THE TORCH OF REASON SILVERTON, OREGON. THURSDAY,
A stronom y Vs C h ris tia n ity .
JANUARY
1897.
church now had they the same power today they had then. I he
Inquisition would soon be re-established and our soil would be
-dved crim son by the Ijest blood of our laud, the le-u lt ot ignor­
ance and superstition.
.
Boor Bruno! After an im prisonm ent of two years in Rome,
h e was brought before his judges. Upon bis nobly and steadfast­
ly refusing to recant be was delivered over to the authorities, to
be punished without the shedding of blood, which was then the
For the Torch of Reason.
The star known as 6 1 Cvgni, is of the sixth m agnitude. Its
p arallax was determined in 1838 and is one third o f a second.
Its distance is, therefore, 55,000 miles further irom us than the
sun. W ith its companion?« it makes a revolution around its cen-
-
value of distance, take an im aginary standpoint on the sun, and his torm entors m ight destroy his body, his thoughts would still
suspend a sp id er’s web tw enty feet from your eye. This would live am ong men. he said to his judges:
obscure our earth by several hundred times the size ol its s u r­
“ Perhaps it is with greater fear that you pass sentence upon
face, as seen from the sun.
.
me than I receive i t . ”
The spectroscope shows th a t stars difler greatly m chemical
Hi.» sentence was carried into effect, and he was burned at
and physical constituents. This instr.im ent reveals to us the Rome, F ebruary 16, A I). 1600,—less than three hundred years
life and duration of a star, through the change and refrangibility ago. T hink of it. Parents,
read this to your children and
of the em itted light. This is the first step. There are other rays tell them the storv; it will do them good.
of light which have taken thousands and perhaps millions of
Any one reading Fox’s M artys here in C hristian Am erica, less
years to reach this earth
This teaches us that space is infinite. than two hundred years ago. can recall with sentim ents ot pity
Of this infinity it may be said th at the center is every where— its the suffirings of these countless m artyrs, who have been brought
boundary nowhere.
.
to the stake for their religious opinions. Many ot them have
But w hat m ust one think of the giant star Sirius, the brightest had a powerful support in their gross, fanatical belief
in the heavens.— which is six times further from us than A lpha th at thev were escaping from the cruelty of e ir th to
C entaurs,—and whose diam eter is 12,000,0001) (th a t o f our own the charity of heaven, even though their way was through the
earth, reinember, is only 25,000 m iles) and which is 1,375,000 dark valley and fiery flames. Many m artyrs believed that there
further from us than our sun.
was an invisible hand which would lead them , a friend who
Sirius, commonly called the d
star, is 20
g
would gently guide them thiough the terrors ot their m artyrdom .
our sun, gives off 200 times as much light and heat, yet has no U
bnrl n o s n e b s n n n o i t or consolation. He m ust tread the
m easurable diam eter. It travels at the rate of S4O miles per winepress alone.
m inute, carrying with it its retinue of worlds. And yet, 111 all
Is there not som ething noble and g randly inspiring in his a t­
our lives w eco u ld not discover that it had moved an inch, so to titude, when, standing before his judges in the gloomy hail, with
speak, in the sky. W hat m ust one think, in contem plating this no advocate, no accuser, no adviser, no witnesses, hut accused by
m agnitude of distance? 1 feel lost in the infinitude of space.
all; those holy officers, clad in their black robes, moving about;
But it is only by the aid of these com putations th at we beerin the rack and torm entors in the vaults below; he is told th at he
to appreciably sense the fallacy of the alm ost universal doctrine has brought upon him self incontrovertible suspicions of heresy,
of hum an destiny, th a t all things were m ade for m an, or th at because he had said th at there were other worlds than ours! He
man was made to have dom inion over all things.
will not and does not recant; he will not deny w hat he knows to
Suppose for one m om ent th a t you stood upon one of these fixed
be true.
stars, say C entaura, and could look down upon this e a rth ; vou
W hat a contrast between this exhibition of m anly honor and
would see it, not as it is now, but as it was five thousand years th at other scene which took place more than fifteen hundred
ago: Moses unborn; the shepherds of .Judea lying upon the hill­ years before, by the * fireside in the halls of C aiphas, the high
sides, watching their flocks; perchance, you would see Joseph, priest, “ when the cock crew and the Lord turned and looked
trading corn to his brethren in E gypt; and the great trees of C al­ upon P eter!” And vet it is upon Peter th at the church has
averas county, California, would be mere saplings.
founded her rig h t to tre a t Bruno as she did. “ \\ ill m ankind
Have these gigantic bodies— m yriads of which are placed at so ever become civilized?” as Pope asked in his Universal Prayer.
vast a distance from us th at we cannot perceive with the naked
‘‘Teach me to feel an o th er's woe,
eve__have thev no purpose other than th at assigned dy theo­
And hide the faults I see,
logians, “ t«> give light to man ?” Does not th eir enormous size
T hat mercy I to o th e rs show,
dem onstrate, th at, as they are the center of force, they m ust be
T hat mercy show to m e.”
the center of m otion, ami th at they are, therefore, suns of other
J . H . F is k .
system s of worlds?
When 1 think of our earth — a mere mote in the sunbeam —of
W o rsh ip .
w hat consequence can such a com paratively insignificant aggre­
gation of particles be? One m ight think it could be removed, or
The very idea of worship implies abasem ent of the worshipper,
even annihilated, and yet not even be missed from the universe. and is therefore, incom patible with the true dig n ity of m anhood.
More than a thousand million hum an m onads swarm the face of W orship is a relic of the past; a survival of savagery. Away in
this insignificant speck,—scarcely one of whom out of every the dim recesses of an tiq u ity , Iris and Osiris sat on the thrones
million will leave any trace of his existence; hence, I-ask. of of Egypt, and stam ped th eir worship on the granite m onum ents
what consequence is m an, his am bition, his pleasure, or his pain? of the Nile. Brahm a, Vishnu and Siva arose in In d ia and swayed
Giordano Bruno, born seven years after Copernicus published the destinies of the hum an race. M ajestic Jove and lovely Juno,
his work on the in finity of the universe and of worlds, col­ from the sum m it of Mt. Olym pus, flung the silver fetters th a t
lected for the use of astronom ers all the observations he could bound the intellect of polished Greece and m artial Rome. For
find respecting a new star that suddenly appeared in Caseipoa, untold ages, the gods have squatted like toads upon the
A. I). 1572, which increased in brilliancy u n til it surpassed all world an<l dwarfed the m inds of men. But each, in tu rn , have
other stars, and was plainly seen in the daytim e. Suddenly, No- joined “ that in n u m erab lecarav an th a t m arches to the pale realm s
'v e m b e r 11th, it was as bright as V enus at her brightest. The of shade, where each sh all take his cham ber in the silent halls of
following March it was of the first m agnitude. It exhibited va­ d eath .” To-day the C hristian Gods, Jehovah, Jesus, M ary, Satan
rious hues of color for a few m onths, then disappeared in March and the Bible are on trial. Shall they be found an exception to
15, i 5?4. But from whence it came, or w hither it went, no one all th a t have gone before? They are weighed and found w an t­
could tell. Its appearance, it coming and going, will perhaps ing, and they too m ust ‘‘fold their tents like Arabs and as silently
ever rem ain a m ystery. Several other brilliant stars have come steal aw ay.” And when the gods have all gone; have flitted
and gone in like m anlier, w ithout leaving a trace behind them . away like birds of the n ig h t before the daw n, been banished to
These stars to the astronom er are as atoms are to the chem ist—
the Siberia of Oblivion, w hat then? Man will still be here.
only relating to opposite extrem es of m atter.
A few years ago all these things were im perfectly know n; few Slowly struggling up from the m ephitic atm osphere of ignorance,
dare u tter them , even though they believed them ; the church the slim y pool of superstition, and the bloody morass of religion,
was the suprem e law, but occasionally there were noble spirits he will stand erect and cease to worship— even himself.
In th a t good time coming, m an will no longer kneel in the dust
born th a t stood erect and preached the tru th , in spite of the
church, in contem pt and defiance of death. Such a one was before heavenly ty ra n ts of Ilia own creation; but, em ancipated,
Bruno. He was intended for the priesthood, b u t was led into redeemed and disenthralled, will stand firmly upon the apex of
doubt by the doctrine of substantiation and the im m aculate con­ the world; woman, the queen of his heart, his equal, by his side;
ception. He did not conceal his opinions; he fell under the cen­ him self king of kings, lord of lords and god of gods.
H arry H oover .
sure of the church authorities, finding it necessary to seek refuge
in foreign lands, he sojourned successively in Sw itzerland,
The F athers laid down as a distinct proposition th a t pious
France, England aud G erm any; but the cold, keen-scented frauds were justifiable and even laudable; and if they had not
sleuth hounds of the Inquisition followed rem orselessly in his laid th is down, they would nevertheless have practised it as a
wake, and, bv a trick, prom ising him a position in the college at necessary consequence of their doctrine of exclusive salvation.
Venice, he was induced to return there, where he was arrested Im m ediately all ecclesiastical literatu re became tain ted with a
and confined in prison for six years, w ithout either books, papers spirit of the most unblushing m endacity. H eathenism was to he
or friends. On dem and of the spiritual authorities he was re com bated, and therefore prophesies of C hrist by O rpheus and the
moved to Rome and confined in prison by orders of the Inqui­ Sibyls were forged, lying wonders were m ultiplied, and ceaseless
sition, accused of not only being a heretic but a heresiarch, who calum nies were poured upon those who. like Ju lian , opposed the
had w ritten unseem ly things concerning religion. The special faith. Heretics were to be convinced, and therefore, in terp o la­
charge ag ain st him was th at he had taught the plurality ot tions of old w ritings or com plete forgeries were hab itu ally op­
worlds. My God! W hat a crime! Reader, are you not glad posed to the forged gospels.
th at vou did not live in those day*? We would all have been
L e c k y ’s H i s t , o f R a t i o n a l i s m .
burne 1 at the stake. I would not like to tru st my neck to the
iu u ii