Image provided by: Silverton Country Historical Society; Silverton, OR
About Torch of reason. (Silverton, Oregon) 1896-1903 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 31, 1899)
T OBOI I OF S eason . “TRUTH HOLDS THE TORCH IN THB SEARCH FOR TRUTH.” — SILVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 1899. VOL. 3. He is lost to the church, they have made him insane; But the gold of the madman they finally gain; BY I8AAC A . POOL. While he shouted aloud, as his noddle they shaved, model young man was Theophilus By God and by Jesus I mean to be Brown, saved! Not given to “Theos,” the pride Escanoba, Mich., March 5, 1885. of the town; Sd modest and manly, so gently behaved, Only lacking in one thing—he hadn’t No “ W hy” Concerning Nature. been saved. With “ Phileo” plenty for all of his race. BY W. H. MAPLE. The church sought to get at his “ducats” thro’ grace, But all their advances he steadily braved, T is common with theological Concluding from them it was best to be writers of an advanced type to saved. speak of the “how” and the So they got a new preacher; the choir a new song; “why” of natural things. They say They got up revivals, and blew it in that science has the “how” to deal strong; They told how good morals and man with, and religion the “why”— hood enslaved; That only bv Christ, and his blood, we that science has for its object the are saved. explanation of the immediate causes Through the merciful Savior, the anger of phenomena but that it is left, of Heaven largely at least, to supernatural At last is appeased, and our errors for revelations to account for the pur given. The banner of mercy high over them pose of things. They insist, by in waved, Proclaiming that sinners by God would ference, that nothing exists except be saved. by reason of a pre-existing purpose He told them that sinners forever would of som ething else. dwell, Now, it seems much more ration ’Mid fire and brimstone, with devils in al to admit the existence of things, hell! Then women and children IIis provi absolutely, unqualified. dence craved, And prayed from the torments of he'd to Existence itself is before purpose, be saved. and requires no apology for its A8 the men from the “ anxious seat” being. Hence there can not have still staid away, He told about Christ’s pyrotechnic dis been purposes before a being (a play ! something). Only those with his mark on their fore Things are, and with the excep heads engraved, On the great final day would by Jesus tion of some of the works of man be saved. and other finite intelligences, if He told of the devils’ sea-trip in the such exist, there is no reason why shoats; Of the sheep on the right, on the left- for their being. hand the goats; The writer’s position is, therefore, How hell with the skulls of small in that the “how”, the modus operan- fants was paved, Whose parents, impenitent, wouldn’t be di, of things being knowable with saved. out limitation, and there being no No need in “ the kingdom” of treasure “why” for natural things (with the or pelf; That God cannot save, you must do it above exception), there is no fact yourself. Theophilus shuddered, and finally caved, in nature but what the intellett of Then prayed from his former good deeds man is competent (the opportunity to be saved! being given) to know. He has left the broad road of good rea If it is claimed that simple exist son and sense, And passed thro’ the wicket, behind the ence or being is a fact and an un board fence. t I knowable fact, it is perhaps a suffi No staggering now’, for “ the kingdom cient reply to say that substance or he staved: Through a passage so narrow he ought essence however conceived of is to be saved 1 known by its properties — its char The revival is ended; the gossips in acteristics, and that simple being, town Declare this carousal was got up for in the sense of substance without Brown, ! While he got a notion, that one so de character, is probably not a fact. This seems so, for how better can we praved Would never by God nor by Jesus lx* arrive at the idea of complete non saved. entity than by eliminating from So the preacher was ordered to come and matter all its known properties? It baptize This fruit of excitement, religion, and is most evident that to take from lies; i Then down to the water he went to be matter the one quality of exten laved, sion is to destroy it; and to take To wash out the stains of the ransomed from force the idea of influence ex and saved. erted is to annihilate force; so that He rose from the water with teeth and it muHt be illogical to speak of a eyes set. Overcome with excitement, religion, and supposed thing that is reduced to wet non-entity in the very effort to con And ever thereafter he foolishly raved How the devil and he would together l>e ceive of it as an actuality. saved. Theophilus Brown. A I ENO. 34. Perversion of the Laws of The mind is adapted to know Health. realities, and realities have proper ties making them objects of knowl BY F. L. OSWALD. edge—making them knowable; and hence a thing supposed to be a real ity, but found to have no knowable abitual siu against the nature, is necessarily discarded by health-laws of Nature was the mind (if the mind is not under originally chiefly a conse duress) as a false conception and as quence of untoward circumstances. not existing at all as a verity. Slaves, paupers, immigrants to the The “unknowable” is possibly inhospitable climes of the higher only another name for the unreal. altitudes, were forced to adopt ab Knowledge is of or concerning normal modes of life which, in the nature’s methods, and nature’s course of time, hardened into hab methods are all knowable. To go its. Man, like all the varieties of further than this and to say that his four-handed relatives, is a na back of and anterior to nature there tive of the tropics, and the diet of existed an infinitude of purposes in our earliest man-like ancestors was, the mind of an infinite personal in in all probability,frugal: tree-fruits, telligence, is without reason and berries, nuts, roots, and edible herbs without results. It is simply an and gums. But the first colonists attempted explanation for what of the winter lands were obliged to needs no explanation, in that it re eke out an existence by eating the solves itself into seeking a reason flesh of their fellow-creatures, and a for existence, an excuse for being, carnivorous diet thus became the when being must necessarily be habitual and, in many countries, (and is, even in this attempt to ac almost the exclusive diet of the no count for being) accepted as a first madic inhabitants. Alcohol is a product of fermenta truth. Existence, in some sense of the word, cannot, it is clear, tion, and the averice of a cruel mas be thought of as contingent. It ter may have forced his slaves to necessarily is, and needs no reason quench their thirst with fermented for being. To seek to get hack of it must or hydrornel till habit begot a for the purpose of ascertaining a baneful secoud nature, and the at why for it is to doubt its necessity first reluctant victims of intoxica and to make of all existence some tion learned to prefer spoiled to fresh grape-juice. Sedeutary oc thing that need not have been. As to the forms of matter or the cupations, however distasteful at modes of force, or however the idea first, are apt to engender a sluggish of character in necessary being may aversion to physical exercise, and be expressed, it seems equally clear even habitual confinement in a that character, or quality, is insep vitiated atmosphere may at last be arable from being and no more come a second nature, characterized needs explanation than does exist by a morbid dread of fresh air. ence itself. No thing, whether it The slaves of the Roman landown be named matter, force, or simply ers had to pass their nights in essence, without properties can he prison-like dungeons, and may have determined by the intellectual contracted the first germ of that powers of man to exist, for the rea mental disease known as the night- son that all our knowledge of the air superstition, the idea, namely, existence of any thing comes from that after dark the vitiated atmos the character of such thing. It is phere of a stifling dormitory is pre only through its qualities that a ferable to the balm of the cooling thing is recognized by the mind at night wind. In modern times an unprecedent all. A characterless thing is no ed concurrence of circumstances thing. Being is, being is something, is has stimulated a feverish haste in some way—has characteristics, at the pursuit of wealth, and thus in tributes, properties; but cannot be directly led to the neglect of per the result of an anterior purpose, sonal hygiene. The abolition of because purpose itself is a charac the public festivals by which the teristic of something. Modes of na potentates of the pagan empires ture, therefore, no more need or de compensated their subjects for the mand a prior purpose than “God”, loss of political freedom, the heart in the popular sense of the term, less egotism of our wealthy Phari requires a creator or a reason for sees, venal justice, and the dire his attributes. Nature’s movements, bondage of city life all help to stim nature’s acts are her attributes, and ulate a headlong race toward the there can be no “ why” concerning goal of the promised land of ease Continued on 6th page. them.—[No Beginning. H X *