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About Torch of reason. (Silverton, Oregon) 1896-1903 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 19, 1899)
• f ■ ' T orch of Science and Superstition. S rooted In th e hu m an h eart and m ind, M ust by reason be refuted, Men should be no longer b lin d ; They have been th e slaves of e rro r, Over-aw ed by w ildest te rro r. M ysteries have long deluded M illions of th e hu m an race, F rau d and falseh<xxl long h ave brooded Over n a tu re ’s ra d ia n t face; W e m ust seek w ith firm reliance, In h e r b reast th e tru th of science. X Science is th e noblest teach er, Benefactress of m an k in d , Reason is her gifted p reach er, E levated and refined; R aising our best th o u g h ts and feelings W ith beneficent revealings. Let our sp irits be aspiring W ith th e a rd e n t love of tr u th , G lorious purposes adm iring, Glow ing from our early y outh ; S u perstition in du e season Will give way to h u m an reason. —[Sel. The Protestant Revolt. BY FELIX L. OSWALD. slave the mind of a whole nation. In southern Europe, the doctrines of the Galilean church have achiev ed this victory. Among the Cau casian races of the Mediterranean peninsula, millions of our fellow men have lost the normal instincts of their species and have come to enjoy the poison of anti-natural ism. The Greek and Roman monks vied in self-abasement, self mutila tion and the voluntary sacrifice of their reason, as their forefathers vied in science and heroic games. Patriotism has withered under the influence of anti-natural dogmas. Unmanliness has ceased to be a re proach. Manly self-reliance and athletic sports have lost their charm. The prescription of the Jesuitical poison mongers have made a simple truth insipid; their victims have contracted a morbid craving for supernaturalism and love of cant for its own sake. The Celtic races, whose forefathers had become inured to the vicissitudes of anarchy and despotism, have accepted the yoke of the cross and reserved their protestantism for the struggles of the political arena. Their priests have maintained their influence by catering to their na tional prejudices. HE analogies of mind and body are most strikingly exhibited in the develop ment of physical and mental poison habits. At first, every poison is re pulsive. Children abhor the very smell of alcohol. The first effect of tobacco is that of a nauseating drug. The disgusting taste of opi um prevails through every dis But the Germanic races of north guise. Nature protests against the ern Europe have never been really incipience of an insidious “second converted. Their forefathers were nature,” and this protective instinct compelled to submit to the logic of often saves where neither law nor superior force; but their acquies science yields its aid. In the slum cence was that of the North China alleys of our great cities, and beset Vigilance Society—a latent protest. by daily temptations, the children Their conqueror had to baptize of poverty and ignorance often pre them in their own blood, and they serve their physical purity by an yielded only after all their able innate repugnance tc vice; and even bodied men had literally been cut in northern China there is a Vigil into piece». In the winter of 772, ance Society, who«e members, in the apostle of northern Germany defiance to law, pledge themselves crossed the Weser with an army of to antagonize the abettors of the sixty thousand men and founded opium traffic and use all possible the bishoprics of Halberstadt, Min means to restrict an evil which den and Paderborn; while the na they can not suppress. Gross vices tives disputed every inch of the do not achieve an easy conquest; ground, and only retreated after the protests of a faithful conscience j the devastation of their villages warns us again and again; but, if had deprived them of the means of that protest is persistently disre subsistence. Two years after, they garded, nature at last adapts her rallied their forces, expelled their self to the abnormal condition, and priests and chased them across the the instinctive repugnance gives Rhine, when the return of Charle way to a morbid craving for the un magne compelled them once more natural stimulus. Healthy food to yield their homes to the spoiler grows insipid. The toper Incomes and take refuge in the far north a slave to his drug; and, by educa east. Here they were attacked in tional influence, the baneful habit 776, and repelled the invaders with may develop into a hereditary or »uch slaughter that the royal prop even a national vice. agandist thought it wiser to con In a similar way such moral fine his efforts to the Westphalian poisons as hypocrisy, the miracle mania and pessimism have to over lowlands. New bishoprics were come the resisteitce of every health- founded; and the remaining inhab thier instinct before they can en itants shared the fate of the peas- T R eason . NO. 2. SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, ¡S99. VOL. 3. u perstitio n , deeply •• Sp ace. antry in the priest ridden Frank ish crown lands, and were treated BY GEORGE W. MOREHOUSE. worse than brute beasts, till the menaces of the Spanish Moors call F we would acquire a correct ed their oppressor across the Pyre knowledge of any object it nees. As soon as he was gone, all must be examined from more Saxony rose in a fierce insurrection. I than one point of view. Close ob The hero Wittekind united the servation is required to study its scattered tribes, and advanced as structure, and a distant, general far a« Osnabrück, but was soon view to judge of its relative value. confronted by all the forces of the This principle holds good in the Frankish empire; and, during the thorough investigation of any thing next seven years, a war of exter- [ or any subject. mination turned his native land Watch the baby when he first into a desert. When the insur begins to look around. He is a true gents had been driven into the scientist. He investigates and furthest recesses of the Hartz moun thinks at the same time, and his tains, the priests returned; and the way is our way. He begins with “converted” Saxons tilled their land no idea of distance, size, shape, or as duly baptized bondsmen till 792, color. He does not know whether when the intolerable despotism of an object is within reach, or a rod, their oppressor goaded them into a or a mile away. All must he learn fresh rebellion. But the tactics of ed. He patiently watches an ob the iron clad Franks prevailed ject, especially those that move or again, and the war now became a are bright. If he can reach any remorseless man hunt. The na thing that attracts his attention, it tives were wavlaid at the ruins of is tested by touch and taste, and their homesteads and at the river later by smell and sound. We are fords. Thousands of women and all growing and grown up children. children were driven off'into exile, If it is the truth we are seeking, and the male captives were slain their methods must remain through like wolves. In Quedlinburg alone life our methods. As with the individual, so with four thousand prisoners were be the human race, knowledge of the headed in one day. magnitude of space begins at zero There was no gainsaying such and constantly widens during in arguments, and the next twenty tellectual growth. The distance of generations of the Saxon yeomen objects in the room, the space in acted on the principle that “Chris immediate reach, once learned cease to awe. Familiarity banish tian submission to the powers that es fear. As development goes on he” may sometimes be the safest the circle of the known becomes plan. But no other slaves have so larger, and the awful unknown be loathed the chains they could not yond correspondingly less in extent influence. As the dread of the break. When famine and defeat and unknown weighs less and less heav began to thin the ranks of Prince ily upon us, the known becomes Wittekind, the Franks erected large more enjoyable. This is substan crosses as rallying places for “con-4 tially true from start to finish in verts” ; i.e., deserters, who wished the race of life. At first we are helpless, relying upon the protect to accept baptism and the bread of ing care of others in ways we do not bondage. Zu Kreuze kriechen understand. Our first efforts to (crawling to cross) has ever since help ourselves are blunderingly been the most contemptuous term made and we come to grief. As we in the German language. Pfaffen learn by experience we become self-reliant and begin to lose thum and pfaffisch (from Pfaffe, a more our fear. We are long in learniug Romish priest) have become the to walk erect. So in the dim past, synonyms of obscurantism and Jes the human race has struggled al uitical intrigues. The heroes of the most hopelessly to get upon its feet. national ballads were not the whin-j However, the horizon is widening. There are always some men,who, ing saints of the Romish church, actuated by the love of truth for its but men like Robin Hopd or Ritter own sake, are forever prospecting Siegfried and Tannhauser. The along the borders of the unknown. favorite political leaders were Free The opinion of one such pioneer as thinkers, like Otto I., Frederic Bar to the extent of space, should count for more than the notions of an barossa (as afterward Frederic the army of men whose knowledge and Great), or Goetz von Berlichingen, experience is confined to their own Ulric Hutten and George Frunds- township, county, state or planet. On such a subject men would not berg.—[The Secret of the East. be expected to go to school to ants, whose travels have extended over only a few square rods, and whose Truth courts light; but error powers of vision and intellect are shuns and deprecates impartial correspondingly limited. i nquiry.— [ Morehouse. C o n tin u ed on 5th p age. I