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SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 1899.
VOL.
It was public sentiment which
sustained prominent and gifted
OR w hat has he, whose will sees men like Sir Matthew Hale, Cotton
clear,
Mather and John Wesley in en­
To do w ith d o u b t an d faith and
couraging the torture and death of
fear,
* s.
Swift hopes and slow despondencies? innocent women, because in the
His h eart is equal w ith th e se a ’s
Christian’s Bible the command is
And with th e sea-w ind’s, and h is ear
Is level to th e speech of th ese,
given, “Thou shalt not permit a
And his soul com m unes and tak es cheer
witch to live.”
W ith th e actual e a r th ’s eq u alities—
Air, light, and n ig h t, hills, w inds an d
“ In the name of God every pos­
stream s—
And seeks not stre n g th from s tre n g th ­ sible crime has been committed,
less dream s.
every conceivable outrage perpe­
trated. Brave men, loving women,
His soul is even w ith th e sun
Whose sp irit and w hose eye are one,
Who seeks not sta rs by d ay, nor lig h t beautiful girls and prattling babes
And heavy h e at of day by n ig h t.
have been exterminated in the
Him can no god cast dow n, w hom none
name of Jesus Christ. For more
Can lift in hope beyond th e h e ig h t
than fifty generations the church
Of fate and n a tu re , an d th in g s done
By the calm rule of m ight and rig h t
has carried the black flag. Her
That bids men be, a n d bear, and do,
And die beneath b lin d skies or blue.
vengeance has been measured only
[S w inburne.
by her power. With the heart of a
fiend she has hated. With the
Intolerance.
clutch of avarice she has grasped.
Pitiless as famine, merciless as fire.
BY HENRY M. TABER.
Such is the history of the church of
HERE is today the same God.”
Fiendish as have been the acts
spirit among Christians
which forced Roger Wil­ which Col. Ingersoll, as above, has
liams to seek the protection of the portrayed, they would be re-enact­
supposed savage, hut humane, ed today by the adherents of Chris­
Massasoit, from the persecutions of tianity—Protestant and Catholic
a Christian sect; which lodged in alike—under circumstances similar
jail in Culpepper county, Va., Bap­ to those which hitherto existed, for
tist ministers for preaching im­ religion not only enslaves the
mersion; which brought the charge mind, but it makes captive tbe
of blasphemy against Chevalier de heart as well.
There is no objection whatever
la Barre, in 1676, for not having
removed his hat on the passing of to Christian people believing in a
a religious procession, resulting in place of eternal punishment, in a
the most inhuman and excruciat­ blissful heaven, in a personal devil,
ing torture and death; which, in in a God (even of such imper­
1812, sent Daniel Isaac Eaton to fections as the Bible represents),
prison for eighteen months for pub­ in .angels who have not fallen, as
lishing the “Age of Reason’’; which well as in those who have, in the
imprisoned the venerable Abner story of creation, in miracles, in an
Kneeland in 1835 for differing from' infallible church, a divinely or­
the orthodox on the question of dained miuistry, in an inspired
book, or in aught else that is un­
Universalism.
Human nature has been very printable or improbable. These
much the same in all ages of the are mere matters of opinion, and
world, and there is scarcely a any one who can so believe is un­
doubt that the intolerance of a few questionably entitled to such be­
hundred years ago would again be lief; but where the intolerance
rampant in our midst if only the shows itself is in asserting that
religious zealots had the power such belief is necessarily meritori­
they formerly had. Is it unlikely ous, and that those who do not so
that such bigots as the president of believe are necessarily immoral
Amherst College, as the bishop of and criminal, utterly ignoring the
Delaware, as the editor of the fact that belief is involuntary, that
Christian Advocate, would add to it is impossible for any one to be­
their intolerant utterances acts of lieve unless convinced, hy reason,
persecution, of cruelty and of mur-1 of the truth of such belief.
But as orthodox Christianity is
der, similar to those which so long
Btained the pages of Christian his­ never likely to relinquish its dog­
tory, if only they were sustained matic, pharisaical, unreasoning,
hy the same public sentiment by unjust and intolerant position,
which the atrocities of the church every indication of the disinteg­
in the centuries that are past were ration or decay of the Christian re­
ligion should he hailed with de­
made possible? Bv no means. light
by all who lielieve in the full­
President Seelye and the rest are est tolerance of opinion, by all
no more human or humane than j lovers of mental liberty.—[Faith or
Fact.
were the bigots of former times.
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NO. 22.
Perversion.
Nature’s Freethinker.
F
R eason .
cloud of ignorance,” says Hallam,
“overspread the whole face of the
church, hardly broken by a few
glimmering lights who owe almost
the whole of their distinction to
the surrounding darkness. * * *
In 992 it was asserted that scarcely
a single person was to be found,
even in Rome itself, who knew the
first elements of letters. Not one
priest of a thousand in Spain could
address a common letter of saluta­
tion to another.” Every deathbed
became a harvest field of clerical
vampires who did not hesitate to
bully the dying into robbing their
children for the benefit of a bloated
convent. Herds of howling fanatics
roamed the country, frenzying the
superstitious rustics with their pre­
dictions of impending horrors.
Parishioners had to submit to the
base avarice and the baser lusts of
innocent parish priests, who in his
turn kissed the dust at the feet of
an arrogant prelate. The doctrine
of Antinaturalism had solved the
problem of inflicting the greatest
possible amount of misery on the
greatest possible number of vic­
tims.—[Bible of Nature.
BY F. L. OSWALD.
T H E
puerile supernaturalism
of the pagan myth-mongers
could not fail to injure
their prestige, even in an age
of superstition; but the anti­
naturalism of the Galilean fanat­
ics not only neglected hut com­
pletely inverted the proper functions
of priesthood. The pretended min­
isters of truth became her remorse­
less persecutors; the promised
healers depreciated the importance
of bodily health, the hoped-for
apostles of social reform preached
the doctrine of renunciation. We
should not judge the Christian
clergy hy the aberrations engen­
dered by the maddening influence
of protracted persecutions. It
would be equally unfair to give
them the credit of latter-day re­
forms, reluctantly conceded to the
demands of rationalism. But we
can with perfect fairness judge
them by the standard of the moral
and intellectual types evolved dur­
Free Discussion.
ing the period of their plenary
BY HORACE 8KAVER.
power, the three hundred years
from the tenth to the ertd of the
HE man not imbued with
thirteenth century, when the con- i
superstitions, and who en­
trol of morals and education had
tertains a sincere desire to
been unconditionally surrendered
promote the happiness of the hu­
into the hands of their chosen rep­
man race, will readily, admit that
resentatives. The comparative scale
open and impartial discussion is
of human turpitude must not in­
the foundation of human liberty.
clude the creations of fiction. We
might find a ne plus ultra of fiction Free, unrestrained inquiry on all
in the satires of Rabelais, in the subjects is, in fact, the source of
myths of Hindostan, or the bur­ knowledge and wisdom, for how
lesques of the modern French can we detect error or distinguish
dramatists. But if we confine our truth if there is one topic remain­
ing which we are not to investi­
comparison to the records of au­
gate? We may expatiate for cen­
thentic history, it would l>e no ex­
turies on the advantages attending
aggeration to sav that during the
correct views and correct prin­
period named the tyi»e of a Chris­
ciples, hut if those systems which
tian priest represented the absolute
brutalize the mind, which proscribe
extreme of all the groveling ignor­
the use of reason and which hold
ance, the meanest selfishness, the
mankind under the dominion of a
rankest sloth, the basest servility, vile superstition, are not to be
the foulest perfidy, the grossest probed to the bottom and exhibited
superstitior, the most bestial sen- jn al[ their deformity, the most
suality, to which the majesty of powerful eloquence, the most trans­
human nature has ever been de- eendent reasoning in the world
(though of weight in their proper
graded. Thousands of monasteries place) will be utterly useless. To
fattened on the toil of starving convince man that happiness is at-
peasants. Villages were beggared tainable, it is not enough that he
by the rapacity of the tithe-gath- know this. The causes which de
erer; citien were terrorized hy witch-1 pnve him of it the sources of his
.
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clearly and dis-
hunts
and , autos
da
fe. t The
crimps m
tj isery, > m ust he oa(.
otherwif)e> he
of the inquisitorial tribunals hired wjjj remain a|i his lifetime a child
spies and suborned perjurers by of sorrow and misfortune. Ignor­
promising them a share of confis­ ant of the nature of the evils which
cated estates. The evidence of in­ beset him, he will continue the
dupe of the crafty and designing,
tellectual pursuits was equivalent whose sole object is to darken the
lo a sentence of death. Education understanding, that they may per­
was almost limited to the memor­ petuate their inordinate power and
izing of chants and prayers. “A influence.—[Occasional Thoughts.
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