T H ^TO R Ç H OF reason , SILVERTON OREGON, JANUARY 4, l 899.
\en afterwards to see him and 1 in thp **iv 'p *
—
■
—
~
heard “unspeakable words” (Cor ¡“canonical” 08 an‘eni’’ afe ^ Iled with other than past sensations’ and F unh
2:11). Then notice how all ani- the^ ^ 0 f l c T ^ / ;
Wb<?n did
Christ ever return a8 ancient
mals were let down in Acts before herited
i
F° ’ an< tbence
promised?
Never! ’ ° Or r if he
be did
* i
p UUS* ^hat they ai.
Z u * d n" | „h
“ is “ the use
Peter front heaven, X th the d m ! herited and most st angely . adopted
what
of H v i n X » did’ ™
~
i“ befo' ‘‘ ‘b9 Hebrews
by the Protestants,
‘
ever picked them up, and that thev
maud, “Kill and eat” (Acts 10).
everything else Catholic, even to the vbole sto v and 1'°"
" 3Ve no
n° more
mOre obJ>ctive
have
objective truth or
Where in heaven did all those ani •he Apocrypha, without any real There was „ o 'Z h e t n P a X "
‘ba"
"Arabian n S s ”
1
A
I
n l l f l O U l HI1V FPfl
S
S
S
~
reason or consistent ........
•
nt> and was I They are simply the subjective fan.
and is no such heaven to come Lu« a, , lrnP -v 1 be subjective fan-
coelestial stockyards?
But the work of making gospels,
P ‘
egends of the imaginative
But these stories, apparitions and that is “Lives of the Christ,” has from, or to go to!
The Christ of the past was a d T " P^ ple8’ the“ old «oul-
“visions” are all too manifestly real never stopped from the lean
as subjective myths, and too absurd Matthew and Mark down to the word, a myth which blossomed in- their early take l“ 1’ H“brews- in
as objective facts, to follow further. Frenchy-fanciful scholar Renan, •ovisionsolillusion-asdidallthose'up and Lssed t T . ’ haV9 pieked
the other sun-gods, heroes and «av l„ i n
P .
°" 10 "8 - » " o f
It is a plain case of “spiritual ma and the florid “Ben Hur,” of our ¡ors
of old. But ar’ound t h " Ciud i t
?*’
T ‘
p>ke
terialization”. Neither Paul nor Gen. Wallace. As histories they
myth were gathered a mass ,4 oth- I s Xw" T f
T'™ ?
x any known human being ever pre are all of equal value—that is, none
tended that he saw Jesus “in the whatever! Taken as ideals and er myths and imagery and sacred these old F f 8tament added
’ •
, 8 old Eastern myths, that of
flesh”. He saw only “in the spirit”. sentimental romances, the last may symbols, from India, Egypt, Greece, the Christ appearance, his life of
A few years ago the “Apocalypse o be the best, because while it is the Rome and the North, until the
miracles, and his terrible “crucifix-
Peter” was discovered in Egypt, most absurd and ridiculous object mighty fabric of church-dogmas, *?.n” 3° appease an angry Father.
duly written in Greek, of which he ively, subjectively it is the most creeds and ecclesiasticism, was' I he Sun of Science has dissipated
never knew a word, and which I advanced kind of ideal painting— built up gradually through the cen all of this horrible m yth,-and that
have here. \Y ith it was discovered “Ecce Homo?” The last appear turies. But it all rests at bottom
should, beyond measure, add to the
the corresponding “gospel” written ance of “Christ” I have seen is in upon this myth of a Messiah, a god joys of this day of the Sun! Why
afterwards, which is also here in the novel “Quo Vadis,” where he man,and
With th of d a “firmament-heaven”.
nrm rtm ent-h ea™ n” not? What more dreadful than to
those
words
in
G
,in
(?)
J
m
Greek, plainly written to support
have to believe that the vast mass
the vision. The Jewish Christians heaven, and thus drives Peter back
of the human race had been creat-
never wrote gospels; they had no to his martyrdom, and furnishes tronomy and true human history, ed to add to the glory of their God
such facts, nor need of such facts, he title to that most absurd novel all that mighty fabric of “Faith” by eternal torment?—except to have
falls,— however long it may take
i'hey had real “visions” from which and travesty of history.
many to come to a realizing sense to add to it,the belief that the same
they obtained all needful informa
Every scientific historian, every
God consented to except a few by
tion from Jesus on earth or in man of common sense ought to pro of the fact. As Faust says of that the the horrible murder of his only
heaven. Take, for instance, the test against these impossible “Lives old world:
son? Then, on earth, think of the
revelation of the Lord’s Supper to of Christ”—ancient or modern—be “ A Demi-God [T ru th ] h a th strick en it wicked obloquy and persecutions
dow n!
Paul — “For I have received of ing considered other than ideal ro
' Vp,bear th4e r,nin8Lover in to noth in g n ess, that have followed the Hebrew peo
the Lord that which I have deliv mances or “divine fictions.” They And lam ent o er th e b e au ty th a t is lost. ple for their supposed part in this
More sp len d id ly build it again,
ered unto you. How that,” etc., are, otherwise, simply abuses of
crucifixion of a Savior who was
In th in e own bosom build anew !
describing the “vision” of the sup credulity and of the most earnest
already “slain from the foundation
W ith c le are r sense
per (1 Lor. 11:23). Phis vision was and sacred affections, and make the
L et new er songs
of the world”! Then think of the
R ing o u t therefrom !”
duly expanded in the “gospels”, in general conception of truth and
cruel wars, persecutions, tortures,
which, for instance, Luke is made truthfulness in history or in our
With wonderful insight, Goethe hurningsf-and the agonies of those
to say that he sets forth “in order life impossible.
called Chtistianity the “Religion of who have supposed themselves for
a declaration of those things which
Sorrow”.
It is strange that our Deistic | S°rrow
”• When
ben we consider the ever damned! Add to that the re
are most surely believed amon^o thinkers of the last century, like j dogma8 and creeds that overgrew pression of freethought, joy and
us, even as they were delivered from Voltaire and Rousseau, gave credit | 8 nucleus, he might well have growth of the race,—whose progress
the beginning unto eye witnesses to these Greek gospels so far as to I ^al.led il tbe “ Religion of Horror”, has been actually arrested nearly
and ministers of the word ” (Luke apparently admit the existence of! ,binkof the ridiculous, inconceiva two thousand years by the con
1:3). This is not the preface of the ble “man Jesus” and to crown him I bI* 8t°Fy °f creition out of nothing, stant expectation of the end of the
narrator of objective facts collected, with eulogies. They seemed to have I th* rib’wo,nan; the Fall of Man; world, with its judgment day and
but of subjective clues and facts dropped all capacity to r e a s o n ! * Babel and F,Ood; the Total heaven and hell!
delivered to “eye witnesses” in when they come to these stories. | * pFaV’ty’ the damnatian of all of
and now we are liberals !
“Apocalypses”.
Even Thomas Paine, who hit right j °”F Face bpfore existed, except by All free and “out in the clear!”
Then how did the “gospels” on nearly every other Bible ques-j 6 . ag°ny and crucifikion of its How can we ever rejoice enough
come? Subjectively, as a matter tion from Jonah down, thinks there | aV*°F’ and tbat onI^ to 8ave a over our deliverance? The Fourth
of course. When the visionists and “may have been” a good man Je- I8IilidI part °f tbft race> and that of July, grand as it was and is, is
small part to suffer ever and ever as nothing to this emancipation of "
their believers had to explain their sus. Now let us see
IT
ALL
BEGINS
“ h e i\ Ven a b ° Ve by k n o w i n g “ " d
Kingdom and its Savior to the
the mind of man from these East
Greeks and Gentiles of objective with.andsodependsupon-angels-’a i . T X i !, nevere"ding agony of ern nightmares. It was the sun
mind, they had to make their prophetic dream,a virgin mother Jus X 7 t b
E ^ / ’, v
^ " " “i 7°" that did it—our Sun, the Sun of
Messiah, or Christ, i. e., Jesus, a his eupern atural conception and strange d
,
7
rescue ° f the Science. With our joy of merry
7 ' hahavlor 19 “Hawed as the Christmas, let the thankfulness o’f
torical fact and person. So under birth, a life of miracles, with cruel
the influence of their hearts and fixion, resurrection and bodily as-
° W" .c We . °f h“mi,ia
-------- gratitude he added to those Scient-
visions the subjective fancy, out of cension to a heaven—in the sky!_ Don, agony, crucifixion and tor- ists who, through toil torture suff
the best materials know’n and col- and his promise that he would t,.re and terrible death. W as,rag- erings and death have ‘•bun.’e Urn
1 f‘b‘d, wove the gospel stories surely return from thence (heaven edy more awfui and horrible ever torch of truth in ‘ be search for
truth,” and made possible our great
iphically and in separate, piece in the sky) during the lives of those real,zed or ever conceived?
How can we help but rejoice and emancipation!
8
meal paragraphs , or “books”. then listening to him, and then in-
1 hese were finally, nearly a hun troditce the ‘‘kingdom of heaven” the Sun’ w rth L ' T k 0"
7
8° n° ’ le‘ “8 torn the ,eaf from
te d years after Christ’s “ascen- - « ¡ m - , , , ,
' m”, not death, collected into gos-
Pels ‘ according to Matthew”, or
» or both, whose names, appear- Reason?” Now fortv millirn l l '
k them seem to be good wit- an animal with both a r m / a
>«-es o, the stories to.d.
wings. The same am ountX h’e al
these gospels over thirty were for a virgin mother T h e « ^ ^
known of old, and many called" only onemirad o - a skv , eav ,
^ P ^ F b a l ” have come down to I which ,he teleX pe shows 7 X
■"’ hole or p .rt, O n iy .b e four 1 where. How can a dream deal
h
one should know have lived one above another like
ri » instead of deing di- last and highest has alw,,y« result-
Z h i X ’"kn
[reV1ela"'‘" '8-
There has a t
h X X .. kn 0W. n
n<’1 eTen " J " been
h'»"“n P-wer, am-’
f he r t . T ’ ',U“ he old “ y"-“ bhion or motive which has C
Per' i.ns w ‘ i,''h 1 j T ? " 8 ,n d ‘"e ’001 °f -aC"
Hooded c b i vailey’’o,
X ’ , l'“ '" 8 and, ’“ ‘•'" in g h- Those
v ay vaijpys Of the Tigris »horrors could never have been ex-