OUR AMERICAN LETTER

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXV, Issue 7862, 18 May 1886, Page 2

OUR AMERICAN LETTER

[from our own correspondent.] Keokuk, lowa, U.S.A., April 3,1886. THE LENTEN SEASON. Daily the church bells ring the people out to devotional services throughout our entire country. I mentioned a barbaric custom practised in Washington, that brought so short a time for Miss. Kate Bayard between dissipation and the grave. The beauties, garish in the nocturnal splendour of gas and electric lamps a few weeks ago, now dwell in a dim religious light. As by magic the Prayer-book takes the place of the fan. Bosoms lovely, and only moderately so, that were out upon the social highways in vagrant and concupiscent exposure then, are now, by a mandate of usage, strictly impounded in the close, virtuous environment of highnecked dresses. Ladies, fagged out and worn by the exacting service of the world, the flesh, and the devil, for a winter long, now devoutly consecrate the enfeebled remainder of their strength and spirit to a perfunctory worship of Almighty God. A census of them would show a surprising number of matrons and young ladies bowing in deep humility before the altar, who have an intense, though unavowed, conviction that the Lord must be immensely flattered by their condescension. The spectacle is one that can only be adequately dealt with by the majestic greatness, eloquence and gravity of a Bosquet, a Fenelon, or a Bourdal. The greatness of the Church, the majesty of Christ's kingdom, the power of Christianity, has many witnesses and evidences. Probably the weeping Magdalen is not more a witness and proof of its mighty influence in the world than are the dancing Herodiases that now worship and dance alike in perfect obedience to the behests of fashion, and apportion the winter season to a strictcode of becoming frivolousness or depravity at one time, and of becoming piety at another. How great is the vitality, how pervading the spirit, how resistless the life of that religion which can at once compel and survive such adherents and such service ! “ Nazarene, thou hast conquered! ” Not only the fierceness of barbarism, the casuistries of the schools, the learning of philosophers, the might of princes, the cunning of State craft, the resistance of autocratic power, and the resources of Empires—not only has He conquered these. But rejecting, as he did, from hie work and his mission, his sympathy and his kingdom, womankind with the majestic renunciation, " Woman, what have I to do with thee ?” ’tis fine to observe a whole procession of reclad nudes hastening along with the best and noblest of their sisters from the parlour to the Church from which Christ made the sweeping rejection of women, even in the person of his own mother. " Nazarene, thou hast conquered!” And the Church and the Kingdom survive her frivolity, and are maintained by her piety. The greatness of Great Britain is a tremendous factor in one thousand years of history, past and present. Its drum beat, following the path of the sun about the globe, fired the thought of Webster as it measured the might and the omnipresence of an Empire that puts its outposts upon the farthest seas. But a mightier force, a more majestic spectacle, is that young Gallileean carpenter, barely 33 years of age, praying in unnattended loneliness in the Garden of Gethsemane, and now to hear in every zone and land, on continent and isles of the sea the world round, everywhere the air vibrant with the church bells of five hundred millions of people—men and women who worship in His temples, live in His faith, and die in. His hope. That is the most tremendous and inspiring spectacle in the history of our common humanity. AN EARLY SPRING. The winter has gone. The enow and ice have already disappeared from the belt from which I write. There are abundant reassuring prospects of an early spring and an early seeding time. Wheat-sowing in March is not an unusual thing for lowa. Late springs nearly always account for crop failure of small grains. Early spring and early seeding give time to mature before the heat of July and Augast. Our farmers are buoyant, and are going totheir work full of hope, from the assuring promise that their labour will not be in vain. SHIP RAILWAY SCHEME. There are before the American Congress two schemes for the promotion of commerce across the isthmus of Panama. One is a canal at Tehuantepec, and the other is a ship railway, that proposes to pick up a loaded vessel out of the water, set her upon trucks, and transport her across the country, and set her in water upon the other side. The Committee to whom this last scheme was referred have submitted a report, from which I will condense. They say that there is a present necessity for the construction of a transit way for ships across the American isthmus, and submits that the Government should bolster this scheme by giving a guarantee that for 15 years the revenue from the completed railway shall be £750,000 per annum. That is, if the net earnings of the line in any year of the first 15 fall short of .£730,000, the United States will make good two-thirds of the deficit, and Mexico will assure the other third. The Committee are of the opinion that [the road would net that sum from the start, and therefore the guarantee would .cost nothing. But whatever it mio-ht advance would be a loan, and not a gift, the loan to be payable in fifteen years, secured by certificates receivable inpayment of tolls on American vessels. It provides, also, that the liability of the Government shall not attach until the railway, with its terminal works, has been completed and equipped, nor until the Company has safely transported,ftom ocean to ocean, a vessel weighing, with her load, not less than 4000 tons. This scheme looks very innocent indeed, bub there is reason to suspect that it is pretty much of a Trojan horse. Once get the Government com-

mitted by the passage of this Bill, there ! would be no great difficulty in obtaining supplementary legislation and direct advances of money from the public treasury. De Lesseps has gone to the Government of France for help in his Panama project-—so would Eads go to his Government for help if encouraged by the passage of this Bill. THE COMMON SCHOOL BILL. There is a Common School Bill before the Senate that is stirring up much discussion upon its relation to an old-time doctrine of the Democratic party—State rights. The moss-back Senators, like the dismantled hulks of a primeval navy, moored in a stagnant sea, having their anchors grounded in the mudbanks of antiquity, are much worried at the persistency and obstinacy in the presentation of this particular measure. They want it to pass, but how to do it and preserve their consistency ? If they vote for the Bill they will stultify their indurated consciences and all their previous record. If they vote against the Bill they will offend their constituencies, which make or unmake Which ever way they turn, they find { themselves between the devil and the deep sea. The Bill proposes to appropriate from the National Treasury the sum of .£7,400,000, in annual instalments, increasing from .£1,400,000 to and then decreasing to £1,000,000, doting a period of eight years. Such money shall annually be divided among and paid out in the several States and territories in that proportion which the whole number of persons in each who, being of the age of ten years and over, cannot read.or write, bears to the whole number of such persona in the country. It is well known that under the rule tha bulk of the appropriation will go to the Southern States, where the dark -picture / shown in "Bricks Without Straw” ispos- / sible. Hence it is amusing andinstracting'' to see men hesitate and haggle over such, an opportunity. One distinguished Senator from the South announces his departure from the ancient faith thus: “My ideas have undergone a change since the yrax. I fought and bled for State sovereignty, but I see differently now. I know it is a bitter pill to swallow. I shall vote for tbi* Bill. I think that the measure will pass. There is no serious objection to it, inasmuch as the Government has an enormous surplus, and does not really know what to do with it. Eock-rooted' Bourbonism is .upon the final stage of old age and non-age.” LOBS OP THE OREGON. The iron steamer Oregon, of the Canard Line, from Liverpool, collided with an unknown schooner, on March 14, off Fire Island, near the entrance of New York Bay, and in eight hours sank in 132 feet of water.; The Oregon carried 896 passengers, a fullcargo, and 600 bags of mail matter. Her I passengers and crew, with 60 bags of mails, I were saved. Nothing has been seen' or I heard of the colliding schooner; even her I name is unknown. Some surmise that she I went to the bottom instantly. The Oregon I was a Glasgow-built steamer; one of the I largest, finest and swiftest in the .world. I Her cost was .£250,000; her cargo and the I private baggage of the passengers will I make the total loss about JE600,000. The I depth of the water and roughness of the I sea will prevent any attempt to raise her. I There is so much mystery connected with I the disaster that the theory is advanced ! that the cause may be either a sunken I wreck or dynamite. I MISCELLANEOUS. I Archbishop Tasohereau, of Quebec, and I Archbishop Gibbons, of Baltimore, will be I appointed Cardinals of the Roman Catholic I Church in America, at the approaching I consistory at Borne. I The report of the Canadian Minister of I Finance, just submitted to the Dominion I Parliament, shows that the J the Canadian public debt is <£s6,2oQsu(l~! A robbery, one of the most dalring in I history, was committed on one of ttte' rail-1 way trunk lines out of Chicago, on ( March I 13. The robbers entered the express de- I partment of the train while in motion; I murdered the messenger, by catting hisl throat from ear to ear; took .£SOOO in I money, and left the train without leaving I the faintest clue by which to trace them. I One of the Board of Aldermen of the I city of New York, was arrested, on March.lß, ! and has confessed to having received a bribe I of £4OOO for his vote in favour of granting! right-of-way and charter for a railway. ■ He implicates a number of others, and! there is a good prospect for a sifting into I the State Prison. ■ Polygamous Mormonism in Utah is being! ground fine. George Q. Cannon, ex-1 member of Congress, and prominent church! leader, who was arrested a few weeks ago,! tried to escape by jumping frdm the railway! train, in which attempt a broken nose and! injured leg made his re-capture easy. Ha! was taken before the judge, was released! on .£SOOO bail, which he has forfeited by! going to Mexico and failing to appear. ! The Chinese Minister, at Washington,! has revived interest in his people, and! directed public attention to the treaties! between the United States and China, and! their bearing upon the recent and massacre at Eock Springs,-Wyoming,! and mob violence in Oregon and Washing-! ton. A Bill is now before the American! Congress, appropriating a sum of with which to pay the damages, as easiest way .out of a dilemma. The Bill pass. ! A vigorous attempt will he made to peal our commercial, treaty with Sandwich Islands, which, if successful, open its market to New Zealand. is your Mr Creighton ? He seems to left San Francisco. ! The Rev Samuel Jones, an is holding a series of meetings in He preaches twice a day every day of week, holding a vast crowd of from 7000 8000 persons from the beginning to end of his discourses. His sermons published in the daily papers, and men, lawyers, and common people, them and talk about them. They are cussed in parlours, at the dinner and even in the saloons. The Bev Jones is not a ranter; he is not a humbug! He does not preach Jones, but in the foreground the great truths fill his heart and control his life. believes what he says, and is lull of subject. He is a master of apothegms, coiner of words, and strikes off sayings easily as possible. He human nature, and can see through as though inspired. He holds fast the old lines of righteousness, and startles thq easy-going agnostics Chicago by his bold realism and pictures men and women as they really are. He making many utterly ashamed of poor, mean lives. To critical people he a puzzle. He calls things by their names. He talks to the common people their own language, and they hear gladly. All the Protestant E Churches are interested, and will large gains. The trans-continental railway lines engaged in the interesting game, of ing each other. Pools and are broken, and the people have not competition, but war. The passenger from New York to San Francisco is .£3, with a rebate of £2 at San and a corresponding rate from San cisco to New York. Freights are 30 fiat, all classes, each way. Business booming, but likely to be settled minute, though it will never go back to old figure. General business is improving, prices coming up, wages are advancing; closed factories, machine shops, and mills are now re-opened, and running time; spring stocks are moving, our chants are hopeful, and our farmers getting ready to pat in a full crop. ' • It is reported that 3000 babies entered for a recent international show in Paris.