The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 72, October, 1863 by Various
page 52 of 295 (17%)
page 52 of 295 (17%)
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the alternative,--to stagnate in a lifeless church, or to join these
ravers in their breakneck leap at the Millennium." "There is a noble element in this one-sided pertinacity," I suggested, "and a wise man might humor and use it for the best ends. Instead of attempting to pull these hopeful people back into the church, cannot you urge the church forward to comprehend their position? This impulse,--fanatical as some of its manifestations doubtless are,--might it not be constrained, or at least directed?" "Never by me!" exclaimed Clifton, haughtily. "I should have to commit myself to all the wild Saturnalia of their moralities before it would be possible to acquire any power over them." "But surely you might go as far as any one in the advocacy of Temperance." "Temperance! Why, you forget that I must denounce Temperance as the deadliest of sins, and proclaim Abstinence to be the only virtue. There is a grand State Convention of Progressive Gladiators at present in session in Foxden; all the neighboring towns have sent delegates. Well, it was only yesterday afternoon that Stellato, in behalf of one of the committees, denounced the clergy of New England as gross flesh-eaters who had made themselves incapable of perceiving any spiritual truth. And I happen to know that Mrs. Romulus so successfully manipulated Chepunic, not a hundred miles up the river, that before leaving that town she publicly delivered her lecture entitled, 'Marriage a Barbarism,' and professed to have discovered something far higher and holier than the chain of wedlock." |
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