the TORCH OE REASON, SILVERTON, OREGON, MAY 25, 1S99.
Torch of Reason
The O nly P aper of Its Kind.
• i, H_nara-' railed before he has promised his
“ Dog in the Manger.
These men are mere idlers—para- raueu w
-
eite«. They toil not, neither do support to ‘the o er e
E ditok T orch of R eason :
they spin, and yet they live and many .ecu a r ^ .
seem to enjoy good appetites.
W e,
ha.
I
southern F reethought publication
a scurrilous assault upon you by
its editor, I cannot refrain from ex­
pressing my opinion in regard to
it. Told in a nutshell, our good
J’
" ° Smer’.................Marn X
friend and critic is afflicted with a
p . W . G e e r , ....................
dred
ag much work, l8 a
---------
mental distemper which, for want
Say, that man Hosmer is a great oj a better term, we may call
Entered at the postoffice at Silverton, thousand times more benefit to bo -
Oregon, as second-class m ail m atter.
ciety, hut receives less pay and mss damage to our city,’ said a Chris­ human nature, “with all that it
credit, usually, than these holy tian to one of our best Freethink­ implies,” and he has it in its worst
SUBSCRIPTION RATES.
ambassadors of the Santa Claus
form. But I did credit him with
ers, the other day. “W1 by, do you
enough sense not to “let the cat out
God in the Sky.
One year, in &• Ivance.......................... $1 9^
The best work for humanity is know that he teaches that we came of the bag” so recklessly as he did,
Six m onths, in ad v an ce....................
™
T hree m onths, in ad v an ce................
done by men and women who are from apes? Now you have a fam­ laboring, no doubt, under the im­
In clubs of five or m ore, one year,
not idle, and the old adage of Satan ily of nice boys and girls, and do pression that people cannot judge
in advance......................................’/
Money should be sent by registered finding something for idle hands to
you want them taught that they of the cat when they see it. In
letter or m oney o rd er.
do has some truth in it, as is shown
are no better than cows?” Thus order to hide his own shortcomings
by the awful record of the crimes
he generally accuses others of what
Notice!
this
man
of
God
ran
on,
using
of preachers. Some of the more ig_
he is guilty of himself, crying “stop
language
and
illustrations
too
low
A h a n d pointing to th is notice denotes norant araong this class of non-
thief” to impress people with his
You im \8 ‘S
P‘i^ n X i e » >rre-!co<»b.t»nt8 may be sincere, but the and obscene to print, even in an own innocence. One who is not in
new so th a t you m ay receive th e pa- great body of our spiritual fra Infidel paper.
the habit of looking beneath the
J V n “^
ternlty know and use the.people’s
Now, ignorance is no crime, pro­ surface of things and of reading
th a t we do no t send papers longer th a n ignorance to their own ad\anta„ , vided the ignorant one has had no character would take him for a
th e tim e paid for unless so ordered. .
f j twQ horns of chance to gain knowledge, hot this saint. Appearances were never so
T his will prevent any loss and we will tm n K in =
know just where we sta n d .
the dilemma the one that is t e man who is striking us in the back deceptive. Hear him talk about
We request you to send us th e nam es
fc fitahle and pleasant is the is almost guilty of criminal ignor­ “any amount of egotism,” while
of Secularists who m ight become sub- most pro n lame a p
scriliers and we will m ail sam ple copies. i b e s t. They believe in
being on ance, for he is wealthy and has had being himself egotism incarnate!
— the safe side,” and so they speak, manv opportunities that poor men He possesses this commodity in an
THURSDAY, HAY 25, E. M. 299. not their honest thoughts, but have not; yet he has not become inordinate degree and claims it for
-----(carefully protect their halo of di- familiar enough with modern ideas his own individual use and benefit.
ABOVE HARD WORK.
vinity by keeping aloof from com­ of biology, geology, psychology,
The first insight I got into this
mon men in their struggles for ex- physiology, etc., to know that our phase of his human nature was on
The priests and preachers are jgtence, and, like young robins, ideas of the origin of man are the an occasion when I mildly pro­
hardly ever seen at hard work. It chirp and chirp and take the good same as those held by the great tested against the constant mutila­
J
.
. . .
. 1 ; _____ ai .„* j . « « ir.fr, fh o ir m o n tn s .
is evident that they are afraid that things that drop into their mouths. scientists of our time. The edu­ tions to which my contributions to
We know by our own experience cated men of his church teach the
people will mistrust that they are as lecturer, teacher, editor and modern theory of evolution, and his paper were subjected. Imagine
mv amazement when I was told
just common men after all, and common laborer that the preachers that is what we advocate.
point-blank in reply that I was
thus they would lose their “pull.” have a “mighty soft snap” com­
It is fully as absurd to combat conceited. From what premises he
To be always seen in broadcloth pared with the labors of other men, the idea that man originated from argued to come to any such con­
creates in the minds of certain ig-1 but we would not even now coni- “lowly ancestors” as it would be to clusion, I have vainly endeavored
norant classes a feeling that the plain if what they teach, be it little try to destroy our work on the to fathom. But it reminded me of
or much, is in the line of truth; supposition that we are wicked and a former experience in human na­
flesh thus robed is of finer texture, 1 but for this great array of well-
a detriment to our Christian ture. When a boy I used to argue
andso our preachers hardly ever dregged> weH-housed and well-fed friend’s city because we teach that with a very pious old lady on re­
indulge in the inspiration of men
HCaiaWags one day the earth is round.
ligious matters, aud at one time,
manual labor. But this very mis- jn the week, while other men toil
The more we are developed men- after I had located in another city,
take is one of the factors that will six or seven days and many of ¡tally, the farther we are removed I wrote her a long letter on the
finally defeat their priestly scheme, them away into the night, is a dis- from our ape-like ancestors, and if same subject—my “maiden effort.”
Taking the preachers as a whole, grace to civilizat.on, and for one Mr. J. will put more of his money in fact, in the Arena of Polemics.
they are the moat impractical and we advocate old Moses doctrine, into books of science and leRS of it The reply I received w’as virtually
useless set of men in the world, tl’at these go -men earn
eir into an institution that has fought the same in effect as I received
They do not mingle with otl.er bread by the sweat of their brows progress at every step, he will know’ from our good friend and critic,
more and be as willing - to trace his namely, that she read enough to
men, and thus learn their practical or by some equally as honorable a ---------
origin to the life-forms of the past 8atjgfy that I only wanted to show
ideas and needs. They go to has-' method. W hat say you
as to believe that he and his boys how gtnart I was, and then she
ket sociables and may, on occasion,
-----------
---
bid for a fair one’s basket and try t h a t PREACHER’S CONFESSION, are made of mud and that his wife tore up the letter. Thus was
and daughters originated from an “Love’s Labor Lost,” but it ef­
to smother their god nature for the
---------
sake of getting bold of more con-
In his Freethought confession, old spare rib.
fectually cured me of my ambition
Prey, pray and read your Biblee, to convert pious----- to the cause
verts, but their whole life is arti-
p resbyterian minister mention-
Jesus will of Freethought.
ficial, put-on humbug.
- - - “A brother Christians.
ed last week in our editorial,
“give us a rest” by and by.
“What will we preachers do
This experience afforded me a
Deplorable Condition,” makes the
when the common people are edu­
clue to this peculiarity of human
following
significant
statement:
cated as well as we are?” said one
Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll lec- nature, however, that a large per-
“The
candidates
for
[church]
office
young minister to another, and we
tured at the Academy of Music, centage of people labor under the
answer: Take your place among have long since discovered that the New York City, last Sunday, the hallucination that any person
the ranks of common men and no brother who stays in his room and 21st inst. His subject was Thomas whose mind runs in different chan-
longer carry burdens of divinity, prays generally gets left in the dis-
Paine, and the entire net proceeds ne^8 ^rom that
tJie multitude u
It is an erroneous idea that the tribution of the ‘spoils’, while the was given to the Paine Bust Fund, cenceited; or, as our good friend
little tinky sermons that most ‘hustler’, who is a good band at
The handsome bronze bust of the ®nd critic expresses it. considers
preachers deliver once a week re- building fences, is the one who immortal author of “The Age of himself “entirely too much of the
quires their whole time in the rides in th e‘band wagon’. Itis d e
Reason” was exhibited on the plat- I-am-better-than-you kind of man.
preparation. After they get used cidedly humorous to hejir the bro-
Any one who is so foolhardy as
to it it takes but a very short time ther pray a little while and then form on this occasion, and will be
to prepare what they give the see him rush out after the ‘member placed on the monument at New to enter beyond the limits of th
known or dwell in realms beyond
people, much of it being repetition J from the country’ to get him cor- Rochelle.
Published W eekly by th e L i ^ r a l F n i-
vereity C om pany, in the In tere sts of
C onstructive, Moral Secularism .
do not wish to under-estimate the in PamPhlet ff r™; . _._u ,
value of mental labor, hut the if we print it? It ¡8 rich!
priests and preachers of our time
do but very little of it. The OUR F IG H T A G A IN S T IG N O R ­
country school teacher does a hun-
ANCE.
, a