Elizabeth Cady Stanton Speeches & Writings File "Clerical Assumption" cn.d.3 [no date] [Incomplete?] Clerical assumptions. The popular common sense view of many time honored opinions & customs, seems to be rapidly bringing the clergy & the people into conflict with one another. The former are very active just now against Sunday newspapers, the opening of libraries,museums & picture galleries to the labouring masses, Sunday mails & travels, Malthusian theories & crematories. Having long had a monoloy of what they declared to be "Why time" of the three great sacraments of Woman life birth, marriage & death, they are naturally opposed to let the absolute power they have enjoyed in all there directories slip from their hands without organized resistance. In the April number of the Forum Bishop Coxe rants through several pages against cremation, as unchristian, depriving the dead of the rights of the church, showing the [priest?] [Clerical assumption] more jealous lest some of the rituals of his profession should become superfluous. Then that the sanitary conditions of the [people] living should be protected by the cremation rather than the inhumation of the dead. That the priesthood might not lose the influence they gain, by ministering to the people in hours when their feelings are most easily touched, the burial rites could be maintained for those who desire it, & thus in no way curtail the rights & privileges of the church. In Pittsburgh a [United Presbyterian] Presbytry has recently been deeply stirred, by the offer of Mr Henry Phipps of $25,000 for conservations in the Allegheny Park on condition that they should be open to the laboring people on Sunday. There clerical bretheren forthwith called a meeting & passed strong resolutions against accepting the Phipps offer unless the wicked proviso be withdrawn. These gentlemen speak as those having authority & warn the City Council against this entering wedge to all manner of license in "Gods Holy Day." For the people to leave their gloomy tenement homes, & spend Sunday in the Park looking at beautiful flowers, & rare plants from all latitudes, lunching & resting in the open air, with children lulled to sleep with the songs of merry birds, all this the U. S. Presbytery, in two whereases & three solemn resolutions have proclaimed dangerous & demoralizing innovations for a christian nation. Another council of these clerical bretheren have issued their pronouncements against Sundy newspapers & warned their congregations, against their publication by purchasing and reading them. Why should the Sunday papers that have more literary merit and information, than any during the week, be more objectionable than the Monday papers which are all set up on Sunday, while the work on the Sunday papers is done on Saturday If the Sunday papers contained a single column of as questionable morals & decency as innumerable chapters in the Bible they would have been surpressed long ago [by] as obscene literature. The opposition of the clergy then cannot be based in the merits of these papers Our newspapers are the daily history of our times, noting the steps of progress in the arts & sciences, in the inventions & industries, in literature & philanthropy, in our systems of religion & government, touching the vast area of all human interests. The clergy would not object to see the whole American people after listening to pulpit platitudes for hours to sit the remainder of the day & far into the night Bible in hand reading about the every day life of the twelve tribes of Israel, all about their wanderings & wars, their social religions & political frauds & corruptions, the sophistries & [tergiversations?] of their priests & prophets. Why is the history of what Abraham Isaac & Jacob, Solomon & David did & said, better reading for Sunday, than able review of new books found in the newspapers of our day. Well but says one canting brother The Sunday Sun has so many murders & elopements, fights & matches, so has the Pentetuch. The stones that shattered Abimelech & Goliath, & Samsons trifling with the arches of the temple & his unfortunate nap in the lap of Delila are quite as unprofitable reading, as the vagaries of silly people in the present. It depends on what parts of the Bible & the Sunday papers you read whether you will be benefited or not. The real point in all this clerical hubbub is just this, Sunday is the day they make their living by closing all other sources of amusement they hope to force people to the churches to drop the money they would otherwise spend into their contribution boxes. It is clearly not the goal of the people they are so anxious to protect. Nothing easier than to carp at anything earnest humane people do, but what do these clerical carpers propose. What would they do with the swarming masses in our great cities. They will not go to the churches, they will not read trats Bibles & sermons the choice for them is not between the employments & devotions of those who profess to be Christians, & popular amusements, but between the dreary tenements houses & lager beer saloons on the [one hand] & the parks museums, picture galleries, & concerts halls, & popular lectures in all the public schools on the other. It is impossible to imagine on what basis any fair minded man would relegate the laboring masses, from all outdoor amusements & educational influences to their dreary unhappy 4 any person who has ever lived in several of these tenement houses knows that [the day] "this holy time" seems specially used for maltreating wives & children. It being the only day as a general thing that the men are at home the attics fighting & crying of the children become unendurable, so the fathers whip the children then the mothers interfere & & get pounded in turn, while in an open park or any place of amusement they would all be on their good behavior, under the restraining influences of their neighbor's eyes which they respect & fear much more that the traditional omnipresent eye of [omnipotence] the Creator. The simple facts of the case all summed up seems to be just this. 1st Sunday is the day on which the clergy make their living, [hence they] & the day when they can say their say on all questions of time & eternity, & have it all their own way, where no man can answer their arguments. The day when all the money the laboring masses now spend in the little pleasure they can glean here & there might be gathered into church contribution boxes. 2nd They think by closing all other places of entertainment, more people would [inevitataley?] drift into the churches, others would remain quietly at home. The towns and cities would be kept quiet. & the old & young would alike devote their time & thoughts to the grave problems of a future life. 3rd. They really think there is something sacred about the seventh day. That the great Creator of the universe worked by the day in moulding original chaos into cosmos. That he did this great work in six days & rested on the seventh, & then & there in the beginning commanded that all his creatures should cease from their labors as he did. [but] not [because?] to rest, as he did, but to make it the most tiresome day of the week. [of it] By praising him [all day] in pslams & prayers & solemn sacraments. chosing from the regular services to Bible classes sunday schools prayer meetings. 4th not satisfied with this they have been infringing on the other days of the week They not only have the weekly prayer meeting, but sermons on [our holy day] Christmas & Thanksgiving & preparatory lectures before [annimex?] [Manditorying?] time that many people would enjoy much better, in other ways. Then too the clergy must have their donation parties, take a town of 5000 people with its half a dozen clergymen & a donation party all around once a year. Until the chief business of the people seems to be to keep up the churches & support a clerical staff. They generally look with an evil eye, on all other services of amusement even for week days. Circuses, theaters, balls parties skating rinks, literary clubs courses of lecturers, anything & everything that takes the peoples thoughts & money from the churches. [In] You never find them as a body active in the higher education of the people, stirring them up to liberal thought to the study of science, philosophy, to a rational investigation of the dogmas & superstitions of the dying theologies. Instead of leading the people step by step to the investigation of all the great truths & wonderful discoveries in science & the arts, they continue to dobriate year after year, the [worn out] crude ideas of past centuries. The one way they could fill their churches & improve & instruct the people is first by study & thought to broaden their own horizon, to keep pace with the times in which they live, & prepare the people to discharge their duties in this sphere of action. We need to hear more about this life, how to solve its many tangled problems, how to educate 6. develope grand men & women, how to elevate the [manes?] & equalize the conditions of humanity, Instead of standing up in their pulpits before proud capitalists & monopolists & teaching that all the present arrangements of society were [arranged] ordained by infinite wisdom for wise purposes, as they do, they should clearly point out the sine & vices incident to our civilization & the wrongs committed by their own congregation. We have dwelt quite long enough [on the Jews] [& the Catholics] on the objectionable features of the Jesuit & Catholic faiths, we can, will profit soon review the absurdities, contradictions of our Protestant canon bibles & authorities. In fact we have no authority for our faith. The Catholics can boast a long line of Popes & saints running back eighteen hundred centuries, & [yet they never quote the Protestant Bible as authority their authority is] for their divine authority but in what does Protestantism rest & what is their authority. A book. [Comprised] collected from old manuscripts preserved by the Catholic Church for ages. Written by men, collected by men, translated by men revised again & again by councils of men, accepting and rejecting Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.