Image provided by: Silverton Country Historical Society; Silverton, OR
About Torch of reason. (Silverton, Oregon) 1896-1903 | View Entire Issue (May 6, 1897)
Torch of Reason T jie O nly S ecvlak P a per P u b l ish e d on t h e P a c ific C oamt . P u b lish ed W eekly by the Oregon State Secular Union. J. E. HOSMER, P. W. GEER, - - - - - - E ditor M anager E ntered at th e postoftice at Silverton, Oregon, as second class mail m atter. SUBSCRIPTION RATES. One Year, in advance.......... ....f l M Six M onths, in a d v a n c e ..................................... •"> T hree M onths, in a d v a n c e • ■............... 25 In Club« of •> o r m ore one year, in edvance. . <5 Money »hould be sent by registered le tte r or m oney order. . . . . Plea«e send us the name« and ad Jreseee of Sec ularist« who are not teg u lar snbHcribere. THURSDAY, MAY 6, E. M. 297 Help xNeeded. On account of our adoption of the ethical basis and on account ol our being very particular,especially in regard to our lecturers it might be supposed by some that we have no love or sympathy for our poor brothers and sisters who are en gaged in practices and advocating doctrines which we consider very detrimental to mankind, but this is not true and we hope that no one will judge us as the orthodox god judges people when they dis please him. But while we have sympathy for all and while the object of our organization is to make it possible for all to get closer to the truth and learn how to live, it has become very apparent to those who have the success of our work most at heart that the very existence of organized work de pended on whether we defined our position on the most important moral questions of the day or not,and this made it absolutely necessary for us to take a stand on high ground, and, although sometime in the future our ideas of morality may change, yet today we could not reach out a helping hand to the fallen or help save the young and virtuous from falling, if we were ourselves in the gutter of corruption, and before we had nothing to show that we were not; so it is very im portant that we stand for what the majority of the Secularists in this state believe to be right and our lecturers must he of the very best timber obtainable. Now if the people who have been fighting for years against super stition and other great mistakes of our race, have the good sense that we.believe they possess they will all join hands, and well may the or thodox ghost tremble in his boots. Many are sending us word that they approve the action of the con vention and we hope that all who believe that we should “hew to the line’’ will stand up and be counted. At present we want several lecturers hut none need apply unless they are free from superstition and moral corruption. Neither do we wish aspirants to think it is a very difficult thing to become a worker for us. Young men ami young women, here is a grand chance if you are free, and if you wish to help liberate the slaves you see all around you. Come ami visit us and we will help you. After you have passed the examination for a lecturer you will he required to write a lecture which will he an easy task, for you can weave into your own best thoughts the best thoughts of the noble philosophers of the past and present, and, after- having your work approved by the hoard, you can start out, deliver your lecture in the different cities and towns of the state, help to or ganize churches and Sunday schools and scatter our literature. We can not promise you a large salary at first, hut we will see to it that you make a good living and if you do right you will receive a permanent position ami he doing much good. Come and see us it you can or write and tell us what you can do for our great cause. W h y Do You W a it, Dear B ro th er? Secular friends, in order to send you a good lecturer and wake up your whole neighborhood ami or ganize a fine, progressive Secular church ami Sunday school, much work has to he done. We know that much inonev and energy have been practically thrown away in the past, hut in tlm starting of any great work it seems almost necessarv for this to be tin* case before the workers learn how to work. We are now on the right track and if every one takes hold it will not be long before we will have an army of active workers in the field. The first thing to do is to get our stronghold here at Silverton firmly established and well fortified. Now’ bring the best shovel or pick at your com mand and “lend a hand.” If you can’t give money, do something. Don’t wait for others, for others may be waiting for you and if you do something it may induce others to take hold and thus lead right up to success. There are a few who are doing just all they can do, and the work is sure to succeed, hut we want to see as much done as we possibly can before Mother Nature calls us to rest, and so we should not wait for one another. Don’t be afraid of doing too much, for,as soon as our University build ing is up and furnished, we must immediately commence planing our industrial department and sani tarium. Our library must be second to none and our telescopes and other apparatus for obtaining knowledge must be the best. You see the field is ready, the workers coming, and, although it may take years of work to do all these things, it will be pleasant work for us if we love the great and grand principles of Secularism that philosophers and sages of all ages have toiled to unfold to the world. One W orld a t a Tim e. ization? Is belief in Jesus one? Which came first, progress or the doctrine of immortality? Ah! many people who never heard of Jesus aud many who would have listened to the story of immortality as we would listen to a ghost story have lived and prospered—a happy, contented, refined, moral people; hut the doctrines of Secularism are inseparable from progress and happiness. Can any one point to a happy progressive people either of ancient or modern times and say that they have not practiced the religion of humanity? Just to the extent that any people practice the principles of fraternal love and are free to think each one for himself— free from the priest and prophet— just to that extent are they happy and progressive; but when priests are given power, and their work of scattering seeds of mysteries, and mummeries, of falsehoods and miracles hears fruit then fears and persecutions and creeds and hate spring up and degeneration sets in. This life is all anyone knows any thing about and if we are true to ourselves and our fellow’ men, we will do what we can w’hile we have the opportunity. Now is the time to be happy! Now is the time to be good! Now’ is the time to work! If there is a place to which an immortal part of men and women go after they die and if they enjoy indescribable happiness there throughout eternity, we have no objections whatever, hut, as there is not one thing in all the sermons of holy men and doctrines of holy books that proves to our minds that there is such a place, we would be doing very wrong to say that we believe in a future life. Some think that their great desire for heaven proves that there is some thing beyond; hut their desire does not prove it, for, if what is taught in our schools in regard to the Brahmins is true, the majority of the people of the world desire eternal forgetfulness, and thus we see the desire proves nothing. If we had been taught that the height of happiness is to have the desire to make the world happier and better now and after we are gone, and that when we are dead we are at rest, and, if these ideas had been believed hv all as long as the eternal life idea has by some, the feelings of many who now look upon eternal rest v\ith sueh horror would he reversed and the idea of a future life and especially the idea of a hell for a large part of the human Real A ngels. family would he looked upon as absurd and worthy only of un The little children whose eyes developed minds. So we say if are so bright and eager to learn there is a future state of existence j about the birds and flowers, whose there is no proof of it, aud it would little feet are so willing to act as be as foolish for us to spend our messengers for their friends, and time teaching these things as it whose little minds so easily learn would to teach that we were angels the lessons of friendship and love, before we were horn or any other are the real angles, the honest true unproven, improvable imagination. I cherubim of the only heaven w’orth Our lime is too precious to waste having. on these theories and as long as one And how wre older ones ought to human being is suffering for food, try to help these angels to enjoy or clothing, or shelter, or mental their service and keep them from training, men are committing a the filth that spoils and from crime against society in teaching the slavish fear that degrades. such absurdities and thus drawing 0, little innocent, happy child, people’s attention from the real you are indeed the holiest, the causes of happiness into channels purest of all creatures; we kneel at which only retard our mental and thy feet and pledge ourselves to moral growth. This then is the thy service. When wre are at rest, work of Secularists: to teach what our work will live in you; our light we do know, discarding all unprov- will be placed in the hands of a’ole theories of a future existence others who will have profited by and making the world happier and our combined influence and help, better by studying and teaching all and thus w’ill our work, the product the grand truths of our own lives of our minds—our real souls—be and of our surroundings. We immortal. believe “that the proper study The good that w’e may do gives of man is man” and not angles, aud us hope, and for this and the hap spirits and gods and devils and piness of these real angels do we that in studying man we are press on and think and think, and obliged to study nature in order to w’ork and work! discover man’s place in nature and that the speculative study of theo Applications for lecturer’s diplo logical nonsenseonly retards, dwarfs mas are coming in and we will soon and hinders the mind from grasp have workers of the right sort in ing the knowledge necessary for the field. The adoption of our us to understand how to control ethical basis gives our lecturers a the forces of nature so as to have recommendation that is worth hav them minister to our comfort and ing for now they are not only obliged happiness. to stand an examination for lectur What are the great factors ing but they must be of good moral uecessarv to a high state of civil- character and free from bad habits.