Show THE TENDENCY TO LIBERTY A SHORT ti time me ago the queen regent of spain signed a decree conferring freedom upon all ail slaves remaining in cuba A gradual process of emancipation has been in in progress in that island for seventeen years a law having been established in 1869 looking to that end ten years later this law was superseded by another statute whose provisions were calculated to bring about the result result timed limed at more speedily but the genius of the age could not await the slow operation of even tue the second secona law and the negro race on the chief ot of the antilles has at a single stroke been made free undergoing an unparalleled oppression having their rights daily invaded 5 being made the victims of the most infamous capous political bc be hemes heines threatened with political serfdom or even a worse fate with a a prison staring thousands of their best men in the face and with hundreds of their families being torn asunder and disrupted so far as such a work can be accomplished by ferocious religious persecutors it may not seem true to many that the tendency of the age is in the direction of liberty but it ii is ia true nevertheless and at more and more frequent intervals events occur that indicate the fact when they are rightly viewed an able writer iu an n eastern journal says that the progress of liberty during the present century will not compare with the advancement that has been made sin on other departments of c civilization as industry invention etc eta while this way may be true it may aso also be said of the inhabitants of all the leading nations that the spi spirit of liberty never burned among them in any previous age with the fervor manifested during the last few years italy has thrown off the temporal control of the pope the german states have become united under a political system that gives them a higher and broader liberty than they ever knew before france is realizing her long dream of a republican torm form of government under which she is thriving in a pecuniary sense at least as she has not thrived for ages a boiling seething element in russia is making tremendous efforts to break the banda of power which hold that nation austria yearns lor apan a pan sela union that shall do for the kulavic races what the german states have doue done for themselves while old england us is being convulsed as not been for ages over a simple question of human liberty for ireland unfortunately the spirit of liberty or perhaps more properly speaking that instruct instinct or passion which impels pe 1 men to attempt to throw off a ru rule 1 they feel to be unjust is not belm being con tooled in a manner consistent birli with jus ace or the permanent welfare of the race in many nations in it is seeking to assert itself its methods are as wrongful wrongs ul as are those of the powers it contends against t or even more so in f fai ar too many instances it becomes debased and distorted into a theory of socialism and even anarchy anai chy but the fact remains that the race is struggling tor for that which it has never known and comprehends only in small part but which it vaguely calls li berLy the efforts of the oppressed classes of the world to throw off the yoke of tyranny are sudden and revolutionary this la is the antipodes of the natural growth crowth of everything it is therefore bound to produce anarchical conditions before the haven of freedom and peace is reached the goal will only be attained after the ner fiercest because the most gigantic struggle the world has ever witnessed sc cial and political storms are fomenting everywhere and tornadoes cyclones and whirl winds of human passion will carry car devastation in their path there is now in progress and will continue a struggle for the establishment of the principles that I 1 form what might be correct correctly lv termed the constitution of the moral universe of the almighty the contest is immense immen set both in point joint of intensity and scope it will involve the throwing down of empires the fall of nations and the breaking up of social fabrics the storm 1 is approaching 9 and is spent clouds are dispersed out of the former gloom w will ill shine a ne newer and better condition i 0 D in which justice and freedom th the e latter bounded enly by law that will guard with scrupulous rigidity against the attempts of any one man encroach encroaching hiag upon the domain of an others legitimate liberty will be supreme u under uder the creator |