ASSIMILATION AND REPULSION.
By L. N. Stratton
Nature's laws are so arranged that certain elements spontaneously unite by reason of inherent affinities. Not only is this true of matter, but also of mind. Spiritual elements in this world are abundant, and naturally attract their affinities. Human hearts are, in pride, ambition, love of praise and wealth, quite similar, and tend toward each other on that common ground. The religion of Jesus is a contrary element, and is a natural repellent of whatsoever things are of evil, crime, and sin. Heat repels cold, and light repels darkness, no more certainly than the religion of Jesus repels and drives sin away. They can no more occupy the same heart at the same time, than a fluid and a solid, or fire and frost, or light and darkness, can occupy the same space at the same time. Jesus was so named because he came to “save his people from their sins;” and clean hearts were contemplated by the grand plan of salvation which the holy Christ came down from Heaven to establish. It was not contemplated to assimilate them to the world, but to separate them from its unsatisfying revelry. Wealth, honors, and human happiness, were to be sacrificed to it, and all things earthly, which would interfere with its thorough working, must be repelled. But alas, that there should remain in human hearts an unconquered, unsubdued element, which naturally assimilates to the fatal ambitions of this fallen race. It is seen in the leaning of Christians toward this ungodly world. The Agricultural Fairs of counties and States are closed for this year. On many of the handbills and posters of these exhibitions, we have seen the proffers to try the speed of horses for a citizens' purse of from $100 to $1,000, and sometimes the “citizens' purse” is mentioned as a “premium.” Of course it is nothing less nor more than horse racing under the auspices of a County or State Fair. In the first place, such rapid racing is not the normal condition of the horse. Horses are made for service and labor, and are seldom needed to travel at such a rapid rate. Therefore, the payment of such large premiums for what is not normal and necessary, and the payment of small ones for other qualifications of horse flesh, bears injustice on its face. Then, in the second place, on the ground that fairs are right, a man who invents some labor-saving machine worth millions of money to the world, for his nightly study and daily toil, receives a picture, a book, or a few dollars, not to exceed ten, while a ruffian, whose only property is in a horse, and whose only business is to sit around in a bar room, smoke, drink, and swear, and train his horse, corrupt the morals of the youth, disturb religious meetings, and constantly act as one of the consumers instead of a producer for society, receives the honors and surplus proceeds of that institution into which so many “Christian people” (?) pay their funds. Proceeding upon the assumption that the exhibition of agricultural implements and products under such restrictions as to benefit parties interested in such pursuits, are right, we have, many years ago, witnessed dark corruptions, and have spoken against them. But, in the third place, these popular races under the sanction of Agricultural Fairs, are attended by hundreds of church members, male and female, who would be ashamed to attend a common horse race; and yet, in no essential do the races, under the patronage of the Fair, differ from the races on any course on the Continent.—L. N. Stratton, in Earnest Christian.