Torch of reason., April 26, 1900, Image 1

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‘•TRUTH BEARS THE TORCH IN THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH.”— Lucretius-
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The New-born Soul.
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And. when the birth of us
Shall to the death of our bodies give strange is this cry, sprung up in
our own generation, that religion is
place,
Then all the worth of us,
dishonored by being anthropomor­
Freed from the earth of us,
Deathless shall live in the life of the race. phic! Fetichism, Polytheism, Con­
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cling to a religion of Spiritism when
philosophy is whittling away spirit
BY COURTLANDT PALMER.
to nothing? Or shall we accept a
Marvel n o t th a t J said o n to thee: Ye m ost be
religion of Realism, where all the
born a g a in —J o h n iii., 7.
fucianism, Mediaeval Christianity great traditions and functions of
Those who can read th e signs o f th e tim es
read in them th at the K ingdom of M an is at hand
and Bible Puritanism have all been religion are retained unbroken?—
- N . K ingdon (. liflo rd .
Realism vs. Spiritism,
intensely anthropomorphic, and all [The Nature and Reality of Relig­
f yore, as realities
owed their strength and dominion io n .
Spirits, ’twas sung, over slumter-
BY F R E D E R IC K H A R R ISO N .
land stole:—
to hat fact. You can have no re­
From such idealities,
—Deemed personalties,—
ne word to those who would ligion without kinship, sympathy,
Fancy has fondly created the soul.
Reason Will Soon Triumph.
see religion a working real­ relation of some human kind be­
Yes, as an entity
ity, and not a logical arti­ tween the believer, worshipper,
iraspless and ghostly, a vision-made
BY KERSEY GRAVES.
man,
fice. The startling‘reductio ad ab- servant, and the object of hi» belief,
A phantom identity,
surdum’ of relegating religion to veneration and service. The Neo-
Bodied nonentity,
he march of science and the
Wafted to heaven when ended life’s span. the unknowable is only the last Theisms have all the same mortal
rapid growth of the reason­
step in the process which has grad­ weakness that the Unknowable has.
But heaven’s locality,
ing faculties peculiar to this
Faded its hounds, to the boundless dil­ ually reduced religion to an incom­ They offer no kinship, sympathy or
ates,—
prehensible minimum. And this relation whatever between worship­ progressive age are daily revealing
So, thought’s totality
Universality
has been the work of theologians per and worshipped. They too are the errors of our popular theology,
Sheds in the mind and the soul re-creates.
obstinately fighting a losing battle, formulas begotten in controversy, and exposing their demoralizing
dwelling apart from man and the effects in repressing the growth and
Thus, from past wandering,
Home to man’s self-hood his soul has and withdrawing at every defeat world.
healthy action of the intellect, and
into a more impregnable and nar­
returned
Freed from vain pondering,
perverting the exercise of the moral
rower fastness. They have thrown
If we leave the region of formu­
Zeal no more squandering,
And this progressive
Strong in the strength for which long it over one after another the claims of las and go back to the practical faculties.
has yearned.
religion and the attributes of di­ effect of religion on human conduct, change and improvement must be
The soul a reflector is,
vinity. They are so hopeless of we must be driven to the conclus­ a source of great rejoicing to every
Casting the image of heaven and earth ;
continuing the contest on the open ion that the future of religion is to true-hearted philanthropist,and fur­
No more a spectre is,
But the perfecter is,
field of the known that they more be, not only what every true relig­ nishes a strong incentive to labor
Pointing the path unto worthiest worth.
and more seek to withdraw to the ion has ever been, anthropomorphic with zeal in this field of reform. It
The soul is a trinity,
cloud-world of the transcendental. —but frankly anthropic. The at- should be borne in mind that all
Intellect, will and emotion in one;
They are so terribly afraid of an G .»pied religion of Spiritism has the dogmas and doctrines of our
This man’s affinity
Is to divinity,
current religious faith originated at
This is the sainthood by manhood out­ anthropomorphic god that they lost one after another every re­ a period before the sun of science
have sublimated him into a meta­ source of a real religion, until ‘risu
done.
phorical expression—“defecated the solvuntnr tabulae’, and it ends in a had risen above the mental horizon
So now the role of man
In his own manhood on earth shall be idea of a pure transparency”. And religion of Nothingism. It is the and anterior to the birth of moral
played;
now they are pushed by Evolution Nempsis of faith in spiritual ab­ science, and hence, like other pro­
So now the soul of man
Finds the true goal of man
into the abyss, and are solemnly stractions and figments. The hy­ ductions of that age, are heavily
Heavenly realms by this world over­
assured that the reconciliation of pothesis has hurst, and leaves the laden with error. But rejoice, O
weighed.
religion and science is effected by Void. The future will have then ye lovers of and laborers for truth
The soul in humility,
and science! the dark clouds of our
Turns to the infinite, rev’rent with awe, this religion of the unknowable — to return to the Knowable and the
But sees the sterility,
this ‘chimoera bombinansin vacuo’. certainly known, the religion of gloomy theology are receding before
Feels the futility,
Their Infinites and their Incom­ Realism. It must . . . con­ the sunlight of modern civilization,
Godhead to limit in limits of law;
and will soon leave a clear and
prehensible*, their Absolute and tent itself with explaining human
And yet it potential is;
Stars are its chariots, space its domain, their Unconditioned, have brought life. Humanity is. the grandest cloudless sky. And all will rejoice
Thought its essential is,
in having learned and practically
them to this.
It is only one object of reverence within the re­
Truth its credential is,
Science its symphony, Man its refrain. step from the sublime to the un­ gion of the real and the known, experienced the glorious truth that
true religion is not incorporated in
knowable.
The soul of H umanity
Humanity will) the World on which bibles, or inscribed on the pages of
Is the good gained, the bad quelled
Practically, so far as it affects it rests as its base and environment.
through all time:
any book, and cannot be found
the lives of men and women in the Religion, having failed in the su­
From dead Christianity,
therein, but is a natural and spon­
New-risen sanity,
battle
of
life,
the
Absolute
and
Un­
perhuman
world,
returns
to
the
hu­
Saves us baptised in this race-soul sub­
taneous outgrowth of man’s moral
conditioned Godhead of learned di­ man world. Here religion can find
lime.
. . nature, and is “the most
vines
is
very
much
the
same
thing
again
all
its
certainty,
all
its
depth
Thus in a unity
beautiful flower of the soul” [intel­
Midst nature's processes man will be as the Absolute Unknowable. You of human sympathy, all its claim
lect].—[The Bible of Bibles.
found
may
rout
a
logician
by
a
“pure
to
command
and
reward
the
purest
From such community
transparency”, but you can not self-sacrifice and love. We can take
Free opportunity
Flows for the race in one brotherhood check vice, crime and war by it,nor our place again with all the great
^ I oodnbss is always good; while
bound.
train up men and women in holi­ religious spirits who have ever
piety, flowing from an erron­
By art testified, «
ness
and
truth.
And
the
set
of
all
moulded
the
faith
and
life
of
men,
Roused by the good and redeemed by
modern theology is away from the and we find ourselves in harmony eous religious belief, may be abso­
the true,
Life by love ratified,
anthropomorphic and into the ab­ with the devout of every faith who lutely bad. It was religious piety
Through duty gratified,
Such is the soul sweetest service to strew. solute. In trying to save a relig­ are manfully battling with sin and that urged Philip II. of Spain to
ion of the spirit-world, theologians discord. The way for us is the slaughter thousands of Protestants;
Oh, the nobility
Ever with heroes ami martyrs to stand! are abandoning all religion of the clearer as we find the religion of had he been guided by the moral
Strong the stability,
real world; they are turning relig­ Spiritism, in its long and restless principle of goodness, this horrid
Sweet the tranquility,
Ransomed by hope in earth’s Eden-made ion into formulas and phrases, and evolution of thirty centuries, end­
land.
are taking out of it all power over ing in the legitimate deduction, the blot upon the name of Christian
Taken such attitude
life, duty and society.
religion of the Unknowable, a par­ would never have been made. To
Souls so attempered attain the divine;
I say, in a word, unless religion adox as memorable as any in the be pious is to be religious; to be
Widened faith’s platitude
By reason’s latitude,
is to be anthropomorphic, there can history of the human mind. The good is to be moral.—Hon. R. S.
I lings of the spirit the realest things
be no working religion at all. How alternative is very plain. Shall we McCormick.
shine.
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