p. 7 | Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Feb 11, 1904

Note and Comment

SIR OLIVER LODGE, a leader among English scientific men, in an article regarding the indifference of laymen to religion, contributed to an English journal, says that in England intelligent laymen are not indifferent to real religion, but that they are tired of, and therefore indifferent to, religious formalities. Church services which are largely of this character have come to be regarded as of very little account. Comparing them with the worship of heathenism, he says: “We jeer at the Tibetan water-worked praying wheel as a mechanical form of prayer; and yet I can imagine a peasant joyfully going on with his labor in the fields, in the consciousness that his prayer was being periodically turned up to heaven by the forces of nature, and his soul might send an aspiration after it, without interfering with the industry of the body. I doubt if such a ritual is really more mechanical than some English services that I have attended.” It is a form of godliness without the power, the husk of religion without the meat, that is making the people indifferent to religion. In all this is to be heard the call of a dying world for the third angel’s message.

THE annual report submitted to the commissioners of the District of Columbia regarding conditions in the District, shows that the use of cocaine “has taken a firm hold on the lower classes.” Two years ago, the report says, the drug was almost unknown here, but now wrecked lives due to its use are becoming apparent. The report calls attention to the fact that there is no way to restrict the sale of cocaine in the District, owing to a mere typographical error in the law governing its sale, which as it stands provides that the “name and quality” of the drug sold shall be registered by druggists, the word “quantity” having obviously been intended by the lawmakers, in the place of “quality.” Reports from different States show a great increase in cocaine using among the negroes in Virginia, Georgia, Maryland, New York, Michigan, and Indiana.

“A GOVERNMENT of the rich, for the rich, and by the rich,—is that what we are coming to in this nation?” inquires The Independent, having in mind a recent speech by President Hadley, of Yale University, in which he advised young men not to make politics their vocation, saying that the vocation of politics should be left to the rich. “It can not be supposed,” says The Independent, “that he advises young men to make politics an avocation rather than a vocation because he himself is satisfied with a rich man’s government. He can give such advice only because he believes that we have already gone so far on the wrong road that a poor man, trying to make politics a vocation, must encounter difficulties that he can not reasonably hope to surmount, save at the expense of his moral manhood.”

“We have entered upon a period,” The Independent admits, “when thousands of thoughtful men have drifted into an acceptance of plutocracy as a normal order of things.” Still it believes that the great majority of Americans still regard politics “as one of the most honorable careers to which any boy in the land, of whatever station in life, of wealth or poverty, should be able to aspire. To surrender this ideal,” it adds, “would be to surrender practically everything that the founders of our republic dreamed of, that the men who fought through the wars of the Revolution and the Rebellion offered their lives for.”

And now just this tremendous question is before the nation. Shall everything that the founders of our republic dreamed of be surrendered? If so, what is to be the history of this nation after that? Is the money power to control the government? or is plutocracy to be forced back from the position it has already gained in politics, and the love of money and the power of money be overcome by the forces of honesty and virtue?

“It is plain,” says The Independent, “that if we are . . . to save our nation from a government by the rich and for the rich—a government under which the plain people will have such privileges as the rich graciously concede—we must soon take steps to amend many things that at present are going wrong.” The only suggestion it has to offer, however, is that the salaries of men in public office should be increased to be commensurate with the expense pertaining to such office, so that poor men will not necessarily be debarred therefrom.

The Roman republic soon went down when it became a government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. Now this modern republic is at a place where just such a government seems to be the next development in its history; and well may its people ponder the pages of Roman history, and ask themselves whether history is about to repeat itself in the government with whose affairs their own life interests are concerned.

THE New York Times prints the following press dispatch containing a “startling statement” made a few days ago by a physician at a meeting of the Chicago Medical Society:—

“Drug treatment is useless in cases of pneumonia. The medical profession, so far as medicines are concerned, can be of no assistance in the fight against this disease. The sooner the profession will acknowledge this to the public, and set to work to discover some specific to save pneumonia patients, the better for all concerned.” This startling statement by Dr. Arthur D. Bevan, who stands high in the profession, stirred up the members of the Chicago Medical Society at their meeting to-day. Several physicians sprang to their feet to protest. All had to admit, however, that there is no definite remedy known, and they based their protests solely on the contention that they might influence the patient favorably by easing him somewhat, and by the moral effect of their presence.

The recent great increase of this very dangerous disease makes the discovery that drugs are powerless to combat it, a fact of much significance. It is strong testimony against the efficacy of drug treatment in all inflammatory diseases; while, on the other hand, the fact remains that water treatment in pneumonia and kindred diseases is highly effective. It is a good time to call public attention to the virtue of natural, God-given remedies for bodily ills.