SEWAGE AT THE SEA-SIDE. 625 



The great end of these corporations is to establish and maintain 

 sea-side resorts ; that is to say, to sell and lease lots and to build houses. 

 To provide a market and secure competition, conventions of various 

 kinds meet at these ample grounds, occupy the commodious buildings, 

 and transact their legitimate business. It is all done in the name of 

 religion, and may or may not be in fact and in spirit harmonious with 

 the most exalted standard of Christian methods, according to the out- 

 look from which the subject is viewed. If we take Ocean Grove as 

 the type of such places, it is not, after all, so great a marvel that it 

 has grown from a desolate sand-bank to a beautiful city within the 

 last twelve years, when we consider the whole case. With missionary 

 conventions, Sunday-school anniversaries, temperance assemblies, and 

 camp-meetings, drawing upon an immense constituency in all parts of 

 the country, and bringing thousands of visitors to the spot, with fair 

 opportunities for investing money with a good hope of speedy return, 

 it is not surprising that investments were made. Then, every laud- 

 able thing was done to rekindle and keep alive denominational pride 

 and loyalty. The lakes that bound the Grove on the north and south 

 are named for Wesley and Fletcher, while the avenues and parks are 

 known by the names of departed worthies, whose memory is revered 

 by the Church ; and then, to complete the programme of attractions, 

 the annual camp-meeting, occurring in the height of the holiday season, 

 is made the central, the pivotal figure around which all the others are 

 grouped. It has been a success as a venture to establish a sea-side 

 resort ; whether it has been a success as a means of intensifying and 

 purifying the religious life of the people is as yet a problem without 

 a solution. The time is past when even the common mind measures 

 the depth of human character, and gives it credit or not for truth and 

 righteousness, by the amount of religious fervor or the degree of re- 

 ligious profession it may exhibit. To be acceptable to common sense, 

 and appreciated by right-minded people, the manhood must show 

 itself moved to all good activities by a force from within that is in- 

 vincible a force, in itself silent and unobserved, but in its effect on 

 character demonstrative in a life of goodness. 



-*- 



SEWAGE AT THE SEA-SIDE. 



By ALICE HYNEMAN EHINE. 



A MONG the thousands who go to the sea-side for health and 

 ~L\. pleasure, few pay any attention to the hygienic conditions under 

 which they are to live for three of the most trying months in the year. 

 The furniture of parlors and size of dancing-rooms and amusement- 

 halls are taken into consideration, instead of finding out how sewage 



VOL. xxii. 40 



