EDITOR'S TABLE. THE END OF TWEED. His most vindictive foe could hardly have wished for William Marcy Tweed a severer retribution than he has suffered. To be driven suddenly down from the seat of almost absolute power that he had held so long in the chief city of the land; to be arraigned and imprisoned as a criminal; to be stripped of the vast wealth he had stolen; to escape from jail and live in hiding for an anxious year in a foreign land; to be recaptured and returned to prison, there to lie for many months in the city of which he was so long the proud imperator and there at length to die, -is not this fate hard enough to satisfy the most strenuous sense of justice? To have made his exit from the top of a lamp-post-the victim of a vigilance committee-was a doom that at one moment threatened him; but that would have been 'less terrible and less impressive than the penalty that he has suffered. Slowly, but surely, for almost seven years, the iron walls of destiny have been closing in upon this malefactor. In full view of all the world the well-earned wages of his sin have been paid over to him, one installment after another, till the account is settled, so far as human law can settle it. And as no one could wish this reckoning to be more sharp or summary, so no one who values righteousness can regret that it was not more merciful. The man deserved all that he has got, and it is well for the country and the world that he got so nearly what he deserved. It was hard for one living in New York in the spring of 1871 to hope that the rule of that famous Ring, which had so long dominated the city and the state, would soon be broken. So thoroughly intrenched was this iniquity; so many politicians of both parties were there who had reasons of their own for not wishing it to be disturbed; so helpless had the people become from the long disuse of their power, that one was thought sanguine who looked for the overthrow of the conspirators. But the "cohesive power of public plunder" is an inconstant force at best; and every such corrupt fabric is sure to crumble sooner or later. The downfall of this one has been more complete and overwhelming than any one could have predicted. Tweed's confederates are all suffering condign punishment; Sweeney and Connolly are fugitives and vagabonds in the earth, and poor Oakey Hall has sunk into the depths of infamy. Yet upon Tweed, as was just, the heaviest of the penalty has descended. He enjoyed the bad eminence of leadership in this villainy, and his ruin has been more conspicuous and signal than that of any of his associates. On the whole, honest people will be forced to own that the ways of Providence are very clear in all this matter. Complaints of Providence are often hasty; a little patience would make it plain that the universe is, after all, founded on justice, and that the "Power not ourselves" does "make for righteousness," though sometimes His movements seem slow. Doubtless some rogues do go unhung, and some honest folk never come by their own, but it is a mistake to say that this is the rule; it is the exception; in the long run, and for the most part, justice is done. Within seven years how many vulgar rascals have been brought to grief! It is only a little while since the eyes of young men were dazzled by the exploits of one Fisk in the financial world; but that career ended suddenly. Tweed dictated for a few years the politics of New York, and by his shameless robberies amassed a large fortune; but it was not, after all, worth while to stand where Tweed stood if one must fall as Tweed has fallen. The "last words" of Tweed ought to be treasured. They are characteristic and instructive. The newspapers report him as saying just before his end: "I have tried to do some good, if I have not had good luck. I am not afraid to die. I believe the guardian angels will protect me." A few moments later he roused and said: "I hope they [not, presumably, the guardian angels] will be satisfied now they have got me." He had tried to do a little good in the world. A little of the money he had stolen he had given to the poor. The most of it he had spent on his own lusts and ambitions; but he had, doubtless, sometimes helped a poor man. Such gifts were in part, sacrifices to Luck; for Tweed, like most coarse villains, had a vein of superstition in him. But it was not only the Fates that he thus thought to propitiate; the gods of the caucus were by such offerings most successfully entreated. There is not much evidence that Tweed's largesses were prompted by an unselfish desire to relieve suffer ing or to confer happiness. A man who had been his counsel said of him: "Tweed has never been popular on his own merits. When he was poor, before he entered public life, he never had any warm personal adherents. All the magnetism' they talk so much about was given him by the newspapers after he had acquired the habit of spending the public money." Yet he doubtless imagined that these small charities had covered the multitude of his sins. What was lacking in this respect he tried to make up by reading the Bible in the prison, three times every day, for a quarter of an hour. The Bible was a fetich; the reading was an incantation; that he ever made any application of its truth to his own moral condition is not likely. He would sometimes look up from the book and swear at his attendant, and then go on with his reading. Evidently he had got the idea that "good works" were not quite enough to save him; he must add a little devotion, and this he took in the form of Bible reading. Yet all this had nothing whatever to do with character. There is no record of any compunction on account of the enormous crimes of which he had been guilty. He had been the patron and the ally of the gamblers and the rumsellers and the brothel-keepers of New York, whose aid he had wanted in his political schemes; and thus he had done more than any other man to debauch the morals of the city. He had filled the courts and the municipal and the state legislatures with corruption and bribery. He had stolen millions of the people's money, and had taught others to steal,-thus by his robberies loading the city with a debt that cripples its prosperity and adds not a little weight to the burden that every poor man must carry. He had done more than any other man who ever lived in this country to defile the very sources of political power, and to undermine the foundations of our government. For all this he shows no contrition. His glib recital, during the last few months, of the part he has played in all this knavery indicates an utter lack of any sense of guilt or shame on account of it. And now when he stands in the presence of death he remembers that he has given to the poor a little of all this enormous booty, and that he has. read the Bible in his cell of late for three-quarters of an hour every day; and he thinks that though he has had hard luck he is a pretty good Christian, and believes that the guardian angels will take care of him! Is it not pitiful? There are many people besides Tweed who think that the "good-hearted" man who gives money to the poor, no matter how he got it, will have an abundant entrance into heaven when he dies. There are others who think the same thing about the rascally devotee who punctually goes through some kind of religious motions. All such people may be able to see, when their favorite notions are brought out into the bold relief which Tweed's example gives them, that a charity which is based upon fr: ud or greed, and a piety which is a substitute for integrity are not, after all, the best outfit for a traveler who is going away into the unknown future. THE HERESY OF PAGANISM. THERE is much nervousness in some quarters over the inroads of heresy. It is thought to be highly dangerous for men to suggest new explanations of the facts of the gospel history, even though they may give to these facts the heartiest credence. It is deemed almost a sin to discard the theories that good men of former times held concerning God and his government. And when attempts are made to show that the gospel of Christ is consistent with the ethical laws as we in these latter days understand them,-that it does not contradict, but confirms the first principles of morality,-great anxiety is felt by many excellent people. It seems to them that the very foundations of the great deep of theology are broken up, and that the bottom of things is dropping out. We will not, in this place, undertake to allay these apprehensions. But we beg to call the attention of our anxious friends to a type of `unbelief which sometimes escapes their notice, and which seems to us far more prevalent, and får more dangerous. The worst heresy with which the Christian churches of our time are affected is unadulterated Paganism. We worry a good deal about the Pagans that China is sending over to our western coast; but the most and the worst of our Pagans are native-born. Many of them have been baptized, and are constant worshipers in our Christian churches; but though nominal Christians they are as really Pagan as were the people to whom Paul preached on Mars Hill. The highest type of Paganism was that which Paul saw illustrated in Athens; and what was the basis of that Athenian culture? Esthetics, rather than ethics, was at the foundation of the Greek civilization. Taste and not morality was the supreme standard. That is the essence of the best Paganism. The Christian law is the law of love. Whoever puts the rules of art above the law of love is a Pagan. He who habitually seeks to gratify his own tastes, rather than to do good to all men as he has opportunity, is not a Christian but a Pagan. The church that in all its appointments and provisions for worship, and in the development of its social life, practically seeks æsthetic gratification more than the helpful service of the poor and the ignorant who dwell within the sight of its spire or the sound of its bell is not a true church of Christ. No matter how orthodox may be the doctrines taught from its pulpit; no matter how liberal may be the gifts of its members to missions in Africa; no matter how numerous may be the converts that flock to its altar; if the practical relation of the church to the people in its neighborhood who most need the gospel is one of isolation rather than of sympathy; if the prevalent sentiment of the church leads its members to ignore their poor neighbors, and to associate only with persons of culture-pleasing themselves in their social life instead of bearing the infirmities of the weak, then the religion of this church is Paganism, and it has no right to the Christian name. We do not say that most of the churches of Christ in this country are essentially Pagan. The contrary is true. Most of them, we believe, remember who Christ was, and what the law of His kingdom is. But a great many of them are wholly given over to this false religion; and there are strong elements in many others that tend the same way. And the dangers that threaten our churches from this quarter are much more serious than those which grow out of new interpretations of doctrine. Really it must be that Paganism is a little worse than Sabellianism or Bushnellism or even than Universalism. For a man who sets aside and contemns the fundamental law of Christ's religion; for a church that professes to own him and yet ignores, practically, the very people with whom he has so solemnly identified himself in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, some solicitude may well be felt. There has been a good deal of discussion, of late, about what kind of punishment it is that those are threatened with, who, in the parable just referred to, are found on the left hand. Would it not be worth while to give a little attention to the question what kind of people those are against whom this punishment is threatened? By the inroads of this Paganism our churches have been greatly unfitted for the work that now awaits them-the most urgent work of the hour. The insurrection of the International and the Commune against the existing order of things can only be quelled by putting Christianity in practice. It is because the existing order of things is very far from being ruled by the Christian law that this revolt has arisen. In a thoroughly Christianized society no such thing could occur. And the feeble and uncertain way in which the Christian church has wrought to secure a complete identification of feeling and interest among all the classes of the community, is the fault with which it has chiefly to reproach itself. Some one has said that there is no warrant for affirming that Christianity is a failure, because it has never been tried. That is a good mot but an incorrect statement. Christianity has been tried, more than once, and it has not failed. Where society has been founded upon the Christian law of love, and has approximated in its development to that standard its order has been firm and its life has been fruitful. There are churches that try to fulfill the law of Christ in the administration of their worship and in their social life, and they are prosperous and powerful churches. If there were more of them just now the country would be safer and better off. But Paganism is a failure. To that all history bears witness. It always will be a failure. To baptize it with the Christian name will not save it. And the people and the churches that are "pleasing themselves" with their religion would do well to be inquiring what their religion is. THE FLORIDA FRAUDS. IT is getting to be a serious question how far people are to be believed who accuse themselves of crime. The chairman of the Florida Returning Board has confessed that he was party to a fraud in counting the votes at the last presidential election; and he now makes affidavit that the electoral vote of Florida, which rightfully belonged to Mr. Tilden, was wickedly given to Hayes. This gentleman seems to have consented to this crime because he felt that the good of the country demanded it; the good of the country in his view depending on his securing a government office. If Mr. Hayes were elected the office would be secured and the country would be safe. But as he did not obtain the desired office he has concluded that the country is in peril; and he has therefore thought fit to confess the share that he had in giving Mr. Hayes the presidency. contest. Of course scoffers will say that a man who would perjure himself about the returns would lie now for a consideration; but that argument need not be urged. It is entirely possible that this gentleman may be telling the truth when he now says that he forswore himself a year and a half ago. Indeed this intelligence, though late, is not at all startling to some of us. That there was fraud-a great deal of it-in the operations of the Returning Boards of Florida and Louisiana, was evident enough long since to all candid persons. But these were not the only frauds perpetrated in that election. Perhaps the Republicans rather out-counted the Democrats; the Honorable Mr. McLin seems to think that they did; but the Democrats were by no means distanced in the And what they lacked in fraudulent counting they probably made up in violence. When the gentleman from Florida gives it as his honest opinion that Mr. Hayes was not entitled to the electoral vote of his state at the last election, he will, perhaps, expect those who credit his statements to allow that Mr. Tilden was entitled to that vote. But that by no means follows. The probable truth is that Mr. Tilden was no better entitled to the vote of that state than Mr. Hayes was; and that there were other states whose electoral vote was given to Mr. Tilden, of which the same thing is true. The election was vitiated in several states by fraud and intimidation. In a considerable portion of the country the will of the voters was not fairly expressed. And it would be difficult for a perfectly unprejudiced judge to determine which of the two candidates had the better moral right to the office. When, therefore, it is demanded that Mr. Hayes shall resign because his title to the presidency is tainted with fraud, the question arises whether anybody else has a better title. Doubtless the irregularity of the process by which he was put in power has greatly distressed him as it has distressed all patriotic citizens. But the last election was, in fact, no election. Who was rightfully the President it was impossible to determine. Somebody must be invested with the office. And the Congress at length agreed upon a plan by which the matter should be settled. By that plan Mr. Hayes was designated. His legal right to the office is as good as the National Legislature and the Supreme Court can make it. His moral right is as good as that of Mr. Tilden, and better than that of anybody else. Not only is it legally impossible to go back of the settlement of the matter made by Congress, it would be impossible, if that were done, to prove that any one else has a better moral right to the office than the man who now holds it. But all this shows how serious a crisis we have reached in our national life. The last presiden tial election was, in fact, a revolution. Several ter. elections in the South and not a few in the large cities of the North have been of the same characWhen the sovereign is deposed and his power is usurped by another we call it a revolution. In our government the people are sovereign; and, more than once, by intimidation and fraud, demagogues have taken the power from them. When, by force, voters are prevented from voting, the sovereign is deposed; there is a revolution. When, by fraud, the votes of the people are miscounted, and that which is not their will is proclaimed to be their will, the sovereign is robbed of his power; it is a revolution. Happily the revolution of 1876 was brought to a peaceful end. The two parties in the Congress of the nation, after much angry controversy, conIcluded not to fight and made a treaty. It is devoutly to be hoped that future troubles may be composed in the same way. But it is not the ordinary course of revolutions. The sword is the usual arbiter of such disputes. There could not be a better time than Sunday afternoon to think this matter over. It is a serious matter. Things are going on smoothly, just now; but it is not pleasant to think that the ship of state has just been through a storm that came so near wrecking her, and that she must sail for four years with a jury-rudder. It is a great mercy, to be sure, that we were able in the storm to get even a jury-rudder rigged; but we cannot help having some apprehensions, hereafter, as to the sea-worthiness of the vessel. The fact is that casualties of this kind are likely to occur in our government so long as the mental and moral condition of voters is what it now is in a large part of the Republic. So long as there are several whole states in which more than twothirds of the voters are wholly illiterate; so long as it is true that forty per cent. of the voters of the Southern states are unable to read; so long as vast masses of the population of our northern cities are in the same condition, we may expect frequent revolutionary proceedings like those of the last presidential election. There is only one radical cure for such disorders and that is Christian education. The spelling-book and the New Testament are the sovereign remedy. And the confession of the Florida frauds is another loud call upon all who love the nation to gird themselves for the work of carrying the light into the dark places of the land. 46 OUR readers have seen some of the verses of the two little Berkshire girls, Elaine and Dora Goodale. Only the strongest assurance from those who know them best, that these children are living a perfectly free and healthy life, could enable us to read their productions without pain. This assurance we do not lack. "Their lives," writes one who has the best means of knowing, are as simple, natural and healthful as it is possible for children's lives to be-the peculiar isolation of their mountain home greatly favoring it. Nothing approaching a forcing system is pursued in regard to their studies, which are carried on at home, though they are fairly well advanced... Their essays and verses are all written for their little monthly home paper. All is done in a purely voluntary way, at odd intervals between study and housework and outdoor play, nothing being ever suggested by their parents; and when copies have been taken from these papers for publication they have never been altered in the slightest." It is possible that some of their early poems may be brought together within the year for publication in a volume enti tled, "Apple Blossoms: Two Children's Verses." The spirited lyric, "All Round the Year," by Elaine Goodale in the February number, will be recalled, and the dainty bit of verse which we print in this number, was written by Dora in June, 1876, when she was nine years old. MRS. LOVITT's story of "One Summer's Work," told in the May number, has called forth grateful and enthusiastic responses. It is not, happily, the only work of this kind that has been done in the land. The Young Men's Christian Union of Boston offers a "Country Week," to needy and worthy adults and children selected with great care from the missions and schools of Boston. This "week in the country" has been extended of late to ten days, and the beneficiaries have been sent to various country places in the vicinity of Boston. In 1875 one hundred and sixty persons were sent away; in 1876, just twice that number; and in 1877 no less than eight hundred and sixty-one different persons, of whom fifty-five only were adults, enjoyed a country vacation through the agency of this society. Of these, two hundred and seventy-one were entertained without expense; the board of the remainder was paid in full or in part by the society, costing, for six thousand and eighteen days' board, $2,228.70 The work in Boston is done, as Mrs. Lovitt urges that it should not be done, by organization; but it seems to be pretty well done, and the reports, both from those who sent out the children and those who received them are full of enthusiasm. But if organization does not necessarily "take the heart out" of such a work there is, as Mrs. Lovitt truly says, some danger that it will; and at any rate, it must not be forgotten that the Brooklyn experiment has proved organization to be unnecessary. Here is the recipe: "Find so many children, and so many places in the country. Mark them off against one another. Take the children out, be good to them, and bring them back safely. Repeat as many times as you can." THE Young Men's Christian Association of New York really seems to be a Young Men's Christian Association. Its management remains in the hands of young men, and the grizzled veterans who frequently usurp the offices of these associations are kept in the back seats. What is more important, its work is concentrated upon young men. It is just what it pretends to be. It is not a Prison Association, nor a City Missionary Society, nor a General Agency for the Conduct of the Churches and the Evangelization of the Universe. It sticks to its own work and does it. It helps young men to find boarding places; it forms classes of them for the study of Bookkeeping, Phonography, Music and so forth; it furnishes them a fine gymnasium, and opens to them a delightful reading-room; it arranges for them good courses of lectures; it aids them in getting employment, and it works in various intelligent ways for their spiritual welfare. The result of this policy of looking after the young men and omitting to undertake the general supervision of the kingdom of heaven, is that this Association lives and thrives, while many others that have spread themselves all over the field of the world have come to naught. THE Watchman tells the story of a poor woman near Boston who was sick unto death with an internal tumor, whose husband was out of work, and for whom it seemed to be necessary to provide some comfortable place where she might Her have constant care and medical treatment. husband has never paid taxes in the town in which she was living, so the Overseers of the Poor could do nothing for her; the State Almshouse in Tewksbury would receive her, but she was too ill to be carried so far. The attempt was therefore made to find a hospital in Boston at which she could be cared for. And this is the result: "1. At the Massachusetts General Hospital the case could not be received because it was not one which the surgeon could benefit. "2. At the Carney Hospital there was no room and no money. "3. At the New England Hospital for women and children, the case was rejected for the same reason that had been assigned at the Massachusetts General Hospital. The surgeon visited the woman, however, but could do nothing for her, deciding that an operation must be fatal. "4. At the Boston City Hospital the woman could not be received because she had no claim on the city of Boston. "5. At Dr. Cullis's Home there was no provision for any except consumptives. "6. At the Little Sisters of the Poor no patients under sixty years of age are received, and the woman was not sufficiently old. "7. The East Brookline Street Home was found to be for young children and consumptives only. "8. The Channing Home is for consumptives only. incurable chronic cases are admitted. “10. After visiting all these places in vain, the lady was in despair. But learning from a Romish clergyman living near her of a hospital under the charge of the Sisters of Charity, known as St. Elizabeth's Hospital, she decided to make one more effort. She was met at once with the cheerful words, 'She can come.' Thus ended the weary search of days." Of course, as the Watchman says, there were good reasons for not receiving this poor woman in all these cases. But it is rather humiliating that the only hospital in Boston where no one is refused who is sick and in want, is under the charge of Roman Catholics. If some of the money which has been spent in building gorgeous churches had been devoted to the building of such a hospital, perhaps pure and undefiled religion would have prospered quite as well. By the way, it would seem that the Watchman, in telling this story, might have omitted that contemptuous epithet "Romish." Its reference in |