R eason .
-5.
SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, MAY 25, 1899
VOL. 3.
Age of Reason.
ET exiled Reason be restored,
Just education bear her sw ay;
Let nature’s empire be explored,
And truth her volume wide display.
Let science ’luminate the mind,
Inquirv free her banner wave;
Humble the tvrant, raise the slave,
And virtue teach to all mankind.
Then will the joyous song
Of happiness resound,
And man shall sing to wisdom’s praise,
Where love and peace are found.
L
Prophetic voices now resound;
Far, far and wide they strike the ear;
And o’er this favored clime they sound—
Proclaim the Age of Reason near.
Her glorious light doth now appear,
And superstition, frightened, flies,
For truth her mighty weapon plies,
And truth will trium ph, nothing fear.
Then let us join in praise
To truth and virtue’s name,
To love and wisdom’s purest rays,
In nature’s wide domain.
—[Secular Songs.
The Bible and Progress.
BY R. C. CAVE.
HAVE read that an African
prince once asked Queen Vic­
toria to tell him the secret of
England’s power and glory. The
Queen did not tell him of far­
sighted English statesmanship; did
not tell him of English history,
energy and love of freedom; did
not remind him of the high cour­
age, the tenacious purpose and the
indomitable spirit characteristic of
the Anglo-Saxon race; but, hand­
ing him a beautifully bound copy
of the Bible, said: “This is the
secret of England’s greatness.”
The story, which is probably the
invention of some pious preacher,
who thought the end justified the
means, was given to illustrate and
enforce the claim that the Bible
has been the great enlightening,
uplifting and civilizing force of the
world.
From the pulpit and through the
religious press this claim is con­
stantly being made. It is said
that we are indebted to the Bible
for all that is true and noble and
good in our civilization; that “we
have not a humane law which does
not owe its truth and gentleness to
the Bible, and not a wise and
healthful custom which can not be
traced to the gospel.” The church
points to the superior enlighten­
ment, the greater material pros­
perity and the social and political
advantages of Christian countries;
fells us that all these are due to
the Bible as a divine revelation of
truth and duty, and asks us to
‘‘judge the tree by its fruit.” * *
But the claim that we are indebted
to it for all the blessings of our civ­
ilization is without the slightest
foundation in fact.
I
In the nature of the case, an au-
thorative revelation of truth and
duty, such as the Bible has been
held to be, must hinder, instead of
furthering, human progress; for, as
it has been truthfully said, “such a
revelation must necessarily be in­
tolerant of contradiction; must ad­
mit of no improvement in itself,
and view with disdain that arising
from the progressive intellectual
development of man. * * * It
discourages as needless, indeed, as
presumptuous, all new discovery.”
Hence, history reveals a ceaseless
conflict between those who have
sought to perpetuate the teaching
of the Bible as authoritative and
those who have attempted to ad­
just human thought and conduct
to the demands of growing intelli­
gence. Every effort of the human
mind to free itself from the fetters
of tradition, throw off the burdens
of old errors and bring itself into
accord with the larger light of a
more advanced age, has been de­
nounced as an impious attack on
things sacred and divine; and ail
the greatest advances in the realm
of science, and all the greatest
social and political reforms, ha"e
been effected in spite of priests
armed with Bible texts.
The truth of this statement is at­
tested by indisputable facts. From
the time of the Emperor Constan­
tine, when the church gained the
support of the state and became, to
a large extent, a political hierarchy
instead of a promoter of piety and
a conservator of morals—from that
time on, to a comparatively recent
date, the Bible was made a stum­
bling block in the path of enlight­
enment. Holding it to bo the
measure and standard of all truth
and declaring everything incon­
sistent with its teachings to be
necessarily false, the clergy, with
the civil power to enforce their de­
cisions, waged a relentless war
against “profane learning.” As
Prof. Draper states it, “The Chris­
tian party asserted that all knowl­
edge is to be found in the Scrip­
tures and in the traditions of the
church; that iD the written revela­
tion God had not only given a cri­
terion of truth, but had furnished
us all that he intended us to know.
* * * The clergy, with the Em­
peror at their back, would endure
no intellectual competition.” In­
quisitors of Faith were* instituted,
and all who did not agree with the
bishops of Rome and Alexandria
in their belief were condemned to
banishment and loss of civil rights.
Schools of philosophy were closed,
NO. 20.
and teachers of philosophy were I his has been effected in spite of
bitterly persecuted. Hypatia, seized what the Bible declares to be
by monks, stripped naked in the woman’s sphere and duty. Even
street, dragged into *a church and the teaching of the New Testa­
brutally clubbed to death for lec- ment, to say nothing of the Old,
.uring on the doctrines of Plato gives to woman a place but little
and Aristotle, Pelagius and his dis­ higher than that of a slave whose
ciples, condemned to exile and for­ orly business is to learn and do the
feiture of goods for teaching that will of man, her master. It de­
death did not come into the world clares that woman must not be
because of Adam’s sin; Nestor, permitted to speak in public; that
banished to an Egyptian oasis for she must not be suffered to teach;
protesting against the worship of that she must learn in silence with
Mary as the mother of God, and all subjection; that she must sub­
declaring that the Eternal God mit to her husband as unto the
cannot have a mother; Galileo, im­ Lord; that, even as the church is
prisoned, treated with the utmost subject to Christ, she must be sub­
•severity, aud denied burial in con­ ject to her husband in everything.
secrated ground for teaching that John Milton truly stated woman’s
ihe earth moves around the sun; sphere and duty, in the light of
these and many other like cases Bible teaching, when he repre­
that might be mentioned show how sented Eve as saying to Adam:
the Bible, held to be a divine rev­ My Author and Disposer, what thou
bidst,
elation, crushed freedom of thought
Unargued, I obey ; so God ordains;
and hindered the intellectual pro- God is thy law, thou m ine; to know no
more
giess of the race. All through the
Is woman’s happiest knowledge and her
centuries the discoverers of new
praise.
truth have met with the same And it is not surprising that a
spirit of persecution that murdered large-hearted man, rendered in­
Hypatia and imprisoned Galileo. dignant by the contemplation of
Holding the Bible to be a divinely the injustice and wrong done to
3:ven and authoritative revelation, womankind through such teaching,
the church has said to every was led to say:
searcher for truth: You shall not “ If I were a woman . . . .
find anything in the heavens, on I ’d curse alike a man-made God,
the earth or under the earth, that His book, his laws, his priests and all.”
does not agree with what is written Only as such a man-made God,
in this revelation. Had her efforts with his book, and laws, and
succeeded, our schools would now priests, has ceased to govern the
be teaching that the earth is flat, world—only as the authority of
and the presidents of colleges and the Bible as a rule of faith and
universities would now be saying practice has been denied and re­
with the illiterate negro preacher, jected, has woman ceased to be
“the sun do move.” We would be man’s slave and become his friend,
ignorant of all the wonderful dis­ companion and true co-worker. If
coveries of science which have today she has her rightful in­
broadened the thoughts of men and fluence in the home, fashioning it
given them higher and nobler con­ after her own highest ideals, and
ceptions of the grandeur and glory making her understanding of life
of God anti his universe. Not to and duty its guiding star; if today
the Bible as a final and authorita­ her influence is strong to uplift, re­
tive revelation of truth, but to fine and ennoble society; if today,
those who have been persecuted for instead of living in slavish subjec­
teaching contrary to the Bible, the tion to man, she can walk through
world is indebted for its progress the world by his side, “yoked in all
exercise of noble end”; if today she
in philosophy and science.
is permitted to
dorn is not indebted to the Bible
for its social progress. That has
been effected, not by holding to the
Scriptures as the measure and
standard of social right and wrong,
but by disregarding scripture teach­
ing on social questions and follow­
ing the demands of growing en­
lightenment. Take, for example,
the elevation of woman to her
rightful place and influence which
has made her a most powerful
agent in moulding modern society.
“ ----- make herself her own
To give or keep, to live and learn and be
All th at not barms distinctive woman­
hood,”
she owes it all to those who have
denied the authority of the Scrip­
tures and braved the wrath of the
church in defense of her cause.
And so all great social reforms
have come. The men who wrote
the Bible enjoined oliedience to the
social laws of their own age and
enlightenment; and, hence, all
great social improvements have
Concluded on 6th page.