THE TORCH OF REASON, SILVERTON, OREGON, DECEMBER, 1, 1898. 5 now we want Five Hundred Dol both our dwellings and our tem the silent sort at the altar of the I have placed a copy of the Sunday lars. Get together, or write to ples on ice which the first dread Unknown and Unknowable”. I laws where he could not fail to see each other, and see if we can raise rays of sunlight we know must melt cannot imagine any book which has i,; bnt thp Sabbath following the ,i- » j the i human race so . tar I store was opened as before. I have that amount by January first. It away. \\ e cannot always keep diverted L ' no i l l feeling against the man. He is due then, aud we want it. We clouds and darkness round about rom the true path of education as , ¡8 my neighbor, I would not injure will do all in our power to further us, and it is a miserable condition, Professor Huxley traces it out in him.’ But I do not think it is right the greatest cause on earth — the alike for men and nations, to feel his “Lay Sermons”, as the Bible; °r consistent for me as a Christian cause of Freethought. We are in a dependent upon being permanently n o r any life traced in the Bible I to allow him to injure the minds of position where we can do more per able to enforce blindness and main- which has had a tenth part the! his ow’n children and mine.” manent good than all the Free- tain silence; to live, as it W ’ere, on same effect in causing that wide The last sentence contains the thought lecturers and papers com- intellectual sufferance — shivering departure from the study of what kernel of the argument. The writ hined. This may seem like a big under the uneasy semi-conscious Professor Huxley calls “natural er, being a Christian, feels that it statement to some, but think of the ness that all our delicate fabric of knowledge” as that of Jesus Christ. would be wrong for him to allow hundreds and thousands of young, thought and hopes lie at the mercy There never was a more dazzling, the minds of the children and the energetic, educated workers who of the first pertinacious questioner misleading, will-o’-the-wisp than morals of the community to be in will be sent out from this institu or rude logician.—[W. R. Greg. the attitude of Jesus Christ toward jured by non Christian practices. tion in the coming years. One lec God if the teaching of Professor Whether keeping open store on turer or one paper can reach many, Huxley’s “ Lay Sermons” is to be Sunday is an injury to any person What I never fully understood is but the many Freethinking lectur regarded as verifiable.—[Richard or not, is purely a religious ques the reverence which Professor Hux ers, editors and teachers, who go tion; and he views it in the affirm IL Hutton. ley expressed, and certainly deeply out fiom the Liberal University, ative not because he is a man as felt, for Jesus of Nazareth — whom will increase all this work in a geo serting the rights of created beings he called “the greatest moral gen Religion vs. Rights. metrical ratio and will liberalize as such, but because he is a profes ius the world has seen”—though he the world. We honestly believe sor of religion. Because he has himself regarded worship “for the The view which some good peo that the building of the Liberal chosen to profess religion, other most part of the silent sort” at “the ple take of their moral responsibili- University is the greatest work of people are to be restricted in their the closing days of the nineteenth actions by the law of the land. century. This is what his view, simply an T w e n ty Forerunners. We must not follow the Chris alyzed, amounts to. / v - a A v A / v ~ a / v >< / va / v a / v a / v a ¿ v - / v . / v a / v a / v a / v a / v a / v a / v a / v a / v a / \ £ V tian plan and, for a few pieces of K But human liberties rest on no silver, allow our Savior of Science TO B U IL D SECULAR HO M E. such narrow basis; they cannot to be betrayed into the hands of ! thus be subjected to the human the enemy. The Christians are will. They rest upon the broad 1 8 9 .. frightened, coaxed and forced into ground of the common inalienable On d e m a n d , we th e u n d e r s ig n e d p ro m ise to p a y th e Litt supporting their institutions. We rights shared by all mankind alike, e r a t U n iv e r sity C o m p a n y F iv e H u n d r e d D o lla r s <$500) can only appeal to your reason. Is irrespective of religious belief or fo r a n d in co n sid e r a tio n o f a g o o d a n d su ffic ie n t w a r r a n it not a reasonable thing that we, ty d eed fo r one acre o f th e tr a c t o f la n d ly in g w est o f th e variations of personal condition. L ib e r a l U n iv e r sity a n d th e c ity of S ilv e r to n ,M a r io n C o u n while we have life and strength, do And this is the only proper ground ty» O regon, kn ow n as S e c u la r H om e, a n d a w r itte n p r o m all we can for the cause which we of civil legislation. Based upon ise fr o m s a id co m p a n y th a t w it h in n in e ty d a y s a ft e r r e know will save humanity from its narrower ground, as the believers c e ip t o f s a id F iv e H u n d r e d D o lla r s [$500J s a id co m p a n y greatest curse? Let us hasten to in Sunday sacredness would have w ill co m m en ce th e e r ectio n o f a d w e llin g h o u se on s a id the rescue! it, legislation can only invade the a cre, to cost not less th a n F o u r H u n d r e d D o lla r s ($400], s a id b u ild in g to be b u ilt on s u c h p la n s a s th e s a id p a r tie s m a y rights which it ought to protect. a g ree u p on a n d to be fin is h e d w ith in s i x m o n th s fr o m The field of religious belief is prop P ertin en t Paragraphs. d a te o f b eg in n in g : P r o v id e d t h a t not le ss th a n tw en ty erly the field of moral suasior, and r e lia b le persons have sig n e d t h i s co n tra ct w hen s a id of that only.—[American Sentinel. SELECTED BY D. PRIESTLEY. d e m a n d is m a d e. Everybody knows the effect of continued intermarriages among persons related by consanguinity. The cognate blood, unenriched and unstimulated from other fountains, soon breeds weakness, disease and imbecility. Just so it is with a sect that shuts out truth because it was not embraced in the scheme of its founders. The ideas of such a sect have no alternative for their con tinued existence but to breed in and in, and this, by a psychologic al law as immutable as the physi ological, soon begets a progeny of faith erroneous, absurd, imbecile and idiotic.—[Horace Mann. It is not by shirking difficulties that we can remove them, nor by avoiding perplexing problems of life or speculation that we can solve them, nor by saying “ Hush! hush!” to every rude questioner that the question can l>e answered and the asker silenced. Men cannot go on forever living upon half exploded shams, keeping obsolete laws with admitedly false preambles on our statute books, professing creeds on ly half credited and quite incredi ble, standing or sleeping on suspect- ed or recognized volcanoes, erecting S ig n e d ............................. P E T E R R A U C H . S ig n e d Catching a “ S p irit” . An amusing scene occurred dur If you wish to become one of the T wenty F orerunners , cut out ing the performance of a spiritual or copy the above, sign it and forward with answers to the following: istic seance in Birmingham, when F o u r F u m e ............................................................................................................... several gentlemen who doubted the A g e ................... F a m i ly ................................................................................... genuineness of the performance, R e lig io u s B e l i e f ...................................................................................................... visited the establishment to inves- ___ __ tigate matters. The visitors were altar of the Unknown and Unknow-{ties in connection with the affairs of I usbpre^ ad.irkoiod room. One able” as the ideal of the highest hu- their neighbors, is well illustrated J em P ace his hand upon the man worship. Of course I do not by the following, which appears in 11 an° 5 UIC, ~ caught bold of doubt that he made the allowances the correspondence column of the J H "V* ** hand. It was found that the spirit whioh every wise man must make Defender. This journal is the or- for the immense chasm between the gan of Sunday enforcement in New was a young lady who had conduct age of faith and the age of science, i England, and has been sending out ed the proceedings. A scene en But why he should speak of Jesus through that section extracts from sued, the visitors denouncing the Christ “as the realized ideal of al- the Sunday laws of the New Eng- “spirit” as an impostor and trick most perfect humanity”, if Agnos- land states; and in reply one recip- ster, and one old lady w ho for some time had been endeavoring to as ticism be the nearest approach to ient writes: truth that we have yet made, I can ,. certain the whereabouts of a miss- not understand. Surely “the real- “ I received your extracts from in^ W1 Ur8t ,nh) tears wben the ized ideal of almost perfect human- the Sunday laws. We have a gro- discovery was made.—[Leeds Mer dealer who ------- ity ” has done more to keep the hu- cer and provision dealer per- 1----- cury. sists in keeping open his store on ___________ man race from appreciating natural the Sabbath. The day passes very , rarely when he does not have from Civilized people arc becoming knowledge at the high rate at which Huxley valued it, than any three to six customers, and often tired of their old rag dolls of Chris- other human being who ever lived. more. fSome of the children from tian dogmas, and are sending them Nav even Chri.t’e t.nre and ideal *°. ^?efcn yeafrB ol<! ; 1 h“ve se.«" I»° 'he «mailer children of heathen x^ay, even unrisi pun anu i ieai repeatedly comefrom the store with lands, who will play with morality was rooted deep in the groceries or meat. Some times on life of the living God, and not at a l l ! [e,Url1*11*’ J ™ • " * / * « * * » » « 11 long '° ng after they " are re looked UP° n have counted four or five young with contempt by the children of like “ worship for the most part of boyspurchasing candy and cigars. science.