
last year. The large were well
filled, sometimes crowded. Numerous re
quests for prayer were handed in. Stirring
and tender addresses were made, and earnest
appeals went up to heaven. The warmest
feelings were stirred by the remembrance of
those godly and gifted men, who were both
with us in last year’s services for the last time
—Drs. Brainerd and Kennard. Frequent
reference was made to them by the speakers.
Our afflicted and suffering brother, George
H. Stuart, was affectionately remembered
in the prayers and remarks. No arrange
ments for a continuance of the meetings were
made.
OUR WASHINGTON LETTER.
The. week of prayer was well observed by
the Christian churches at the national Capi
tol. The noon meetings were held in the
Fourth Presbyterian Church, of which the
venerable Dr. J. C. Smith has been pastor
for more than a quarter of a century. Over
a hundred persons have been admitted to
this church during the past year as the fruits
of a powerful and uninterrupted work of
grace during that period. The union meet
ings in the evenings were held in various
churches throughout the city. A deep re
ligious feeling pervaded them all. The sub
jects assigned for each day were ably pre
sented. The voices of several members of
Congress were heard in prayer and exhorta
tion.
These meetings were held under the au
spices of the Young Men’s Christian Asso
ciation. This is now a live and energetic
body of five hundred members. Its influ
ence is felt through all our churches. It
supports a city missionary, sustains three
mission Sunday-schools, furnishes employ
ment to needy and deserving young men,
and supplies all who desire it with board in
religious families. It has an extensive field
of labor among the clerks in the various
departments of the Government. Its old
quarters on Seventh street are too small for
its accommodation. The members bade
them adieu a few evenings since by joining
hands and uniting in the song, “ Say,
brothers, will you meet us.” Their new
parlor, library and reading-rooms on Penn
sylvania avenue were dedicated on Saturday
night.
A paTty of men styling themselves “ the
Democracy,” celebrated Jackson’s birthday
by-a- supper, soifle speeches’," and <
ble liquor. Judging from the speeches the
liquors were served with the first course,
and all, true to the policy of the party,
drank “ early and often.” Andrew John
son, whose initials are the same as Andrew
Jackson’s, offered a toast, which all vocifer
ously applauded. Alexander the Great had
a wry neck. When he was at the height of
his power, it was no uncommon thing to see
men about the streets copying his deformity.
There are men who are quick to applaud
and proud to imitate the habits of the Presi
dent- Senator Saulsbury, of Maryland, is
such a one. During the discussion on the
recent veto message, he entered the Senate
chamber in a state of beastly intoxication.
Two messengers supported him to his desk.
He defaced the carpet and surrounding desks
with his tobacco juice, and addressed the
chair in incoherent sentences. The uneasi
ness of the Senators plainly showed that
they felt disgraced by his conduct. Scenes
like this detract largely from the dignity of
such a body. At last his friends induced
him to retire to the cloak-room, where he
remained until after the vote was taken.
So the veto lost his vote, and its author his
support. But he is not the only one who
brings reproach upon the American Senate
in this way. There are others, whose names
should be known and whose conduct should
be branded by the people. The Senate also
owe it to their good name to rid themselves
of such unmitigated pests. And let the
people hereafter, in selecting men for high
public stations, choose only those who are
pledged against all that can intoxicate. The
country has suffered enough, both at home
,and abroad, on account of the drunkenness
of its officials.
The Senate has done its part towards
adding two new States to our confederation,
viz: Colorado and Nebraska. But the fiou.se
of Representatives does not seem to be in a
hurry to change the number of stars on our
flag. The Senate is anxious that these pro
spective States should be represented in
their body, that they may have a majority
for any emergency.
No little interest has been manifested in
the selection of Senators from New York,
Pennsylvania, Missouri and Indiana. Expe
rienced men and fearless champions of free
dom have been chosen in every instance.
The result in the first two mentioned States
was hardly anticipated, and has given rise
rise to much speculation in regard to the
influence which the great railroad monopo-
Grenesee Evangelist, !N~o. 1078.
lies in those Sates exert in politics. The
annual patronage of the New York Central
is equal to that of the general Government
during any year of John Quincy Adam's
administration. If those interests secured
Roscoe Conkling his election, they alsd
secured to the country one of the clearest
heads and most ready debaters among the
sons of the Empire State.
The denizens of the capital are enjoying a
winter worthy of a more northern climate.
The frozen ground has received three cover
lids of snow, so that the face of mother earth
has not been seen for over two weeks.—
Skaters have enjoyed the “ poetry of motion"
to their heart’s content, while sleighs have
made the avenue musical with the “tintin
nabulation of the bells.” The skating park
has had its carnival; where Mother Goose,
Robin Hood, Jack, the Giant Killer, and a
dozen other personages, noted in nursury
rhymes, were represented in masquerade by
young men who were better acquainted with
these fictitious characters than those promi
nent in history. School boys, with their
sleds, have made Capitol Hill as slippery as
the Muscovite’s icy slope. The evergreen
trees in the parks look like Sibley tonts.
Washington, himself, dressed in tho - thin,
Grecian drapery which Greenough threw
around him, sits at the eastern front of the
Capitol covered with snow. General Jack
son, on his snorting charger, is enveloped in
an ermine mantle, while the snow-king has
ascended to the summit of the dome,
'* far above the hum
Of mighty workings;”
and made the goddess of freedom his queen,
by crowning her with a glittering coronet.
The snow-king now reigns where king cot
ton once ruled.
DEATH OF REV. FREDERICK STARR* JR.
We record with ho ordinary feelings the
death of this St. Louis pastor, which oc
curred in that city, January 9th, after a
brief illness; ‘ Among the clergy of our
Church'-in** mfiMle Jjfej'-scarcely any was
better known <3r more highly esteemod, or
more confided ih.tlian Mr. Stan*. None had
more thoroughly and heartily identified him
self with our denomination. Few contri
buted a larger share to the impulses leading
to its recent development to an independent
working condition. Especially was Mr.
Starr among the earliest to sec tho necessity
for denominational action in Home Missions
and to his earnest appeals is largely duo the
quickened consciousness of our Church-as to
its own great needs and duties on this field.
He is to be reckoned among our representa
tive men. The position he occupied in Bt.
Louis, the capital of a great State, recently
and dearly won to freedom, was one espe
cially demanding such a man, and it seemed
just the place for still further developing a
nature which had already shown itself capa
ble of large plans and noble enterprise for
the kingdom of Christ. A career of great
prospective usefulness in the West, seems thus
to have been broken off at its very com
mencement.
Reeognizing the will of the Supremely
"Wise, we bow to this stroke, in which a
whole Church unites its sorrow with that of
an afflicted family and large circle of friends,
especially in central New York. To them
we otfer our sympathy. We know that their
and our loss was his infinite gain.
TEMPERANCE MOVEMENTS.
We rejoice to learn that the recent deci
sion of the Court of Appeals, the highest
Court of New York State affirming the con
stitutionality of the Excise Law, has been
acted upon by the police of New York City,
and the temporary license to Sunday liquor
selling and midnight carousing, granted by
the remarkable decision of Judge Cardozo id
June last, has been brought to a prompt and
general conclusion. The Tribune of Monday
says:
“New York and Brooklyn were sober yes
terday. Thoroughly sober, for the the first
Sunday since June, 1866, when the injunc
tions of Judge Cardozo suspended the Excise
Law, and licensed 10,000 Rum-sellers to de
secrate the day. Of the hundreds of Sundays
that we remember in this city, but few have
been held sacred, and yesterday waa the
latest. The dazzling drinking palaces and
low saloons of Broadway, the beer, gardens
of the Bowery, the gin shops of the Five
Points, and the low den 6 of Water St., were
alike closed. The seal was set upon thou
sands of fountains of dissipation and disoiv
der. It was a day to be remembered; a day
that begins a golden era for the Metropolis."