Ton ch of • truth VOL. 4. R eason . bears th e torch in th e search FOR TRUTH.”_ Z MCr e i u « . JMLVERTON, OREGON, THURSDAY, MARCH ? 9 ? E M . 300 ( a 7DT 1900? NO. 12. Never Despair. gressed so far: and the photograph 'HE opal-hued and many-perfumed ic eye will reveal many celestial Morn mysteries before the human e5?e From 31 oom is born ; es- From out the sullen depth of ebon NighT shall , 7 , see " 7 reason n and and knowledge knowledge es The stars shed li,ght; tablieh their reign on our little re moved; and as to the men called not to believe there is a God than inspired penmen, they agree so well to believe of him falsely. When about the matter that in one book we behold the mighty universe that they say that it was God, and in surrounds us and dart our contem the other that it was the devil. plation into the eternity of space, Gems i„U ,e of the earth volving b a ll.-[C o SmOpolita n. et this is the trash the church filled with innumerable orbs, re From wondrous alchemy of winter hours imposes upon the world as the volving in eternal harmony, how Come summer flowers; Essay on Dreams. word of God! This is the collec paltry must the tales of the Old The bitter waters of the restless main Give gentle rain; tion of tales and contradictions and New Testaments, profanely The fading bloom and dry seed bring BY THOMAS PAINE. called the Holy Bible! This is the called the word of God, appear to once more The year’s fresh store; rubbish called revealed religion! Just sequences of clashing tones afford thoughtful man! The stupendous \ er \ new religion, like a new The full accord; The idea that writers of the Old wisdom and unerring order that play, requires a new appa Testament had of a God was bois Through weary ages, full of strife and ruth. ratus of dresses and ma terous, contemptible and vulgar. reign and govern throughout this Thought reaches tru th ; Through efforts, long in vain, prophetic chinery, to fit the new characters They make him the Mars of the wondrous whole and call us to re need it creates. The story of Christ in Jews, the fighting God of Israel, flection, put to shame the Bible! Begets the deed: I shall conclude this Essay on Nerve then thy soul with direct need to the New Testament brings a new the conjuring God of their priests cope; being upon the stage, which it calls and prophets. 1 hey tell as many Dreams with the two first verses of Life’s brightest hope the Holy Ghost; and the story of fables of him as the Greeks told of the 34th chapter of Ecclesiasticus, Lies latent in fate’s deadliest lair— Never despair! one of the books of the Apocrypha: Abraham the father of the Jews, in Hercules. —[Selected. 1 “ Ihe hopes of a man void of the Old Testament, gives existence I hey make their God to say ex- understanding are vain and false, to a new order of beings it calls u 1 tingly, “I will get me honor upon The Wonderful New Eye of angels. There was no Holy Ghost I haraoh, and upon his host, upon and dreams lift up fools. 2 \V hoso regardeth dreams is Science. before the time of Christ, nor an his chariots and upon his horse gels before the time of Abraham. men. And that he may keep his like him that catcheth at a shadow BY CAMILLE FLAMMARION. We hear nothing of these winged word, they make him set a trap in and followeth after the wind.”_ — i gentlemen, till more than two he Red Sea, in the dead of the [Age of Reason. he lens of photographic ap- thousand years, according to the night, for Pharaoh, his host and paratus is really a new Eye: Bible chronology, from the time Inspired Infidelity. lie horses, and drown them as a which supplements ours, they say the heavens, the earth and rat-catcher would so many rats [EccleaiaHtes 9:2-10. J and which, more wonderful still, all therein were made. After this Gn at honor, indeed 1 The story of ll things come alike to all: surpasses it. : they hop about as thick as birds in Jack the Giant Killer is better told! there is one event to the This great eye is endowed with j a grove. The first we hear of pays They pit him against the Egyp righteous and to the wicked; four considerable advantages over i his addresses to Hagar in the wil- tian magicians to conjure with him, to the good and to the clean, and ours: it sees more quickly, farther, j derness; then three of them visit and after bad conjuring on both to the unclean; to him that sacri longer, and, wonderful faculty, it: Sarah; another wrestles a fall with sides (for where there is no great ficeth and to him that sacrificeth receives and retains the impress of!Jacob; and these birds of passage, contest there is no great honor), not: as is the good, so is the sin what it sees. having found their way to earth they bring him off victorious. The ner; and he that sweareth, as he Never before in the history of and back, are continually coming three first essays are a dead match; that feareth an oath. humanity have we been able to and going. They eat and drink. each party turns his rod into a ser For the living know that they penetrate so deeply into the abysses 1 and up again to heaven pent, the rivers into blood, and ere shall die; but the dead know not nf «„-I*-. »T.,._____ . . . I One ~ would . . think that a system of immensity. This new eye,which transports us across space, also en ioaded with such gross and vulgar ates frogs; but upon the fourth, the anything, neither have they any ables us to retrace the stages of a absurdities as scripture religion is, God of the Israelites obtained the more a reward, for the memory of aurel—he covers them with lice! them is forgotten. past eternity. could never have obtained credit; The Egyptian magicians cannot do Also their love, and their hatred, Infinite space! Eternity! Con yet we have seen what priestcraft the same, and this lousy triumph and their envy is now perished; temporaneous astronomy plunges and fanaticism could do, and cred proclaims the victory! neither have they any more a por us into and submerges us in them. ulity believe. They make their God to rain fire tion forever in anything that is Ah! Astronomy could wish that From angels in the Old Testa and brimstone upon Sodom and done under the sun. the leaders of the peoples, the leg ment we get to prophets, to witch Let thy garments be always islators, the politicians, might use es, to seers of visions and dreamers Gomorrah and belch fire and smoke upon Mount Sinai, as if he was the white, and let thy head lack no their faculties to examime and of dreams, and sometimes we are Pluto of the lower regions. They ointment. comprehend a celestial chart. This told, as in 1 Sam., 9:15, that God made him salt up Lot’s wife like Whatsoever thy hand findeth to calm contemplation would perhaps whispers in the ear. At other pickled pork; they make him pass, do, do it with thy might, for there be more useful to humanity than times we are not told how the im- Î like Shakespeare’s Queen Mab,into is no work, nor device, nor knowl all the diplomatic discourses that pulse was given, or whether sleep- • — ~ w» n u c m c r e ie e p - the brain of their priests, prophets • or a » — p "ild be pronounced. If they com ing waking. In 2 Sam., 24:1, it and prophetesses and tickle them edge, nor wisdom in the grave, pr- bended how small the earth is, says, “And again the anger of the into dreams; and after making him whither thou goest.—[The Preacher. Perhaps they would cease to cut it Lord was kindled against Israel, play all kinds of tricks, they con The belief in a Providence is not up in pieces. Peace would reign in and he moved David against them found him with Satan and leave us consistent with the general laws of the world; social prosperity would to say, Go number Israel and at a loss to know what God they Nature, and those who profess to succeed the ruinous, shameful and Judah.” And in 1 Chron., 21:1, meantl believe it act as if they believed it '■Jamous folly of war, which when the same story is again re This is the descriptive God of not. Such an absurd doctrine can bates and desolates Europe. Po- lated, it is said, “And Satan stood the Old Testament; and as to the al divisions would l>e effaced, up against Israel, and provoked New, though the authors of it have only be useful to kings and priests and other deceivers of mankind, 1 '1 then, and then only, would David to number Israel.” varied the scene, they continued who use the word Providence to ‘11 free to elevate themselves Whether this was done sleeping the vulgarity. give their transactions an authority the study of the universe, the or waking we are not told, but it Is man ever to be the dupe of that must not be called in question, k,"’wledge of nature, and Io live in seems that David, whom they call priestcraft, the slave of super- and under which authority they 1 e enjoyment of the intellectual “a man after God’s own heart,” did stition? Is he never to have just le- Alas! we have not yet pro- not know by what spirit he was ideas of bis Creator? It is better carry on the most malevolent prac tices.—[Seaver. E T A