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Show Americans Now And in The Past. In the Saturday Evening Post, Rebecca Harding Hard-ing Davis discusses "Religion in the Days of Our Fathers." She asks If the modern rich man is in the grain a finer gentleman at heart than was his father, and what is there to say of tho relations of the two men to their servants, their women folk, to their God? She tells of the hard lives of the old race, their devotion, some of their narrowness, and concludes that they were clean and true. We Should say this generation represents the reaction from the merciless requirements, the perpetual per-petual fear of the former one; that prohably the next generation will be an improvement on both. There will be none of the faith through fear that marked the last generation, much of the doubting and the scorn of the present generation will be put aside. As reasonable beings they will acknowledge ac-knowledge their dependence upon the Supreme Being, and the scoffing and blasphemy of the present pres-ent they will dismiss as vulgar and degrading to any who indulge ln.it. The most astonishing rec-1 rec-1 ord in history to us is that of the men who settle. New England air' peopled it 'for same two hundred hun-dred and thirty or forty years. No race that ever lived made more rapid advancement in learning, but the character of their worship knew so little change that almost none was perceptible. Sunday remained a day of terror; it was almost wicked for the birds to sing on Sunday morning; there "' were the forenoon and afternoon services, with sermons that ran from first to seventeenthly; the burden was that man was surcharged with original sin; that if he did not repent he would and ought to be damned; and, worse than all, that, try as hard as he might, unless it was foreordained that he should be saved, he would be cooked at last,' and it would serve him right. And tliat prevailed for more than, two hundred years. As to the effect on the race, doubtless It restrained re-strained many; certainly it made many hypocrites; hypo-crites; but we do not believe that the race was stronger or truer than the present on3. Restraints are taken from the present generation and thousands thou-sands have fortunes to spend where their fathers simply made a fight .for life from the cradle to the grave. This generation has more leisure, more ntoney to spend,, and it eats richer food than did the, fathers. A man worn out by a day's toil, and with only the simplest food for supper, thinks only of rest. Another man who has done nothing all day and who rises from a luxuriant, dinner.-which . was topped off with champagne, is naturally ready, if he has a bent that way, to make a night of it, Then the final revolt against the old tyranny and fear which. filled the souls of many cfmother, finds expression now in their sons. A reckless New Englauder is the most reckless scapegrace in the world. Still we believe the race is growing braver truer, stronger. The men of 1812 fought bbtter than those of 177G;, those of 1801 fought' tetter tet-ter than those of 1812; arid a call on the American people today, a call that would test to the utmost their self-sacrifice and courage, would meet with a glorious response. Fear and tyranny do not perfectly per-fectly develop a race. |