The two most polished, and advanced, and educated, and Representative natious of the world have not got beyond the natives of Daheifcey. Or rather, having acquired the no^ns of justice aud right, having gained intellectual and scientific and literary advancement, being in the very van ,of civilization and education, they have deliberately fallen back upon barbarism in its' very worst aspect—-bar-
barism, that is, without the excuse of ignorance and moral and intellectual darkness. These things wjll have one frightful effect : they will make the .educated world cynical. There will be a temptation to deny the reality of right if its obligations are so very practically abandoned by those who know them best. European, or, as it is called, Christian, character cannot go through the present distress without being sensibly, it may bo permanently and essentially, deteriorated by these political crimes. It is not therefore, the murderous. couflicts, loss of life, the sickening diaries of the surgeon, or the more revolting iusolence of the war chroniclers, who jocularly describe the bursting shell as a "puff, puff," and who knock off a cannonade in the baby gabble of "boom, boom," — it is not these things alone which are horrible, but the moral consequences of such a war on civilization. Is human progress an illusion ? Have we exchanged one barbarism for another, and the present barbarism tbe very worst, because mixed up with so ir.uch of what is advance aud refinement and the higher development of man? Or is it the old devil which has returned, bringing with him seven devils — intellectual, educated, philosophical, scientific, and artistic devils ? — Saturday Review.
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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 9, 11 January 1871, Page 4
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268Untitled Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 9, 11 January 1871, Page 4
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