T H E TORCH OF REASON, S IL V E R T O N , O R EG O N , TH U R SD A Y , A P R IL 15, 1897.
The Licensed Preacher.
BY “ OLD M ORTALITY.’ ’
Mv L ittle Ones— My poor old
heart is very sad today, m ade so
bv the late eastern papers which
inform m e th a t never in the h is­
tory of the world has there been
such a w ide-spread interest taken
in religious m atters as now.
One paper states th a t Moses is a
m yth, an d th a t the story of Jo n a h
is a wild-goose n arrativ e not wor­
th y of Baron M unchausen.
A New Y ork divine tells his
flock th a t the H oly Bible is a com ­
pilation of dream s, m iracles, ghost,
witch and v u lg ar stories quite
unfit for a refined person to read.
These th in g s m ake me sad, for
w hat will the harvest be when all
men and women become interested
enough to stu d y religious history
for the purpose of the inform ation
they m ay derive from it. My lit­
tle ones, w arn your parents against
such a step.
D uring a series of serm ons in the
P lym oth church a t B rooklyn, N.
Y., Rev. L ym an Abbott som ew hat
astonished the ign o rant and illiter­
ate of his congregation by affirm ­
ing th a t some of the books of the
Bible m ight properly be regarded
as mere works of fiction.
Rev. H en ry W ard Beecher, would
you have died could you have
know n th a t such words as these
would have been u ttered in your
dear old p u lp it in th is the declin­
ing years of th e 19th cen tu ry ?
Should the few intelligent men
th a t now’ occupy the pulpit of
A m erica conclude to tell all they
know about the Jew Bible, w hat
would the harv est he a t the birth
of the ‘2 0th century?
Then, again, suppose all of our
20,000 editors of new spapers and
m agazines should publish w hat
they know’ about the Bible and the
m illions of falsehoods th a t are
hourly told by m any sky pilots in
order to keep it from being flung
into the rubbish-pile along with
th e thousands of o th er m yths
and su p erstitions of a by-gone time.
Should these editors tell the facts
in the case, 1 reiterate, w hat would
the h arv est be? Echo answers:
W hy every one of you would have
to vacate yo u r pulpits and earn
your bread and salt by the labor of
your now* over-soft hands. And
your Joss houses, churches and
tem ples would soon be transform ed
into tem ples of learn ing and sci­
ence; th a t’s w hat the harvest would
be.
To cast us 113,000 sky pilots out
into th is practical and every-day
world W’ould be a most h u m iliatin g
tra n sa c tio n — a fate th a t few of us
could endure, owing to the fact th a t
our business h as been not of this
earlh. It is to be hoped th a t coun­
try editors can be boycotted into
silence for a few’ m ore years, or un-
til we sh all have learned how to
saw wood. W ealthy city editors
are independent and outspoken—
they cannot be frightened into s i­
lence. The poor crossroad editor
would starve stone dead if it
were not for a soup bone given him
now and then by some ch aritab le
person—to keep these well in h an d
is now’ the duty of the “cloth.”
But w hat will the harvest be when
these men grow strong and in d e­
pendent enough to tell of the m ill­
ions of lives th a t have been sacri­
ficed, and the rivers of blood th at
have run down and reddened the
sea, in order to sustain our now-
tottering cause?
Even prayer is being assailed by
some of these independent city pa­
pers. They say prayer is of pagan
origin and th a t there has never
been a prayer answ ered, and per­
haps there never will be. Some
city m inisters have even now’ be­
come quite asham ed of th is re­
ligious exercise and do not offer up
prayers in th eir pulpits. How a s­
tonishing! W hat will the harvest
be if these things continue?
O thers have been telling you th a t
God m ade th is ea rth 6000 years
ago in six days of tw enty-four hours
each, and on the seventh d ay ’ feel­
ing som ewhat fatigued (it m ust
have been h a rd work for him to
build this world in so short a tim e
and do the job out of nothing) he
sat down and took a rest.
Yes, they have been tellin g you
of these w onderful perform ances
and you have paid them well for
so doing; but now’ along comes an
honest geologist who has dug down
to the ancient and beautiful city of
N ipur th a t was builded more than
9000 years ago.
My dear congregation, I am sorry
for you and your children th a t you
have been forced to accept as facts
the m any false teachings of my
brother sky pilots, for in fact this
earth was not created 6000 years
ago in the space of six days, but
has taken m illion upon m illion of
years in its slow form ation.
To tell you the unvarnished tru th
is som ething I delight in, for should
I do otherw ise you would not come
nigh this tabernacle, though you
love to he hoodw inked, hum bugged,
hoodooed, bamboozzled, buncoed,
brow-beaten, frightened and lied
out of your cash, and there are
those who intend to go on, and on,
lying to you old m en, women and
children, ju s t so long as they can
keep the school teacher and the in ­
telligent and independent editor
aw ay from you and you have a
copper left in your purse to pay for
the innocent little fairy tales, snake,
whale, l>ear and witch stories and
other trash th a t is kept constantly
in stock, an d ever on ta p for your
special endarkenm ent.
But brothers there is a tim e has­
tening h itherw ard when they can­
not pull the wool over your eyes,
nor will they lie able to draw the
Continued on e ig h th page.
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By Rev. E . IL K e en s.............................................................................................
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