METAL EDGE, INC. 2008 PH 7.5 TO 9.5 P.A.T. Thomas Biggs Harned Collection of Walt Whitman Papers Box OV2 Folder 2 THE CAMDEN POST—THURSDAY, RY S185 Established 1875 CAMDEN. N.J.. THURSDAY [?] 8 1885 HE WOULD BE A P.M. A Postman Visits Bingham's Boffin's Bower. AND TREATS OF BRIC-A-BRAC Also of Politics, Temperature, Post Office, and other Congenial and Cognate Things The assertion that Hon. Mledical, atteoy 1 Bey Goods, ROWS “ shunary Anmonneement, 2 : ol ao Tp é I gruner & Co., is, Hosiery The Bost Bargais Ai PREVIOUS TO lants for Warming the Inner Ma HECKERS’ Buckwheat CAKES. # gzapquantzns| TWELVES. Toone & Hollinshed,| “° Jeeta - Bats and Gaps. HATS. ey Goods, EPPS'S COCOA.) poUBLE STORE TWELVES. 22| yy, Feats ROLLER SKATES AT FOURTH and MARKET =a3|Faney and Staple STORES, WIN 2a cenoatl | Stationery.THE CAMDEN POST - THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 1885. Amusements. THIRD PROMENADE CONCERT. FOR THE BENEFIT OF PROF. JENNINGS' 6TH REGT BAND Tendered to them by the offers of the sixth regiment and the citizens of Camden, at the NEW ARMORY. WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEB. 11th TICKETS . . . . . . . . 1. 00 HAVERLY'S THEATRE-GRAND PreseTHE TRUTH SEEKER, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. 703 NOTE.---These tracts are especially intended for distribution as Freethought missionary documents. When sending subscriptions for your Truth Seeker, or money for books, please add whatever you can for tracts, and, when received, hand them around among your neighbors, or leave them in hotels, places of public assembly, etc. To allow much to be done in this way with a little money the following discounts are made. On one dollar's worth 10 per cent, off; on two dollars' worth, 20 off; on five dollars' worth, 40 off; on ten dollars' worth, 50 off. This rate of discount is given on these tracts only. Please order by numbers. The numbers not mentioned are out of print. 23 Reply to Shelton's Letter. Bennett 3 29 Paine Hall Dedication. Underwood 5 35 Moving the Ark. Bennett 2 37 Short Sermon. Rev. Theologicus, D. D. 2 38 Christianity not a Moral. X. Y. Z. 2 39 The True Saint. S. P. Putnam 1 43 Christianity a Borrowed System. Bennett 3 47 Cruelty & Credulity of the Human Race 3 49 Sensible Conclusions. E. E. Guild 5 52 Marples-Underwood Debate. Underwood 3 53 Questions for Bible Worshipers 2 74 Open Letter to Jesus Christ. Bennett 5 58 Prophecies. Underwood 2 62 The Jews and their God 10 63 The Devil's Due Bills. Syphers 3 64 Ills we Endure---Cause and Cure. Bennett 5 65 Short Sermon. No. 2. Rev. Theologicus, D. D. 2 67 Sixteen Truth Seeker Leaflets. No. 2 5 70 Vicarious Atonement. J. S. Lyon 3 71 Paine's Anniversary. C. A. Codman 2 73 Foundations. John Syphers 2 74 Daniel in the Lion's Den. Bennett 2 75 An Hour with the Devil. Bennett 10 76 Reply to E. F. Brown. Bennett 3 77 The Fear of Death. D. M. Bennett 5 82 Christian Courtesy. D. M. Bennett 1 83 Revivalism Examined. Dr. A. G. Humphrey 5 84 Moody on Hell. Rev. J. P. Hopps 2 89 Logic of Prayer. C. Stephenson 3 90 Biblo-Mania. Otto Cordates 2 91 Our Ideas of God. B. F. Underwood 1 94 The New Raven. Will Cooper 5 96 Ichabod Crane Papers 10 97 Special Providences. W. S. Bell 2 98 Snakes. Mrs. E. D. Slenker 2 100 140th Anniversary of Paine's Birthday 5 102 The Old Religion and New. Bell 2 104 Evolution of Israel's God. Rawson 10 105 Decadence of Christianity. Capphro 2 107 The Safe Side. H. B. Brown 2 110 Invocation to the Universe. Bennett 1 111 Reply to Scientific America. Bennett 1 112 Sensible Sermon. Rev. M. J. Savage 2 113 Come to Jesus. Bennett 2 114 Where Was Jesus Born? S. H. Preston 1 115 The Wonders of Prayer. Bennett 2 116 The Sunday Question. Bennett 2 117 Constantine the Great. Preston 3 119 The New Faith. Stoddard 3 120 The New Age. W. S. Bell 10 122 World's Great Religions. Bennett 10 123 Paine Vindicated. Ingersoll and "Observer" 10 524 Sinful Saints. Bennett 10 125 German Liberalism. Neymann 2 126 Crimes and Cruelties of Christianity. Underwood 10 130 The Ethics of Religion. Clifford 5 134 Talks with the Evangelists 5 137 Christian Love. C. L. James 3 138 Science of the Bible. John Jasper 2 140 Astro-Theology 5 141 Infidelity. H. W. Beecher 2 142 Synopsis of All Religions. Saxon 10 143 Chang Wau Ho. Eli Perkins 2 148 When Did Paul Live? Scholasticus 2 149 Age of Shams 3 145 If You Take Away my Religion? What Will You Give Me Instead. Martin 10 150 The Liberty of Printing. Hurlbut and Wakeman 10 151 What is the Bible? M. W. H. 5 152 A Remarkable Book. Douglas 2 153 Liberty and Morality. Conway 5 155 Co-operation Society's Redeemer 2 156 Free Speech & Free Press. Shelley 2 159 Boston Bennett Indignation Meeting 5 160 Sabbath Observance. Coleman 3 161 Protestant Persecutions 3 162 Eighth and Last Letter from Ludlow Street Jail. Bennett 10 164 Bible Impeached. Chapman 2 SCIENTIFIC SERIES. 1 Hereditary Transmission. Prof. Elsburg, M. D. 5 2 Evolution: Homogeneous to Heterogeneous. Underwood 3 4 Literature of the Insane. Marvin 5 5 Responsibility of Sex. Mrs. Chase, M. D. 3 6 Graduated Atmospheres. McCarroll 2 7 Death. Frederic R. Marvin, M.D. 3 8 How Marsupial Animals Propagate 2 9 The Unseen World. Prof. J. Fiske 10 10 The Evolution Theory---Huxley's Three Lectures 10 11 Is America New World? Dawson 10 12 Evolution not Atheism nor Materialism. R. S. Brigham, M. D. 5 13 Nibble at Professor Fiske's Crumb for the Modern Symposium 10 See note at head of column. [*1992*] THE TRUTH SEEKER. LARGEST AND MOST POPULAR FREETHOUGHT JOURNAL IN THE WORLD. Published every Saturday, at $3 per year, by the Truth Seeker Company, at 28 Lafayette Place, NEW YORK CITY. E. M. MACDONALD, EDITOR. C. P. SOMERBY, BUSINESS MANAGER. DURING THE YEAR 1890 THE TRUTH SEEKER Will Print the Most Varied and Entertaining Selection of Original Papers of any Liberal Journal. 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Gardener. A THOUGHTLESS YES. The downcast eyes of timid acquiescence hav paid to impudent authority the tribute of a thoughtlessness.---R. G. Ingersoll. CONTENTS. A Splendid Judge of a Woman. The Lady of the Club. Under Protest. For the Prosecution. A rusty Link in the Chain. The Boler House Mystery. The Time-Lock of Our Ancestors. Florence Campbell's Fate. My Patient's Story. Price, paper, 50 cents; cloth, $1. THE TRUTH SEEKER CO., 28 Lafayette Pl., New York. LIFE OF Joshua Davidson: MODERN IMITATION OF CHRIST, As to his Life on Earth and his Communism, BY MRS. E. LYNN LINTON. Author of "A Protest and a Plea," in Order of Creation. Cloth, 12mo, 279 pp., - - 75 Cents. This book was suppressed by the first American publisher. THE TRUTH SEEKER CO. FOR HER DAILY BREAD. A NINETEENTH CENTURY NOVEL. Preface by R. G. INGERSOLL. For Her Daily Bread is the story of two young girls and a younger brother who were left parentless, with little money, fair education, and much courage, to make their way through the world by going to Chicago. The author is also the heroin. The narrativ is, in the main, a history of a working girl's life and experience in the city of Chicago among bluff business men, kind hearted folks, and disreputable hypocrits. It is just such a story of human life as we should expect Colonel Ingersoll to be interested in; and whatever he admires and appreciates is sure to be worth the attention of the rest of the world. Price 25 cents Address THE TRUTH SEEKER. THE NEW GOD. BY SAMUEL P. PUTNAM, Secretary of the American Secular Union. Price 10 cents. Address THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY. THE SAFEST CREED, AND TWELVE OTHER DISCOURSES OF REASON, By O. B. FROTHINGHAM. Extra cloth, 12mo, 238pp., $1. Address THE TRUTH SEEKER CO. SOCIAL WEALTH, The Sole Factors and Exact Ratios in the Acquirement and Apportionment. By J. K. INGALLS. Price, Cloth, [$1.00?] WETTSTEIN'S WORLD-RENOWNED WATCHES. Best grades American Stem-winders: In silverine cases, 7 jewels, $7.50; 9 jewels, $8; 11 jewels, $9; 15 jewels, $10; do. adjusted, $16. In a 3 ounce coin silver cases, $3.50 more; 4 ounce, $4.50, and 5 ounce, $6 more In best filled gold cases, open face, dust proof. 7 jewels, $16; 8 jewels, $16.50; 11 jewels, $17.50; 15 jewels, $18.50; do. adjusted, $14.50. Hunting, $22; $22.10; $23; $24; $30. Ladies', same quality, 7 jewels, $17; 11 jewels, $18.50; 15 jewels, $25. 14 karat solid gold, $10 more. The famous, New Model "Otto Wettstein" Watch, 16 jewels and all modern improvements, $3 more than above adjusted watches. No watch in the world competes with it. Finer watches up to $200. All such prepaid, guaranteed 1 year, and cash refunded if not satisfactory. All filled gold cases warranted by manufacturers 20 years. Beware of New York World's 10 karat and spurious cases. Watches cleaned, best work, $1; springs, $1, etc., and returned free. ESTABLISHED 1857. OTTO WETTSTEIN, Rochelle, Ill. HEAL THYSELF AT THINE OWN HOME. Send 10 cents to Dr. R. P. Fellows, the noted specialist, for his "Private Counselor"--a valuable book for young and middle-aged men, suffering from a Life-wasting Disease, as the result of youthful follies, indiscretion, and excesses in maturer years It sets forth an External Application ---A POSITIVE CURE, as it matters not how long standing, how hopeless or how many remedies you hav used The book is worth many times its cost, and should be in the hands of those seeking a speedy and permanent cure. Address the doctor at Vineland, N. J., and say where you saw this advertisement. A GOOD WORD. Dr. Fellows is an outspoken Liberal, a humanitarian, and a generous patron of the Freethought press. He has many testimonials to the value of his progressive and successful method of treatment, and deserves patronage.--Freethought. FESTIVAL OF ASHTAROTH. A tale of Palestine, founded on the destruction of the Moabites by the Jews. By A. C. MIDDLETON. Price, 10 cents. Liberal Meetings. These notices are for the benefit of Liberals who may be visiting the places where these societies are located. Local Secular Unions and Freethought Societies meeting regularly can hav their gatherings advertised here free by forwarding the necessary information. The Manhattan Liberal Club, N. Y. Meets every Friday evening, at 8 o'clock, at German Masonic Temple, 220 East 15th street. Lectures and discussions. The public cordially invited. The Newark Liberal League Meets every Sunday afternoon at 3 o'clock at Liberal League Hall, 177 Halsey st., cor. Market st., Newark, N. J. Lectures and discussions on religious and social questions. Seats free and everybody welcome. 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Subscriptions to THE TRUTH SEEKER and Investigator are solicited. R. G. SMITH, Cor. Sec. The Walla Walla Liberal Club Meets every Sunday at 2 P.M. in Grand Army hall, Main street, Walla Walla, Washington. Science Lectures.---Free Discussions.---Original and Selected Readings and Poems. A large valuable library is at the service of members and friends. C. B. REYNOLDS, Pres.; A. W. CALDER, Sec. Milwaukee, Wis., Liberal Club Holds meetings every Sunday evening at 216 Grand ave., (Fraternity Hall). Lecture followed by debates. The public cordially invited. Brotherhood of Moralists, No. 903, Prairie City, Ia., Meets every Sunday in the Liberal reading-room hall at 2:30 P.M. All Liberals are cordially invited. F. V. DRAPER, Cor. Sec. San Francisco Cal. Freethought Society Meets every Sunday evening at Union Square Hall, 421 Post street, at 8 o'clock. A cordial invitation is extended to all. Seats free. Des Moines Secular Union Holds regular meetings at Good Templar Hall, Flynn Block, S.E. corner 7th and Locust streets. Lectures followed by discussion. Friends from abroad heartily welcome. FRANKLIN STEINER, Pres. Portsmouth, O., Secular Union Meets every Sunday at 7 P.M. in Grand Army Hall Lectures, discussions, readings, poems, music and songs. A cordial invitation is extended tp all; especially to friends from abroad. Correspondence solicited. J. L. TREUTHART, President. WILL S. ANDRES, Secretary. Port Angeles Secular Union Meets every Sunday at 7:30 P.M. in the public school building in Port Angeles, Wash. Lectures, songs, and select reading. Discussion invited on all subjects. Liberal literature distributed free. FRANK MORSE, Cor. Sec. The West End Progressive Liberal Union Of Los Angeles, Cal., meets semi-monthly, first and third Sundays, at 8 o'clock, P.M., at Parr's Hall. Everybody invited. MRS. R. M. BERRA, Pres.; J. H. McWILLIAMS, Rec. Sec. The Roeder Secular Union Of Roeder, Wash., meets every first and third Sunday in the month, at the Roeder school-house. Lectures, discussions, reading, and poems. The greatest freedom accorded to all. Our motto, "Universal Mental Liberty." D. E RICE, Pres.; J. W. BELL, Vice-Pres.; CHARLES SHEA, Sec. American Secular Union, Newark Branch. 124 Market street. Assembles every Sunday evening at 7 30. Lectures, debates, and discussions on all important secular subjects. President, HENRY BIRD; Secretary, CORA BELLE FLAGG. The Career of Jesus Christ. An Exposition of the True Meaning of this Character as described in the New Testament. By Milton Woolley, M.D., author of "Hebrew Mythology." Paper, Svc. 25 cents TRY- SQUARE; OR, The Church of Practical Religion. BY REPORTER. This is the history of an attempt to found a church without superstition, and its success. Uncle Job Sawyer, the pastor, having established his pulpit, uses it to discuss all the vital questions of human concern, religious, political, and otherwise. The book is written in well-chosen language, and easily understood. There is just sufficient narrativ about it to interest the reader and hold his attention while the truth is being brought to his mind. For sale at this office. Price, $1.00.704 THE TRUTH SEEKER, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. News of the Week. IT is said the president and the Republican party dislike the anti-Catholic articles which Col. Elliott Shepard prints in his New York Republican organ, the Mail and Express, and will procure their discontinuance or start another Republican evening paper here. REV. MARTIN L. FRITCH, of Reading, Pa., has been jailed three months for stealing. IN the coming election in Great Britain Scotsmen will endeavor to disestablish the Church of Scotland. THE archbishops and bishops of Ireland hav issued a pastoral letter calling on Parliament to avert the starvation threatening the Irish. THE Russian government has placed in all the telegraph stations in the province of Finland, which is largely Protestant, images of the saints of the Greek Catholic church. THE Italian government has closed a school at Smyrna because it raised the pontifical escutcheon instead of that of Italy. The Sisters of Charity who ran the school hav been dismissed, and a secular school has been set up in place of the old one. THE trouble between the Central American republics is the attempt to effect union. Apprehensions of the unjust aggrandization of one nation in the union cause the countries, as says a dispatch, to "tear one another like tigers." THE Russian superintendent of police is receiving many petitions to change names of Jewish lawyers to names that will not [???] Hebraic origin so that the petitioners will not suffer avoidance in patronage. CARDINAL TASCHERAEAU'S demand for precedence at the visit of Prince George has given an additional fillip to religious dissensions in Canada. RELIGIOUS objections to truths in public school books are inducing more and more expurgation. It is reported that "the class-books will soon become more celebrated for their negations and omissions than for the positiv information they contain." EMPEROR WILLIAM of Germany is said to be irritated against Russia's keeping 450,000 men out of a peace standard of 850,000 mobilized on the frontier. But for this standing menace of Russia France would disarm, it is said, and Germany and Austria would follow suit. THE lamentations of Catholics in Italy are now swelled by the wailings of some scores of priests who are thrown out of snug berths into poverty by the closing of churches, chapels, and oratories connected with the charitable guilds and confraternities. The closing proceeds from the assumption by the state of administration of the charitable funds. THERE is much feeling against the Mafia societies, or societies for the commission of private murder in revenge or wrong or fancied wrong, in New Orleans. The sanctified Italian Catholics swear alibis for everyone suspected, so that it is difficult to convict. Mayor Shakespeare of New Orleans says, "No community can exist with murder societies in its midst; these societies must perish or the society itself must perish." CATHOLICS in Italy are angry that the government accounts the Vatican art treasures as public property--in the words of the Riforma, holds that "all the works of art contained in the palace of St. Peter are national patrimony, and that it is but just that Italian students be empowered to consult them at will, without being subjected to the formalities and humiliating inquiries necessary now to open to such the Vatican doors." IN the German parliament there has been condemnation of the maintenance of large cavalry forces, which hav been decried as antiquated inheritances of chivalry. But Von Moltke in an elaborate article in the Kreuzzitung cites instances in the American civil war to prove the value of large masses of cavalry. "Both the Northern and the Southern armies," says the article, "had only a few mounted troops at the outset of the operations, but their leaders soon learned that it was impossible to do without . . . cavalry, and Lee confessed that lack of cavalry lost Gettysburg." GODS AND RELIGIONS OF ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. Vol. I. Givs a Full Account of all the Gods, including Jehovah, Satan, the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ, Virgin Mary, and the Bible. 8vo, 835pp. Vol. II. Describes Fully all the Religious Systems of the World. 8vo, 957pp. Cloth, $3 per vol.; the 2 vols., $5; leather, $7; morocco, gilt edges, $8. BY D.M. BENNETT. THE TRUTH SEEKER CO. NO ADMITTANCE THE YOUNG LADIES BIBLE CLASS ARE DISCUSSING DAVID AND BATHSHEBA, (II.SAM. XI. 4 & 5.) Remember THE LORD was with DAVID IN ALL THAT HE DID. "AH THERE!" What Would Follow THE Effacement of Christianity? BY GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. Price, 10 cents a copy; twelve copies for $1. Address THE TRUTH SEEKER CO., 28 Lafayette Place. New York. LOOKING BACKWARD By Edward Bellamy, Author of "Dr. Heidenhoff's Process," etc. It is a thought-breeding book, and all who are free to receive new light will find in it satisfaction and inspiration.--[New York Tribune. The appeal is always made to a man's reason, and to his noblest sentiments: never to his selfishness. --[Boston Post. A suggestion of a really practicable and feasible social state greatly in advance of the present The romantic narrativ is rich in its forecast of actual possibilities.--[Boston Traveler. 12mo, cloth, $1.00; paper, 50c. Address THE TRUTH SEEKER CO. ASTHMA- DR. TAFT'S ASTHMALENE CURED never fails; send us your address, we will mail trial BOTTLE FREE THE DR. TAFT BROS. M. CO., ROCHESTER, N.Y. THE TRUTH SEEKER ANNUAL Price, 25 Cents. To the World's Columbian Exposition Commission: Learning that there is an organized movement among the more conservative church people--manipulated by a "Sabbath" organization--to induce your honorable body to close on Sundays the World's Fair, to be held in 1893 in Chicago, the undersigned respectfully put in this counter petition, and ask that the Fair may be open to the public on each Sunday of its continuance. We ask this for the following reasons: 1. That the American principle of separation of church and state may be maintained. 2. That public morality may be subserved by providing a substitute for the immoral places to which men may resort when no moral amusements are available. 3. As a matter of justice also to the people of Chicago who have given of their means to make the Fair possible, tens of thousands of whom can visit the Fair only on a general holiday; and as a matter of justice also to the visitors to the Fair, whose time or means may be limited, and who certainly are entitled to great consideration at your hands. 4. For the public good. The opening of the Fair on Sunday will be for the benefit not only of Chicago, but of the whole country. The rights of no one are infringed, the happiness of no one disturbed. Those who wish to attend can do so; those who do not can otherwise spend the day. This is a solely humanitarian question, a question of human relations and human welfare, and, therefore, the only standard by which you can decide is that of the public welfare. 5. It will benefit the Fair, attracting a much larger attendance, interesting more people in it, and increasing its receipts. 6. To the objection that Sunday opening of the Fair will destroy the day as a rest-day, we affirm that the tendency would be exactly the opposite. The more beautiful you make Sunday, the more attractive, the more noble and varied in its pleasures and instructions, the more difficult it will be to change its character, the less danger there is that employers will ever have the power to transfer it from its present position to the days of toil. With choices of Sunday occupation restricted to attending church or visiting a saloon, the average workingman would choose to keep on laboring. 7. Finally: Opening the World's Fair on Sunday will harm no one but the keepers of immoral places, while it will benefit the Fair itself, the people of Chicago, and the visitors to the Fair, thereby conducing to municipal prosperity, individual education, public morality, and the development and good of the whole country. Name. Town. State. WORLD'S SAGES, THINKERS, AND REFORMERS. Biographies of 300 of the Leading Philosophers, Teachers, Skeptics, Innovators, Founders of New Schools of Thought, Eminent Scientists, etc. (who were not Christians), from the time of Menu to the present. 8vo, 1,075pp., cloth, $3; leather, $4; mor., g.e., $4.50. BY D.M. BENNETT. THE TRUTH SEEKER CO., 28 Lafayette Place, N.Y. ROMANISM, OR DANGER AHEAD. The Reason Why a Good Roman Catholic Cannot be a Good Citizen of this Republic. By A.J. GROVER. Price, paper, 25 cents. Address THE TRUTH SEEKER CO. THE Cosmian Hymn Book, A COLLECTION OF Original and Selected Hymns (Words and Music) For Liberal and Ethical Societies. For Schools and the Home. COMPILED BY L.K. WASHBURN. PRICE, $1.50 Address THE TRUTH SEEKER CO., 28 Lafayette Place, New York. Gems of Thought. IGNORANCE is the principal cause of crime, as well as of misrule. The untrained person is not likely to hav his morals developed, any more than his intelligence. With a good education one can do not only his private but his public work better, and so be in a condition to be ruled as well as to rule.-- Bierbower. IF we are to change the conduct of men, we must change their conditions. Extreme poverty and crime go hand in hand.--Ingersoll. IGNORANCE and servitude are calculated to make men wicked and unhappy. Knowledge, reason, and liberty can alone reform them, and make them happier.-- D'Holbach. EVERY expansion of intelligence has proved of advantage to society. --Guizot. THE destruction of Christianity is essential to the interests of civilization. --Reade. CHRISTIANITY set itself against all popular advancement, against all civil and social progress, against all improvement in the condition of the masses. It viewed every change with distrust, it met every innovation with opposition. While it reigned supreme, Europe lay in chains, and even into the new world it carried the fetters of the old.--Annie Besant. How can that be received as a trustworthy guide in the invisible, which falls into so many errors in the visible? How can that giv confidence in the moral, the spiritual, which has so signally failed in the physical?--Draper. LET us see what the church within a [???] years, has been compelled substantially to abandon--that is to say, what it is now almost ashamed to defend. First, the astronomy of the sacred scriptures; second, the geology; third, the account given of the origin of man; fourth, the doctrin of original sin, the fall of the human race; fifth, the mathematical contradiction known as the trinity; sixth, the atonement--because it was only on the ground that man is accountable for the sin of another, that he could be justified by reason of the righteousness of another; seventh, that the miraculous is either the misunderstood or the impossible; eighth, that the Bible is not inspired in its morality, for the reason that slavery is not moral, that polygamy is not good, that wars of extermination are not merciful, and that nothing can be more immoral than to punish the innocent on account of the sins of the guilty; and, ninth, the divinity of Christ.--Ingersoll. MAN will never attain his full powers as a moral being until he has ceased to believe in a personal God and in the immortality of the soul.--Reade. WE are convinced that it is contrary to all moral ideas to teach that the guilty may be pardoned, because the innocents hav suffered. --Robt. C. Adams.Cronage. CARDENAL TASCESSEAU'S demand for precedence at the visit of Prince George has given an additional filip to religious dissensions in Canada. RELIGIOUS objections to truth in public school books are inducing more and more expurgation. It is reported that "the classbooks will soon become more celebrated for their negations and omissions than for the positiv information they contain." EMPEROR WILLIAM of Germany is said to be irritated against Russia's keeping 450,000 men out of a peace standard of 850,000 mobilized on the frontier. But for this standing menace of Russia France would disarm, it is said, and Germany and Austria would follow suit. The lamentations of Catholics in Italy are now swelled by the wailings of some scores of priests who are thrown out of snug berths into poverty by the closing of churches, chapels, and oratories connected with the charitable guilds and confraternities. The closing proceeds from the assumption by the state of the administration of the charitable finds. THERE is much feeling against the Mafia societies, or societies for the commission of private murder in revenge of wring or fancied wrong, in New Orleans. The sanctified Italian Catholics swear alibis for everyone suspected, so hat it is difficult to convict. Mayor Shakespeare of New Orleans says, "No community can exist with murder societies in its midst; those societies must perish or the society itself must perish." CATHOLICS in Italy are angry that the government accounts the Vatican art treasures as public property—in the words of the Riforma, holds hat "all the works of art contained in the palace of st. Peter are national patrimony, and that it is but just that Italian students be empowered to consult them at will,, without being subjected to the formalities and humiliating inquiries necessary now to open to such the Vatican doors." In the German parliament there has been condemnation of the maintenance of large cavalry forces, which have been decried as antiquated inheritances of chivalry. But Von Moltke in an elaborate article is in the [Krensiltung?] cites instances in the American civil war to prove the value of large masses of calvary. "Both the Northern and the Southern armies," says the article, "had only a few mounted troops at the outset of the operations, but their leaders soon learned that it was impossible to do without.... calvary, and Lee confessed that lack of cavalry lost Gettysburg." Effacement of Christianity BY GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE. Price, 10 cents a copy; twelve copies for $1 Address: THE TRUTH SEEKER CO. in Lafayette Place, New York. LOOKING BACKWARD By Edward Bellamy, Author of "Dr. Heidenhoff's Process," etc. It is a thought-breeding book, and all who are free to receive new light will find in it satisfaction and inspiration --( New York Tribune. The appeal is always made to a man's reason, and to his noblest sentiments: never to selfishness. --(Boston Post A suggestion of a really practicable and feasible social stat greatly in advance of the present. The romantic narrative is rich in its forecast of actual possibilities. --(Boston Traveler. 12 mo., cloth, $1 00: paper, 50c. Address THE TRUTH SEEKER CO. ASTHMA Dr. Taft's ASTHMALENE [?????] CURED [??????] THE DR. TAFT BROS, M.CD, ROCHESTER, N.Y. FREE THE TRUTH SEEKER ANNUAL Price, 25 Cents. To the World's Columbian Exposition Commission: Learning that there is an organized movement among the more conservative church people--manipulated by a "Sabbath" organization--to induce your honorable body to close on Sunday the World's Fair, to be held in 1893 in Chicago, the undersigned respectfully put in this counter petition and ask that the Fair may be open to the public on each Sunday of its continuance. We ask this for the following reasons: 1. That the American principle of separation of church and state may be maintained. 2. That public morality may be subserved by providing a substitute for the immoral places to which men may resort when no moral amusements are available. 3. As a matter of justice also to the people of Chicago who have given of their means to make the Fair possible, tens of thousands of whom can visit the Fair only on a general holiday; and as a matter of justices also to the visitors to the Fair, whose time or means may be limited, and who certainly are entitled to great consideration at you hands. 4. For the public good. The opening of the Fair on Sunday will be for the benefit not only of Chicago, but of the whole country. The rights of no one are infringed, the happiness of no one disturbed. Those who wish to attend can do so; those who do not can otherwise spend the day. This is a solely humanitarian question, a question of human relations and human welfare, and therefore, the only standard by which you can decide is that of the public welfare. 5. It will benefit the Fair, attracting a much larger attendance, interesting more people in it, and increasing its receipts. 6. To the objection that Sunday opening of the Fair will destroy the day as a rest-day, we affirm that the tendency would be exactly the opposite. The more beautiful you make Sunday, the more attractive, the more noble and varied in its pleasures and instructions, the more difficult it will be to change its character, the less danger there is that employers will ever have the power to transfer it from its present position to the days of toil. With choices of Sunday occupation restricted to attending church or visiting a saloon, the average workingman would choose to keep on laboring. 7. Finally: Opening the World's Fair on Sunday will harm no one but the keepers of immoral places, while it will benefit the Fair itself, the people of Chicago, and the visitors to the Fair, thereby conducing to municipal prosperity, individual education, public morality, and the development and good of the whole country. Name Town State [DA??] [???EAD.] The Reason [???] Roman Catholic Can [????] Citizen of this Republic. BY A.J. GROVER Price, paper, 25 cents. Address THE TRUTH SEEKER CO. THE COSMIAN HYMN BOOK, A COLLECTION OF Original and Selected Hymns (Words and Music) For Liberal and Ethical Societies. For Schools and the Home. COMPILED BY L. K. WASHBURN. PRICE $1.50. Address THE TRUTH SEEKER CO., 18 Lafayette Place, New York. abandon--that is to say, what it is now almost ashamed to defend. First, the [?]atronomy of the sacred scriptures; second, the geology: third, the account given of the origin of man; fourth, the doctrin of original sin the fall of the human race; fifth, the mathematical contradiction known as the trinity' sixth, the atonement--because it was only on the ground that man is accountable for the sin of another that he could be justified by reason of righteousness of another; seventh, that the miraculous is either the misunderstood or impossible; eighth, that the Bible is not inspired in its morality, for the reason that slavery is not moral, that polygamy is not good, that was of extermination are not merciful, and that nothing can be more immortal than to punish the innocent on account of the sins of the guilty; and, ninth, the divinity of Christ.-Ingersoll Man will never attain his full powers as a moral being until he has ceased to believe in a personal God and in the immortality of the soul.--Reade. We are convinced that it is contrary to all moral ideas to teach that the guilty may be pardoned, because the innocent have suffered. --Robt. C. Adams. THE TRUTH SEEKER A JOURNAL OF FREETHOUGHT AND REFORM. Entered at the Post-Office of New York, N.Y., as Second-Class Matter. Vol. 17 No. 44 PUBLISHED WEEKLY. New York, Saturday, November 1, 1890 28 LAFAYETTE PL $8.00 per year. TREE OF KNOWLEDGE A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE MENTAL DARKNESS IGNORANCE STUPIDITY NAKED BRUTALITY BLIND OBEDIENCE STAGNATION THE ROAD DOWN THROUGH THE AGES "God created man in his own image, male and female created he them." "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good." "And the Lord God commanded. . . Of the tree of Knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die!" Watson Hester 690 THE TRUTH SEEKER, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. Communications. The Mythical and Pagan Origin of Christianity. It is the sun which under the name of Horus was born like your God in the arms of the celestial virgin, and passed through an obscure, indigent, and destitute childhood, answering to the season of cold and frost. It is the sun which under the name of Osiris, persecuted by Typhon and the tyrants of the air, was put to death, laid in a dark tomb, the emblem of the hemisphere of winter, and which rising afterward from the inferior zone to the highest point in the heavens awoke triumphant over giants and destroying angels. Ye priests, from whom the murmurs proceed, you wear yourselves insigna all over your bodies. Your tonsure is the disk of the sun; your stole is the zodiac; your rosaries the symbols of the stars and planets. Pontiffs and prelates, your miter, your crosier, your mantle, are the emblems of Osiris; and that crucifix, of which you boast the mystery without comprehending it, is the cross of Serapia, traced by the hands of Egyptian priests on the plan of the figurative world, which passing through the equinoxes and the tropics became the emblem of future life and resurrection, because it touched the gates of ivory and born through which the soul was to pass in the way to heaven.---Volney's Ruins of Empires, p. 103. So far I hav endeavored to show that Christianity, in common with many other ancient creeds, is based upon a mixture of sun and nature worship, and that all of the Christian symbols and ceremonies are of pagan origin. Not only do I affirm this to be the fact and adduce evidence in support of such contention, but I propose to point out step by step how what is known as the Christian religion has, in obedience to the great law of evolution, undergone numerous changes, so that the early believers would scarcely be able to recognize in the religion to-day their own or the faith of their fathers. Let me proceed with the proof. Next in importance to the cross as a symbol was the crucifix, or cross with the figure of a human being stretched upon it. Osiris is represented by the Egyptians as stretched like a human being upon the cross; Krishna and other imaginary saviors of mankind are represented in like fashion. The Rev. Robert Taylor was of opinion that the posts which were erected along by the river Nile, and which were in the form of a cross, may have been the origin of this emblem. The river Nile was worshipped on account of its periodical inundations which gave fertility to the land in the provinces near its banks. Posts were erected along the course to indicate the hight to which it might be expected to rise. "These crosses," says Robert Taylor, "along the banks of the river would naturally share in the honor of the stream and be the most expressive emblem of good fortune, peace and plenty. ideas ever be separated; the fertilizing flood was the waters of life, that conveyed every blessing and even existence itself to the provinces through which it flowed. One other and most obvious hieroglyph completed the expressive allegory---the demon of famin, who, should the waters fail of their inundation, or not reach the elevation indicted by the position of the transverse beam upon the upright, would reign in all the horrors over their desolated lands. This symbolical personification was, therefore, represented as a miserable emaciated wretch who had grown up 'as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground, who had no form nor comeliness; and when they should see him there was no beauty that they should desire him.' Meager were his looks; sharp misery had worn him to the bone. His crown of thorns indicated the sterility of the territories over which he reigned. The reed in his hand, gathered from the banks of the Nile, indicated that it was only the mighty river, by keeping within its banks, and thus withholding its wonted munificence, that places an unreal scepter in his grips. He was nailed to the cross in indication of his entire defeat. And the superscription of his infamous title, 'This is the king of the Jews,' expressively indicated that famine, want, or poverty ruled the destinies of the most slavish, beggarly, and mean race of men with whom they had the honor of being acquainted" (Diegesis, p. 187. See also "Devil's Pulpit," vols. i and ii). The dogma of the trinity in unity is very closely connected with the notion of the cross, and derives its origin from nature worship. In ancient Egypt we find a trinity in unity existing under the names of Osirus, Horus, and Reform, along with Isis; while in India we find teh trinity bearing the names of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, in company with Devski, the female element being needed for the production of life. The worship of the sun, then, is the source of all ancient religions; and since this great luminary was worshiped by all the early races of mankind it is no wonder that we find also that among these peoples the earth was adored as second only in importance, under the names of Devaki, Isis, Ishtar, Venus, Mary. The former daily and the latter yearly produced the sun without sexual union, bearing the relation of wife, mother, and daughter to that brilliant luminary in the same way as the Virgin Mary is supposed by orthodox Christians to do toward Jesus Christ, who was the son of God the father, God the Holy Ghost, and Joseph, the carpenter. The idea of the mediator comes from Persia, like the story of the fall, so that Christianity is mythical from its foundation. The idea of Jesus as a divine being is a growth, as we shall see hereafter. Experience, however, demonstrates to us that the vast majority of Christians believe in the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, because they believe that Jesus was a historical character. Now there can be no longer any doubt in the minds of thinking persons that the idea of a child being born of a pure virgin is preposterous; and that though it is within the realm of possibility that a man named Jesus lived who went about doing good and who proclaimed a new philosophy which was not acceptable to the Jews, in view of all we know about ancient sun worship it is highly improbable that any such person as Jesus lived at all, but more likely that the whole idea was built up out of such pre-existing materials as we hav indicated. For if we admit for one moment that Jesus is a historical character, by parity of reasoning we are compelled to acknowledge that Curistna, Osiris, Mishra, Hercules, Exculspius, Bacchus, Apollo, and Adonis were also historical personages. The outlines of the lives of these alleged gods correspond with that of Jesus, but careful examination shows that their career can be traced to the apparent march of the sun through the zodiacal signs. The zodiac (see Dr. Hardwicke's "Zodiacal Mythology," from "Creation and Evolution," p. 2) which is the line of the apparent annual circuit of the sun, we find was in Egypt, India, Persia, and Greece divided into twelve portions of thirty degrees each, the whole circuit consisting of three hundred and sixty degrees; and the equivalent signs bore a wonderful similarity to each other. In the old Indian zodiac published in the "Philosophical Transactions" of 1772 the signs are as follows, commencing at the vernal equinoxical point: ram, bull, man with two shields, crab, lion, virgin, balances, scorpion, bow and arrow monster with goat's head and fish's hindquarters, urn, fish." The Indian and Egyptian signs differ slightly but not materially. Dr. Hardwicke proceeds: "Each of these signs corresponds with a particular portion of the year, varying according to the slow movement known as the precession of the equinoxes, by which all the signs are moved forward very slightly year by year, at the rate of one degree in 71 or 72 years, until, at the end of 2,152 years, a whole sign has moved forward into the position previously occupied by the sign immediately preceding it. This is caused by the failure of the sun to reach the same point in the same time in his apparent circuit each year; and thus it happens that in a period of less than 26,000 years each sign will have moved completely round the zodiacal band. Now, by a careful calculation it has been found that the vernal equinoxial point coincided with the first degree of Aries about 28 000 years ago, with the first degree of Libra about 17 000 years ago, with the first degree of Taurus B C. 4340, with that of Aries B C. 2188, and with that of Pisces B C. 36; so that at the present time the vernal equinoxial point is really occupied by the sign of the fishes, although, for astronomical purposes, the sign of the ram is always placed in that position, and will for the future always be considered as the first sign of the zodiac, no matter what sign may really occupy that position. Thus there is now what is called a fixed zodiac, which never changes, and which is an arbitrary arrangement made for scientific purposes, and a real zodiac whose figures move steadily and slowly year by year, until at the end of rather more than two thousand years the vernal equinoxial point is occupied by the sign immediately following the one which occupied it during that period of time. As the various astronomical figures became endowed by the ancients with divine honors, each of these signs became associated with a number of romantic stories, until at length the struggles, victories, and defeats of the gods were told in such a variety of ways that sufficient lore existed to fill, if written down, whole libraries. The zodiacal signs were all gods of great importance; the planets were gods, the sun was a god, the moon was a goddess, and the extra-zodiacal constellations were either gods or heroes; but all were not of equal importance, and owing to the constant changing of positions, some were powerful and victorious at one time and weak and dying at another. The chief deity, which to the Aryans was Dyaus, the day father, became in later times a concentrated essence of all the gods, and was supposed to undergo all the vicissitudes to which they were subjected; but inasmuch as the new-born sun was the life of the world, bringing back happiness, and the vernal equinoxial sign was the one at which his influence began to be felt, these two deities were looked upon as god par excellence, a dual deity, separate yet conjoined, and of equal power and authority. "So, when the bull was the vernal equinoxial point, the sun in Taurus was supreme god; and when the ram, or lamb, was the vernal equinoxial point the sun in Aries was supreme god; and although it was only in March that the sun was at the vernal equinoxial point, yet the bull-god for two thousand years prior to B C. 2188 was always supreme, and the ram-god (in Egypt) or lamb-god (in Persia) after that date. On leaving the vernal equinoxial sign the sun passed into the next in order; but, although then not actually in conjunction with the chief sign, it was but slightly removed from it, the distance growing larges as each fresh sign was occupied; and never were the sun and the principal sign actually separated from each other in the zodiac, so as to pass into opposit hemispheres, until the autumnal equinoxial point was crossed, after which the the sun passed successively through all the winter constellations, being separated for the space of six months from the sign of the vernal equinox." Therefore, the six summer signs were accounted specially beautiful ad holy; the sign of the vernal equinox being the head and chief of the six, while the six winter signs were accounted less holy, but quite as powerful for evil as the others were for good. "From this was formed the main drama of all subsequent mythological systems, the ground-work of which was as follows: 'The savior sun god was born at the winter solstice, and ascended to the vernal equinox where he was united with the bull, becoming the bull god, and in after-time with the ram or lamb, becoming the ram god or lamb god; after crossing the equator at spring covenant, or coming together at the equator and ecliptic, he ascended to the summit of the heavens, becoming the lion god, at the hight of his power, and then descending again to the autumnal covenant, or equinox, to pass through the winter or scorpion signs alone, and mourning the loss of the vernal equinoxial sign, which was torn from him at the autumnal equinox.' This simple narrativ received numerous embellishments in after times, according to the fancy of the astrologers and priests, who, in many cases, contrived to make out of it a beautiful poem or sublime allegorical drama" (Dr. Hardwicke's Evolution and Creation, p. 6, 7). This zodiacal mythology forms the basis of all Eastern religions, and Christianity itself is largely founded upon it. In the next chapter I shall endeavor to show how much of the career of Jesus is drawn from this source; how the miraculous part of the supposed life of the Nazarene carpenter was developed; and then we shall be able to judge this branch of the subject in the light of evolution. ARTHUR B. MOSS. Testimonial to Walt Whitman. Let Us Put Wreaths on the Brows of the Living. Of all the placid hours in his peaceful life, those that Walt Whitman spent on the stage of Horticultural Hall last night must have been among the most gratifying, says the Philadelphia Press of October 22d. To a testimonial, intended to cheer his declining years, not only in a complimentary sense, came a thousand or more people to listen to a tribute to the aged poet by Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, such as seldom falls to the lot of living man to hear about himself. On the stage sat many admirers of the venerable torch-bearer of modern poetic thought, as Colonel Ingersoll described him, young and old, men and women. There were white beards, but none were so white as that of the author of "Leaves of Grass." He sat calm and sedate in the easy wheeled chair, with his usual garb of gray, with his cloudy white hair falling over his white, turned-down collar that must have been three inches wide. No burst of eloquence from the orator's lips disturbed that equanimity; no tribute of applause moved him from his habitual calm. And when the lecturer, having concluded, said, "We have met to-night to honor ourselves by honoring the author of 'Leaves of Grass,' and the audience started to leave the hall, the man they had honored reached forward with his cane and attracted Colonel Ingersoll's attention. "Do not leave yet," said Colonel Ingersoll, "Mr. Whitman has a word to say." This is what he said, and no more characteristic thing ever fell from the poet's lips or flowed from his pen: "Only a word, my friends, only a word. After all, the main factor, my friends, is in meeting, being face to face and meeting like this. I thought I would like to come forward with my living voice and thank you for coming and thank Robert Ingersoll for speaking, and that is about all. With such brief thanks to you and him and showing myself to bear testimony---I think that is the Quaker term---face to face, I bid you all hail and farewell." THE LETTER---AUTHORIZED AND COMPLETE REPORT. I. In the year 1855 the American people knew but little of books. Their ideals, their models, were English. Young and Pollok, Addison and Watts were regarded as great poets. Some of the more reckless read Thomson's "Seasons" and the poems and novels of Sir Walter Scott. A few, not quite orthodox, delighted in the mechanical monotony of Pope, and the really wicked---those lost to all religious shame---were worshipers of Shakspere. The really orthodox Protestant, untroubled by doubts, considered Milton the greatest poet of them all. Byron 110 Invocation to the Universe (?)... (?) 111 Reply to Scientific American. Bennett... 1 112 Sensible Sermon. Rev. M. J. Savage....... 2 113 Come to Jesus. Bennett........................... 2 114 Where Was Jesus Born? S. H. Preston. 1 115 The Wonders of Prayer. Bennett............ 2 116 The Sunday Question. Bennett.............. 2 117 Constantine the Great. Preston.............. 3 119 The New Faith. Stoddard......................... 3 120 The New Age. W.S. Bell............................. 10 122 World's Great Religions. Bennett............ 10 123 Paine Vindicated. Ingursoll and "Observer" ....................................................... 10 524 Sinful Saints. Bennett................................ 10 125 German Liberalism. Neymann................. 2 126 Crimes and Cruelties of Christianity. Underwood ..................................................... 10 130 The Ethics of Religion. Clifford................... 5 134 Talks with the Evangelists........................... 5 137 Christian Love. C. L. James.......................... 3 138 Science of the Bible. John Jasper................ 2 140 Astro-Theology.............................................. 5 141 Infidelity. H. W. Beecher.............................. 2 142 Synopsis of All Religions. Saxon ................ 10 143 Chang Wau Ho. Eli Perkins.......................... 2 148 When Did Paul Live? Scholsaticum............. 2 149 If You Take Away my Religion? What will Will You Give Me Instead. Martis.............. 10 150 The Liberty of Printing. Haribus and Wakeman.................................................... 10 151 What is the Bib le M. W. H. ........................ 5 152 A Remarkable Book. Douglas.................... 2 153 Liberty and Morality. Conway................... 5 155 Co-Operation Society's. Redomer........... 2 156 Free Speech & Free Press. Shelley........... 2 159 Boston Bennett Indignation Meeting...... 6 160 Sabbath Observance. Coleman................ 3 161 Protestant Persecutions........................... 3 162 Eighth and Last Letter from Lullow Street Jail. Bennett............................................. 10 164 Bible Impeached. Chapman..................... 2 SCIENTIFIC SERIES. 1 Hereditary Transmission. Prof. Elsburg, M. D. .... 6 2 Evolution: Homogeneous to Heterogeneous. Underwood......................................................... 3 4 Literature of the Insane. Marvin............................. 5 5 Responsibility of Sex. Mrs. Chase, M.D................. 3 6 Graduated Atmospheres. McCarroll...................... 2 7 Death. Frederic R. Marvin M.D............................... 3 8 How Marsupial Animals Propagate........................ 2 9 The Unseen World. Prof. J. Flake .......................... 10 10 The Evolution Theory--Huxley's Three Lectures............................................................... 10 11 Is America New World? Dawson.......................... 10 12 Evolution not Atheism nor Materialism. R. S. Brigham, M. D. .......................................... 5 13 Nibble at Professor Fiske's Crumbs for the Modern Symposium......................................... 10 See note at head of column. 2000 A Splen [line missing] The Lady of the Club. Under Protest. For the Prosecution, A Rusty Link in the Chain, The Boder House Mystery, The Time-Lock of Our Ancestors, Florence Campbell's Fate, My Patients Story, Prices, paper, 50 cents: cloth, $1. THE TRUTH SEEKER CO., 18 Lafayette Pl., New York. Life of JOSHUA DAVIDSON: MODERN IMITATION OF CHRIST, As to his Life on Earth and his Communism, By Mrs. E. Lynn Linton, Author of "A Protest and a Plea," In Order of Creation. Cloth, 12mo, 279 pp., - - 75 cents. This book was suppressed by the First American Publisher. THE TRUTH SEEKER CO. FOR HER DAILY BREAD. A NINETEENTH CENTURY NOVEL. Preface by R. G. INGERSOLL. For Her Daily Bread is the story of two young girls and a younger brother who were left parentless with little money, fair education and much courage to make their way through the world by going to Chicago. The author is also the heroin. The narrative is in the main a history of a working girl's life and experience in the city of Chicago among bluff business men, kind hearted folks and disreputable hypocrites. It is just such a story of human life as we should expect Colonel Ingersoll to be interested in; and whatever he admires and appreciates is sure to be worth the attention of the rest of the world. Price 25 cents. Address TEH TRUTH SEEKER. THE NEW GOD. BY SAMUEL P. PUTNAM, Secretary of the American Secular Union. Price 10 cents Address THE TRUTH SEEKER Company. THE SAFEST CREED, and TWELVE OTHER DISCOURSES OF REASON. By O. S. PROTHINGHAM. Extra cloth, timo 533 pp. $1 Address THE TRUTH SEEKER CO. WETTSTEIN'S WORLD-RENOWNED WATCHES, Best grades American Stem-winders; in silverine cases, 7 jewels, $7.50; 9 jewels $8; 11 jewels $9; 15 jewels $10; do, adjusted $15. In 3 ounce coin silver cases, $3.50more; 4 ounces, $4.50 and 5 ounces$6 more. In best milled gold cases. Open face, dust proof 7 jewels, $16=2 jewels $16.50; 11 jewels, $1750; 15 jewels, $18.50; do. adjusted, $4.50 Hunting, 123; [????? ????] Ladies, name quality 7 jewels, $17; 11 jewels, $15.50; 10 Jewels $15. 14 karat solid gold, $10 more, The famous, NEW MODEL "Otto Wettstein" Watch, 16 jewels and all modern improvements 13 more than above adjusted watches. No watch in the world competes with it. Finer watches up to $200 if such prepaid, guaranteed 1 year, and cash refunded if not satisfactory. All filled gold cases warranted by manufacturers 20 years Beware of New York Workers 10 karat and spurious cases. Watches cleaned, beat work, $1 : Springs, $1, etc...and returned free. Established 1857. Otto Wettstein, Hechalles, IN, HEAL THYSELF AT THINE OWN HOME. send 10 cents to Dr. R. P. Fellows, the noted specialist for his "Private Counselor"--a valuable book for young and middle-aged man, suffering from a life-wasting Disease692 THE TRUTH SEEKER, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. wealth and position, those who dwelt in mansions, children of success, who went down to the grave voiceless, and whose names we do not know. Think of the vast multitudes, the endless processions, that entered the caverns of eternal night---leaving no thought---no truth as a legacy to mankind! The great poets have sympathized with the people. They have uttered in all ages the human cry. Unbought by gold, unawed by power, they have lifted high the torch that illuminates the world. IV. Walt Whitman is in the highest sense a believer in democracy. He knows that there is but one excuse for government---the preservation of liberty; to the end that man may be happy. He knows that there is but one excuse for any institution, secular and religious---the preservation of liberty; and that there is but one excuse for schools, for universal education, for the ascertainment of facts, namely, the preservation of liberty. He resents the arrogance and cruelty of power. He has sworn never to be tyrant or slave. He has solemnly declared: I speak the password primeval--I give the sign of democracy. By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms. This one declaration covers the entire ground. It is a declaration of independence, and it is also a declaration of justice, that is to say, a declaration of the independence of the individual, and a declaration that all shall be free. The man who has this spirit can truthfully say: I have taken off my hat to nothing known or unknown. I swear I am for those that have never been mastered. There is in Whitman what he calls "The boundless impatience of restraint"---together with that sense of justice which compelled him to say: "Neither a servant, nor a master, am I." He was wise enough to know that giving others the same rights that he claims for himself could not harm him, and he was great enough to say: "As if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same." He felt as all should feel, that the liberty of no man is safe unless the liberty of each is safe. There is in our country a little of the old servile spirit, a little of the bowing and cringing to others. Many Americans do not understand that the officers of the government are simply the servants of the people. Nothing is so demoralizing as the worship of place. Whitman has remined the people of this country that they are supreme, and he has said to them: The President is there in the White House for you---it is not you who are here for him. The Secretaries act in their bureaus for you---not you here for them. All Doctrines, all politics and civilization exurge from you. All sculptures and monuments and anything inscribed anywhere are tallied in you. He describes the ideal American citizen---the one Who says, indifferently and alike, "How are you, friend?" to the President at his levee. And he says, "Good day, my brother," to the slave that hoes in the sugar field. Long ago, when the politicians were wrong, when the judges were subservient, when the pulpit was a coward, Walt Whitman shouted: Man shall not hold property in man. The least developed person on earth is just as important and sacred to himself or herself as the most developed person is to himself or herself. This is the very soul of true democracy. Beauty is not all there is of poetry. It must contain the truth. It is not simply an oak, rude and grand, neither is it simply a vine. It is both. Around the oak of truth runs the vine of beauty. Walt Whitman utters the elemental truths and is the poet of democracy. He is also the poet of individuality. V. INDIVIDUALITY. In order to protect the liberties of a nation, we must protect the individual. A democracy is a nation of free individuals. The individuals are not to be sacrificed to the nation. The nation exists only for the purpose of guarding and protecting the individuality of men and women. Walt Whitman has told us that: "The whole theory of the universe is directed to one single individual---namely, to you." And he has also told us that the greatest city--- the greatest nation---is "where the citizen is the head and the ideal." And that The greatest city is that which has the greatest man or woman. If it be but a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world. By this test, maybe the greatest city on the continent to-night is Camden. This poet has asked of us this question: What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior? The man who asks this question has left no impress of his lips in the dust, and has no dirt upon his knees. He carries the idea of individuality to its utmost hight: What do you suppose I have intimated to you in a hundred ways But that man or woman is as good as God? And that there is no God any more divine than yourself? Glorying in individuality, in the freedom of the soul, he cries out: Oh, the joy of suffering! To struggle against great odds; To meet enemies undaunted; To be entirely alone with them---to find out how much I can stand; To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, death, face to face; To mount the scaffold---to advance to the muzzle of guns--- with perfect nonchalance--- To be indeed a god. Walt Whitman is willing to stand alone. He is sufficient unto himself, and he says: Henceforth I ask not good fortune---I am good fortune. Strong and content I travel the open road. I am one of those who look carelessly into faces of Presidents and Governors as to say, "Who are you?" And not only this, but he has the courage to say: "Nothing---not God---is greater to one than one's self." Walt Whitman is the poet of Individuality--- the defender of the rights of each for the sake of all---and his sympathies are as wide as the world. He is the defender of the whole race. VI. HUMANITY. The great poet is intensely human---infinitely sympathetic ---entering into the joys and griefs of others, bearing their burdens, knowing their sorrows. Brain without heart is not much; they must act together. When the respectable people of the North, the rich, the successful, were willing to carry out the Fugitive Slave law, Walt Whitman said: I am the wounded slave---I wince at the bite of the dogs. Hell and despair are upon me---"Crack" and again "crack" the marksmen; I clutch the rails of the fence---my blood drips, thinned with the ooze of my skin; I fall on the weeds and stones; The riders spur their unwilling horses---haul close; Taunt my dizzy ears and beat me with the butts of their whips. Agonies are one of my changes of garment. I do not ask the wounded person, how he feels. I, myself, become the wounded person. I see myself in prison shaped like another man, And feel the dull unintermitted pain. For me the keepers of convicts shoulder their carbines and keep watch. It is I, let out in the morning and barred at night. Not a prison walks handcuffed to the jail but I am handcuffed to him and walk by his side. Judge not as the judge judges, but as the sun falling upon a helpless thing. Of the very worst he had the infinite tenderness to say: "Not until the sun excludes you will I exclude you." In this age of greed, when houses and lands, and stocks and bonds, outrank human life; when gold is more of value than blood these words should be read by all: When the psalm sings, instead of the singer; When the script preaches, instead of the preacher; When the pulpit descends and goes, instead of the carver that carved the supporting desk; When I can touch the body of books, by night or by day, and when they touch my body back again; When the holy vessels, or the bits of Eucharist, or lath and plast procreate as effectually as the young silversmiths or bakers or the masons as the young silversmiths or bakers or the masons in their overalls; When the university convinces like a slumbering woman and child convince; When the minted gold in the vault smiles like the nightwatchman's daughter; When warranty deeds loaf in chairs opposite, and are my friendly companions; I intend to reach them my hand and make as much of them as I do of men and women like you! VII. The poet is also a painter, a sculptor---he, too, deals in form and color. The great poet is of necessity a great artist. With a few words he creates pictures, filling his canvas with living men and women---with those who feel and speak. Have you ever read the account of the stage-driver's funeral? Let me read it: Cold dash of waves at the ferry wharf---posh of ice in the river---half frozen mud in the street---a gray discouraged sky overhead---shot-lasting daylight of twelfth month. A hearse and stages---other vehicles give place---the funeral of an old Broadway stage driver---the cortege mostly drivers. Steady the trot to the cemetery---duly rattles the deathbell ---the gate is passed---the new dug grave is hollowed out ---the living alight---the hearse uncloses. The coffin is passed out---lowered and settled---the whip is laid on the coffin---the earth is softly shoveled in. The mound above is flattened with the spades. Silence; and among them no one moves or speaks. It is done. He is decently laid away. Is there anything more? He was a good fellow---free mouthed---quick tempered--- not bad looking---able to take his own part---witty---sensitive to a slight---ready with life or death for a friend---fond of women---gambled---ate hearty---drank hearty---had known what it was to be flush---grew low spirited toward the last--- sickened---was helped by a contribution---died aged forty-one years---and that was his funeral. Let me read you another description---one of a woman: Behold a woman! She looks our from her Quaker cap---her face is clearer and more beautiful than the sky. She sits in an arm chair under the shaded porch of the farm house. The sun just shines on her old, white head. Her ample gown is of cream hued linen. Her grandsons raised the flax and her granddaughters spun it with the distaff and the wheel. The melodious character of the earth. The finished---beyond which philosophy cannot go and does not wish to go. The justified mother of men. Would you hear of an old-time sea fight? Would you learn who won by the light of the moon and stars? List to the yarn as my grandmother's father, the sailor, told it to me: Our foe was no skulk in his ship, I tell you, said he. His was the surly English pluck, and there is no tougher or truer, and never was and never will be. Long the lower eve he came, horribly raking us. We closed with him; the yards entangled, the cannon touched. My captain lashed fast with his own hands. We had received some eighteen pound shots under the water, and on our lower gun deck two large pieces had burst at the first fire, killing all around and blowing up overhead. Fighting at sundown; fighting at dark. Ten o'clock at night; the full moon well up; our leaks on the gain; five feet of water reported. The matter at arms loosing the prisoners confined in the hold to give them a chance for themselves The transit to and from the magazine is now stopped by the sentinels. They see so many strange faces they do not know whom to trust. Our frigate takes fire. The other asks if we demand quarter, If our colors are struck and the fighting done. Now I laugh content, for I hear the voice of my little Captain. "We have not struck," he composedly cries, " we have just begun our part of the fighting." Only three guns in use. One is directed by the Captain himself against the enemy's mainmast. Two, well served with grape and canister, silences his musketry and clears his decks. The taps alone second the fire of his little battery, especially the maintop. They hold out bravely during the whole of the action. Not a moment's cease. The leaks gain fast on the pumps, the fire eats toward the powder magazine; one of the pumps has been shot away; it is thought we are sinking. Serene stands the little Captain. He is not hurried; his voice neither high nor low. His eyes give more light to us than our battle lanterns. Toward twelve, there in the beams of the moon, they surrender to us. Stretched and still lies the midnight, Two great hulks motionless on the breast of the darkness, Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to the one we have conquered. The captain on the quarter deck coolly giving his orders through a countenance white as a sheet; Near by, the corpse of the child that served in the cabin; The dead face of an old salt, with long white hair and carefully curled whiskers. The flames, spite of all that can be done, flecked aloft and below. The husky voices of the two officers yet fit for duty. Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars; Cut of cordage, tangle of rigging, slight shock of the sooth of waves; Black and impassive guns, litter of powder parcels, strong scent. A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful, shining; delicate sniffs of sea breeze, smells of sedge grass and fields by the shore; death messages given in charge to survivors. The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw. Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short, wild scream, long, dull, tapering groan. Some people say that this is not poetry---that it lacks measure and rhyme. VIII. WHAT IS POETRY? The whole world is engaged in the invisible commerce of thought. That is to say, in the exchange of thoughts by words, symbols, sounds, colors, and forms. The motions of the silent, invisible world, where feeling glows and thought flames---that contains all seeds of action---are made known only by sounds and colors, forms, objects, relations, uses, and qualities---so that the visible universe is a dictionary, an aggregation of symbols, by which and through which is carried on the invisible commerce of thought. Each object is capable of many meanings, or of being used in many ways to convey ideas or states of feeling or of facts that take place in the world of the brain. The greatest poet is the one who selects the best, the most appropriate symbols to convey the best, the highest, the sublimest thoughts. Each man occupies a world of his own. He is the only citizen of his world. He is subject and sovereign, and the best he can do is to give the facts concerning the world in which he lives to the citizens of other worlds. No two of these worlds are alike. They are of all kinds, from the flat, barren, and uninteresting ---from the small and shriveled and worthless--- to those whose rivers and mountains and seas and constellations belittle and cheapen the visible world. The inhabitants of these marvelous worlds have been the singers of songs, utterers of great speech---the creators of art. And here lies the difference between creators and imitators; the creator tells what passes in his own THE TRUTH SEEKER, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. 701 NOW READY.--PRICE, $2. The Freethinkers' Pictorial Text-Book. SHOWING THE ABSURDITY AND UNTRUTHFULNESS OF THE CHURCH'S CLAIM TO BE A DIVINE AND BENEFICENT INSTITUTION, AND REVEALING THE ABUSES OF A UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-FIVE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. WITH COPIOUS CITATIONS OF FACT, HISTORY, STATISTICS, AND OPINIONS OF SCHOLARS TO MAINTAIN THE ARGUMENT OF THE ARTIST. Designs by Watson Heston, With Portrait of the Designer. CONTENTS: Uncle Sam and the Priests. The Poets that Bother Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam Bio ps, but the Priests do Not. Romanism with Her Mask On. The Mask Off. "Submit to the Roman Pontiff as to God." The Skeleton that Uncle Sam may Some Day find in his Closet. A New Lsocoon. The Trail of the Serpent. Home Undesirable Immigrants. Lay Loyalty. "Where Liberty Reigns the Tyrant Seeks to Slay Her."---La Salle. The Outcome of Church and State Union. The God-in-the-Constitution Guerillas.--Liberty in Peril. Religion Treason the Ruin of the Republic. A Transformation of the Bartholdt Statue which may be Expected under Religious Rule. What Uncle Sam Should Do. The Church Robbing the People. New York City's Annual Gift to the Churches. The Taxpayers and the Churches--I. " " " " " --II Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving--I. " --II. --III. Sabbath Laws. Sabbatarian Efforts in the National Senate. Sunday in a Sabbatarian City. The Clergy's Opportunity. As the Clergy Desire Sunday--I. " " " " " --II. " " " " " --III. The Children and the Church. Two Ways to Go. Which Shall We Have? A Teacher WE Do No Want. The Shadow in Our Schools. A New Application of an Old Text. The Reptiles in the Path. Recruiting for Church Institutions. A Parochial School Lesson. Products of the Parochial Schools. The Disguise Slips Off. A Web for the Unwary. The Religious Trap. Sunday-School Scholars. The Joys of the Sunday-School Boy. Woman and the Church. Woman's Path from Servitude to Freedom. Encouragement to Go Astray. St. Paul as a Member of the School Board. The Church's Use for Woman. A Contrast. Fishing. Woman the Supporter of Preacher and Pope. Helping the Church. The Church's Chief Support. When Womanhood Awakes. The Church and Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine. The Preacher and the Patriot. One Work by Paine Outweighs All the Preachers. Why Paine WAs Denounced. Paine's Services and His Reward from the Church. Once Upon a Time a Donkey Kicked a Lion. Studies in Natural History. A Question for Theological Ethnologists. Some Problems in Evolution. The Prototype of the Methodist Revival. Religion in Man and Instinct in the Brute. The Bible and Science. The Bible and Geology. The Bible and Geography. The Clergy and their Flocks. Shearing Time. The Clergy's Hold Upon the People. One of a Very Numerous Class. The Physician and the Flock. Duty to the Clergy. At Conference Time. Work of a Methodist Conference in New York in 1876. The Burden of the Cross. The Theologian's Conception of Clerical Privileges. The Ark of the Lord. Sympathizing With their Pastor. One Triumphant Saint. Appearance and Fact. Chaplains in the Army and Navy. A Desirable Bargain. Piety in Our Penitentiaries. A Religious Procession. The Atonement Scheme. The Atonement Doctrine. Practical Application of the Atonement. The Great Efficacy of Baptism. How to Get a Halo and a Harp. Divine Beneficence. The Tabernacles of the Lord---I. " " " " ---II. A Few Victims of Divine Beneficence. Prayer. A Drouth in Cambridge, Ill., in 1887. Our Father in Heaven. The Creeds. What Is Christianity?---I. " " " ---II. " " " ---III. The Clamor of the Creeds. Sustaining the Creeds. The Creedal Fiddle. The Creeds of the World. Christianity's Holy Family. Jesus-faced Creedalists. The Creedalists and the Government---"Our God, Our Country, and an Appropriations." The Christian and the Mohammedans. Their Scientific Records Compared. Two Samples of Christianity's Work. Romans of the Past and Present. Peruvians Before and Since the Conquest. Missionaries Hypocrisy of Christian Missionary Effort---I. " " " " " ---II. Christian Missionaries in India. Missionary Methods in the Church of England. A Poor Rule That Doesn't Work Both Ways. The Lord's Instruments. Religious Rule. Bible Doctrines and their Results. Biblical Temperance Statements. " " " Applied. The Christian Scheme from Genesis to the Synoptical Gospels, and the Practical Results. The Authority of the Footpad. The Wisdom of Solomon. The Law and the Gospel Not the Same. Result of Faith at Findlay, Ohio. Which Statements Shall We Be Damned for Disbelieving? Irresponsibility of Christians---Whence they Obtain and Where they Put their Sins. Jesus Paid It All. A Candidate for Glory---An Old Sinner, but a New Saint. Some Tests for True Believers. Following Christ. An Earnest Christian. A Trial of Faith. The Faults in Christian Morality.---I. " " " " " ---II. " " " " " ---III. " " " " " ---IV. " " " " " ---V. An Incident of a Snow-storm, January, 1889. Another Incident of Another snow-storm. On the Anxious Seat. Different Stories of an Alleged Occurrence. The Church and Slavery. The Ghost in the Methodist Churchyard. Priests in Politics. The Colossus of New York. The Political Caltban and the Religious Rogues. Ireland and the Church. A Contribution to the Irish Question. The Churches in Ireland. The Gospel of Peace in Ireland. The Trouble With Pat. The Church's Idea of Civilization. The Gallows One of Christian Civilization's Adjuncts. What Rome Would Use to Civilize People. The Uses of the Cross. Its Evolution. Unkind Reflections Upon the Church. Decline of the Papacy in Italy. The Old Tiger and His Whelps. The Cry of the Church, "Don't Hurt Our Feelings." Shake, Old Man; We're on the Same Lay (Tammany ward worker to Methodist ministerial delegate). Persecutions by the Church. The Burning of Bruno. The Only Thing on Which the Sects Agree. An Unwelcome Pilgrimage. When Christians Made the Laws. Superstition the Same in All Places and Ages. Banishment of Roger Williams. Case of Dr. McGlynn---the Church True to Her Record. Casting Pearls Before Swine. The Bigotry of Church and State. Some Allegories. The Gautt who Preside Over the Road to Knowledge. The Three Graces of Infidelity. A Clerical Move. The Tr Ruled the World in the Dark Ages. "Let the Ghosts Go." The Race Between America's Infidel Orator and England's Christian Statesman. The Enemy and the Friend of Liberty. Roman Catholic Pandora's Box. A New Rendering of an Old Rhyme. An Error in Biblical Navigation. The World Still Moves. Heaven. On the Probation Plan--Scene Outside of the Gates of the New Jerusalem. On the Probation Plan.--Scene Inside of the Gates of the New Jerusalem. Into Heaven via. Purgatory. Hell. How to Make the Road to Salvation Plain. The Glory of Election. The Amazement of the Saints in Heaven. A Clerical Surprise Party. The Theologians and Skeptics. The Devil's Occupation Gone. Miscellaneous. Talmage's Petrified Blasphemer--A Religious Campaign Sides of '86. The Futility of Hitching Evolution to Orthodoxy. The Evolution of a Sacrament. A Hint to Talmage, Sam Jones, et al. The Women's Christian Temperance Union's Crusade. Tools of the Clerical Trade. The Modern Balsam. AUTHORITIES QUOTED: President John Adams, Robert C. Adams, D'Aubogme's History of the Reformation, Athannsian Creed, Prof. H. G. Atkinson, Matthew Arnold, Lord Amberley, Account of the Irish Massacre, Cardinal Baronius, Cardinal Bellarmine, Byron, Senator Henry W. Blair, D. M. Bennett, H. W. Beecher, Burnett's History of My Own Times, Annie Besant, Buck's Theological Dictionary, Buckie's History of Civilization, Brooks Adams's Emancipation of Massachusetts, Governor Brownlow of Tennessee, J. M. Backley, D. 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Nonconformist, Kingsley's Natural History, Abner Kneeland, Lecky's Rationalism in Europe, Leo XIII, (Pope), Loyola, Lafayette, Henry Luttrell, Martin Luther, Locke, Macaulay, President Madison, President Monroe, Dean Milman, Milton, W. H. H. Murray, Dr. McGlynn, Hon. Stanley Mattlews, of the U. S. Supreme Court, Manu, Cardinal Manning, Maine's Ancient Law, Arthur B. Moss, Massachusetts Records, Morell's History of Philosophy, Michelet, Moore, Missionary Herald, Mohammedan Emir to Bishop Crowther, John Stuart Mill, Wm. McDonnell's Heathens of the Heath, Mackenzie's History of the XIX Century, New Haven Colony Records, Neander, Church Historian; Lord Neares, Nordau, Bishop O'Connor, Felix L. Oswald, Robert Dale Owen, Max O'Rell, People'sCyclopedia, Pius IX (Pope), Pius X (Pope), Archbishop Paley, Parker Pillsbury, St. Paul, Thomas Paine, Plymouth Colony Records, Life of the Rev. Alexander Peden, Prescott (History(, John Peck, Prof. Richard A. Proctor, Josiah Quincy, Edgar Quinet, W. Stewart Ross (Saladin), Robertson, John E. Remsburg, Report of New York Catholic Protectory, Rutherford's Religious Letters, Reade's Martyrdom of Man, Report to House of Commons by Sherrif Allison of Glasgow, Reman, Archbishop Ryan, Robertson's Survey of the State of Europe, E. A. Stevens, T. W. Smith (American Missionary), Dr. Schaff, Prof. Church History in Union Theological Seminary, New York; Herbert Spencer, Dr. Josiah Strong, Schopenhauer, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Shakspere, Charles Stephenson, Leslie Stephen, Elmira D. Slenker, Percy Bythe Shelley, Strauss, A. C. Swinburne, THE TRUTH SEEKER, New York Tablet (Roman Catholic), J. P. Thompson, Truth Seeker Annual, New York Times, The New Englander, Taylor, Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage, U. S. Senate Reports, Ul S. Senate Sunday Bills, Upham's Salem Witchcraft, Voltaire, Volney, Gilbert Vale, Rev. Thomas Vincent, Cardinal Wiseman, President George Washington, Walt Whitman, J. M. heeler, Archbishop Whately, Daniel Webster, Rev. 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Price. . . 10 cents. DEACON SKIDMORE'S LETTERS. (Zion Hill Baptist.) His Evolution out of Christianity. By D. M. BENNETT. Paper, 50 cents: cloth, 75. ECCE DIABOLUS. Jehovah Worship and Devil Worship Identical-- THE TRUTH SEEKER, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. and Shelley were hardly respectable - not to be read by young persons. It was admitted on all hands that Burns was a child of nature whom his mother was ashamed and proud. In the blessed year aforesaid, candor, free and sincere speech, were under the ban. Creeds at that time were entrenched behind statutes, prejudice, custom, ignorance, stupidity, Puritanism, and slavery; that is to say, slavery of mind and body. Of course it has always been, and forever will be impossible for slavery, or any kind or form of injustice, to produce a great poet. There are hundreds of verse makers and writers on the side of the wrong-- enemies of progress-- but they are not poets, they are not men of genius. At this time a young man-- he to whom this testimonial is given-- he upon whose head have fallen the snows of more than seventy winters-- this man, born within the sound of the sea, gave to the world a book, "Leaves of Grass." This book was, and is, the true transcript of a soul. The man is unmasked. No drapery of hypocrisy, no pretense, no fear. The book was as original in forma as in thought. All customs were forgotten or disregarded, all rules broken-- nothing mechanical-- no imitation-- spontaneous, running and winding like a river, multitudinous in its thoughts as the waves of the sea-- nothing mathematical or measured. In everything a touch of chaos-- lacking what is called form as clouds lack form, but not lacking the splendor of sunrise or the glory of sunset. It was a marvelous collection and aggregation of fragments, hints, suggestions, memories and prophecies, weeds and flowers, clouds and clods, sights and sounds, emotions and passions, waves, shadows, and constellations. His book was received by many with disdain, with horror, with indignation and protest-- by the few as a marvelous, almost miraculous, message to the world-- full of thought philosophy, poetry, and music. In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous. A great soul appears and fills the world with new and marvelous harmonies. In his words is the old Promethean flame. The heart of nature beats and throbs in his line. The respectable prudes and pedagogues sound the alarm, and cry, or rather screech: "Is this a book for a young person!" A poem true to life as a Greek statue-- candid as nature-- fills these barren souls with fear. Drapery about the perfect was suggested by immodesty. The provincial prudes, and others of like mold, pretend that love is a duty rather than a passion-- a kind of self-denial-- not an overmastering joy. They preach the gospel of pretense and pantalettes. In the presence of sincerity, of truth, they cast down their eyes and endeavor to feel immodest. To them, the most beautiful thing is hypocrisy adorned with a blush. They have no idea of an honest, pure passion, glorying in its strength-- intense, intoxicated with the beautiful-- giving even to inanimate things pulse and motion, and that transfigures, ennobles, and idealizes the object of its adoration. They do not walk the streets of the city of life-- they explore the sewers; they stand in the gutters and cry "Unclean!" They pretend that beauty is a scare; that love is a Delilah; that the highway of joy is the broad road, lined with flowers and filled with perfume, leading to a city of eternal sorrow. Since the year 1855 the American people have developed; they are somewhat acquainted with the literature of the world. They have witnessed the most tremendous of revolutions, not only upon the fields of battle, but in the world of thought. The American citizen has concluded that it is hardly worth while being a sovereign unless he has the right to think for himself. And now, from this hight, with the vantage-ground of to-day, I propose to examine this book and to state, in a general way, what Walt Whitman has done, what he has accomplished, and the place he has won in the world of thought. II. THE RELIGION OF THE BODY. Walt Whitman stood, when he published his book, where all stand to-night-- on the perpetually moving line where history ends and prophecy begins. He was full of life to the very tips of his fingers-- brave, eager, candid, joyous with health. He was soquainted with the past. He knew something of song and story, of philosophy and art-- much of the heroic dead, of brave suffering, of the thoughts of men, the habits of the people-- rich as well as poor-- familiar with labor, a friend of wind and wave, touched by love and friendship-- liking the open road, enjoying the fields and paths, the crags-- friend of the forest-- feeling that he was free-- neither master nor slave-- willing that all should know his thoughts-- open as the sky, candid as nature-- and he gave his thoughts, his dreams, his conclusions, his hopes, and his mental portrait to his fellow men. Walt Whitman announced the gospel of the body. He confronted the people. He denied the depravity of man. He insisted that love is not a crime; that 1994 men and women should be proudly natural; that they need not grovel on the earth and cover their faces for shame. He taught the dignity and glory of the father and mother; the sacredness of maternity. Maternity, tender and pure as the tear of pity, holy as suffering-- the crown, the flower, the ecstasy of love. People had been taught from bibles and from creeds that maternity was a kind of crime; that the woman should be purified by some ceremony in some temple built in honor of some god. This barbarism was attacked in "Leaves of Grass." The glory of simple life was sung; a declaration of independence was made for each and all. And yet this appeal to manhood and to womanhood was misunderstood. It was denounced simply because it was in harmony with the great trend of nature. To me, the most obscene word in our language is celibacy. It was not the fashion for people to speak or write their thoughts. We were flooded with the literature of hypocrisy. The writers did not faithfully describe the worlds in which they lived. They endeavored to make a fashionable world. They pretended that the cottage of the hut in which they dwelt was a palace, and they called the little area in which they threw their slops their domain, their realm, their empire. They were ashamed of the real, of what their world actually was. They imitated; that is to say, they sold lies, and these lies filled the literature of most lands. Walt Whitman defended the sacredness of love, the purity of passion-- the passion that builds in every home and fills the world with art and song. They cried out: "He is a defender of passion-- he is a libertine! He lives in the mire. He lacks spirituality!" Whoever differs with the multitude, especially with a led multitude-- that is to say, with a multitude of taggers-- will find out from their leaders that he has committed an unpardonable sin. It is a crime to travel a road of your own, especially if you put up guide boards for the information of others. Many centuries ago E[E?arus], the greatest man of his century, and of many centuries before and after, said: "Happiness is the only good; happiness is the supreme end." This man was temperate, frugal, generous, noble-- and yet through all these years he has been denounced by the hypocrites of the world as a mere eater and drinker. It was said that Whitman had exaggerated the importance of love-- that he had made too much of this passion. Let me say that no poet-- not excepting Shakspere-- has had imagination enough to exaggerate the importance of human love-- a passion that contains all hights and all depths-- ample as space, with a sky in which glitter all constellations, and that has within it all storms, all lightnings, all wrecks and ruins, all griefs, all sorrows, all shadows, and all the joy and sunshine of which the heart and brain are capable. No writer must be measured by a word or line or paragraph. He is to be measured by his work-- by the tendency, not of one line, but by the tendency of all. Which way does the great stream tend? Is it for good or evil? Are the motives high and noble, or low and infamous? We cannot measure Shakspere by a few lines, neither can we measure the Bible by a few chapters, nor "Leaves of Grass" by a few paragraphs. In each there are many things that I neither approve nor believe-- but in all books you will find a mingling of wisdom and foolishness, of prophecies and mistakes-- in other words, among the excellencies there will be defects. The mind is not all gold, or all silver, or all diamonds-- there are baser metals. The trees of the forest are not all of one size. On some of the highest there are dead and useless limbs, and there may be growing beneath the bushes, weeds, and now and then a poisonous vine. If I were to edit the great books of the world, I might leave out some lines and I might leave out the best. I have no right to make of my brain a sieve and say that only that which passes through belongs to the rest of the human race. I claim the right to choose. I give that right to all. Walt Whitman had the courage to express his thought-- the candor to tell the truth. And here let me say it gives me joy-- a kind of perfect satisfaction-- to look above the bigoted bats, the satisfied owls and wrens and chickadees, and see the great eagle poised, circling higher and higher, unconscious of their existence. And it gives me joy, a kind of perfect satisfaction, to look above the petty passions and jealousies of small and respectable people-- above the considerations of place and power and reputation, and see a brave, intrepid man. It must be remembered that the American people had separated from the Old World-- that we had declared not only the independence of colonies, but the independence of the individual. We had done more-- he had declared that the state could no longer be ruled by the Church, and that the Church could not be ruled by the state, and that the individual could not be ruled by the Church. These declarations were in danger of being forgotten. We needed a new voice, sonorous, loud, and clear, a new poet for America for the new epoch, somebody to chant the morning song of the new day. The great man who gives a true transcript of his mind, fascinates and instructs. Most writers suppress individuality. They wish to please the public. They flatter the stupid and pander to the prejudice of their readers. They write for the market-- making books as other mechanics make shoes. They have no message-- they bear no torch-- they are simply the slaves of customers. The books they manufacture are handled by "the trade;" they are regarded as harmless. The pulpit does not object; the young person can read the monotonous pages without a blush-- or a thought. On the title pages of these books you will find the imprint of the great publishers-- on the rest of the pages, nothing. These books might be prescribed for insomnia. III. Men of talent, men of business, touch life upon few sides. They travel but the beaten path. The creative spirit is not in them. They regard with suspicion a poet who touches life on every side. They have little confidence in that divine thing called sympathy, and they do not and cannot understand the man who enters into the hopes, the aims, and the feelings of all others. In all genius there is the touch of chaos-- a little of the vagabond; and the successful tradesman, the man who buys and sells, or manages a bank, does not care to deal with a person who has only poems for collaterals-- they hav a little fear of such people, and regard them as the awkward country man does a sleight-of-hand performer. In every age in which books have been produced the governing class, the respectable, have been opposed to the works of real genius. If what are known as the best people could have their way, if the pulpit had been consulted-- the provincial moralists-- the works of Shakspere would have been suppressed. Not a line would have reacted our time. And the same may be said of every dramatist of his age. If the Scotch Kirk could have decided, nothing would have been known of Robert Burns. If the good people, the orthodox, could have had their say, not one line of Voltaire would now be known. All the plates of the French Encyclopedia would have been destroyed with all the thousands [?] were destroyed. Nothing would have been known of D'Alembert, Grimm, Diderot, or any of the Titans who warred against the thrones and altars and laid the foundation of modern literature not only, but what is of far greater moment, universal education. It is not too much to say that every book now held in high esteem would have been destroyed, if those in authority could have had their will. Every book of modern times, that has a real value, that has enlarged the intellectual horizon of mankind, that has developed the brain, that has furnished real food for thought, can be found in the Index Expurgatorius of the Papacy, and nearly every one has been commended to the free minds of men by the denunciations of Protestants. If the guardians of society, the protectors of "young persons," could have had their way, we should have known nothing of Byron or Shelley. The voices that thrill the world would not be silent. If authority could have had its way, the world would have been as ignorant now as it was when our ancestors lived in holes or hung from dead limbs by their prehensile tails. But we are not forced to go very far back. If Shakspere had been published for the first time now, those divine plays-- greater than continents and seas, greater even than the constellations of the midnight sky-- would be excluded from the mails by the decision of the present enlightened postmaster-general. The poets have always lived in an ideal world, and that ideal world has always been far better than the real world. As a consequence, they have forever roused, not simply the imagination, but the energies-- the enthusiasm of the human race. The great poets have been on the side of the oppressed-- of the downtrodden. They have suffered with the imprisoned and the enslaved, and whenever and wherever man has suffered for the right, wherever the hero has been stricken down-- whether on field or scaffold-- some man of genius has walked by his side, and some poet has given form and expression, not simply to his deeds, but to his aspirations. From the Greek and Roman world we still hear the voices of a few. The poets, the philosophers, the artists, and the orators still speak. Countless millions have been covered by the waves of oblivion, but the few who uttered the elemental truths, who had sympathy for the whole human race, and who were great enough to prophecy a grander day, are as alive to-night as when they roused, by their bodily presence, by their living voices, by their works of art, the enthusiasm of their fellow men. Think of the respectable people, of the men of700 THE TRUTH SEEKER, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. (Continued from page 699.) traveled by the human race. He knows that every victory over nature is but the preparation for another battle. This truth was in his mind when he said: "Understand me well' it is provided in the essence of things, that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary." This is the generalization of all history. XL THE TWO POEMS. There are two of these poems to which I have time to call special attention. This first is entitled "A Word Out of the Sea." The boy, coming out of the rocked cradle, wandering over the sands and fields, up from the mystic play of shadows, out of the patches of briers and blackberries-from the memories of birds-from the thousand responses of his heart-goes back to the sea and his childhood, and sings a reminiscence. Two guests from Alabama-two birds-build their nest, and there were four light green eggs, spotted with brown, and the two birds sang for joy: Shine, shine, Pour down your warmth together, great sun! While we bask, we two together. Two together -- Winds blow south, or winds blow north, Day come white or night come black, Home, or rivers and mountains from home, Singing all time, minding no time, If we two but keep together. In a little while one of the birds is missed and never appeared again, and all through the summer the mate, the solitary guest, was singing of the lost: Blow, blow, Blow up, ses winds along Paumsock's shore; I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me. And the boy that night, blending himself with the shadows, with bare feet, went down to the sea, where he while arms out in the breakers were tirelessly tossing; listening to the songs and translating the notes. And the singing bird called loud and high for the mate, wondering what the dusky spot was in the brown and yellow, seeing the mate whichever way he looked, piercing the woods and the earth with his song, hoping that the mate might hear his cry; stopping that he might not lose her answer; waiting and then crying again; "Here I am!" And this gentle call is for you. Do not be deceived by the whistle of the wind; those are shadows; and at last crying: O past, O joy! Is the air, in the woods, over fields, Loved! loved! loved! Loved-but no more with me- We two together no more. And then the boy, understanding the song that had awakened in his breast a thousand songs clearer and louder and more sorrowful than the bird's knowing that the cry of unsatisfied love would never again be absent from him; thinking then of the destiny of all, and asking of the sea the final word, and the sea answering, delaying not and hurrying not, spoke the low delicious word "Death!" "ever Death!" The next poem, one that will live as long as our language entitled: "When Lilacs Last in the Door- yard Bloomed," is on the death of Lincoln. The sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands. One who reads this will never forget the odor of the lilac, "the lustrous western star" and "the grey- brown bird singing in the pines and cedars." In this poem the dramatic unities are perfectly preserved, the atmosphere and climate in harmony with every event. Never will he forget the solemn journey of the coffin through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land, nor the pomp of inlooped flags, the procession long and winding, the flambeaus of night, the torches' flames, the silent sea of faces, the unbared heads, the thousand voices rising stron and solemn, the dirges, the shuddering organs, the tolling bell- and the sprig of lilac. And then for a moment they will hear the grey- brown bird singing in the cedars, bashful and tender, while the lustrous star lingers in the West, and they will remember the pictures hung on the chamber walls to adorn the burial house -- pictures of spring and farms and homes and the grey smoke, lucid and bright, and the floods of yellow gold -- of the gorgeous indolent sinking sun -- the sweet herbage under foot -- the green leaves of the trees prolific -- the breast of the river with the wind-dapple here and there, and the varied and ample land -- and the most excellent sun so calm and haughty -- the violet and purple morn with just felt breezes. The gentle soft born measureless light -- the miracle spreading, bathing all -- the fulfilled noon -- the coming eve delicious and the welcome night and the stars. And then again they will hear the song of the grey-brown bird in the limitless dusk amid the cedars and pines. Again they will remember the star and again the odor of the lilac. But most of all, the song of the bird translated and becoming the chant for death: THE CHANT FOR DEATH Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate 'round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later delicate death. Praised be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love - but praise! praise! praise! For the sure enwinding arms of cool enfolding death. Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly. Approach, strong deliverance, When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead, Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, Loved in the flood of thy bliss, O death. From me to thee glad serenades. Dance for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee, And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting, And life and the folds, and the bright and thoughtful night. The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, And the soul turning to thee, O vast and well-veiled death, And the body gratefully nesting close to thee. Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad of fields and the prairies wide, Over the dense-packed cities all-- and the teeming wharves and waves, I float this carol to thee, with joy to thee, O death. This poem, in memory of "the sweetest, wisest soul of all our days and lands," and for whose sake lilac and star and bird were entwined, will last as long as the memory of Lincoln. XII. OLD AGE. Walk Whitman is not only the poet of childhood, of youth, of manhood, but, above all, of old age. He has not been soured by slander or petrified by prejudice; neither calumny nor flattery has made him revengeful or arrogant. Now sitting by the fireside, in the winter of life, His jocund heart still beating to his breast, he is just as brave and calm and kind as in his man- hood's proudest days, when roses blossomed in his cheeks. He has taken life's seven steps. Now as the gamester might say, "on velvet." He is enjoying "old age expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe; old age, flowing free, with the delicious, near-by freedom of death; old age, superbly rising, welcoming the ineffable aggregation of dying days." He is taking the "loftiest look at last," and before he goes he utters thanks "for health, the midday sun, the impalpable air--for life, mere life; for precious ever lingering memories of mother, father, brothers, sisters, friends; for all his days, for gentle words, caresses, gifts from foreign hands, for shelter, wise and meat, for sweet appreciation, for beings, groups, love, deeds, words, books; for colors, forms; for all the brave, strong men who forward sprung in freedom's help -- all years -- in all lands; the cannoneers of song and thought - the great artillerists, the foremost leaders, captains of the soul." It is a great thing to preach philosophy -- far greater to live it. The highest philosophy accepts the inevitable with a smile, and greets it as though it were desired. To be satisfied: This is wealth-- success. The real philosopher knows that everything has happened that could have happened -- consequently he accepts. He is glad that he has lived -- glad that he has had his moment on the stage. in this spirit Whitman has accepted life. I shall go forth: I shall traverse those states, but I cannot tell whither or how long. Perhaps soon, some day or night, while I am singing, my voice will suddenly cease, O soul! Then all may arrive but to this: The glances of my eye that swept the daylight, The unspeakable love I interchanged with women, My joys in the open air, My walks in the Manhattan, The continual good will I have met, The curious attachments of young men to me, My reflection alone-- the absorption into me from the land- scape, stars, animals, thunder, rain, and snow in my interviews alone; The words of my mouth--rude, ignorant--my many faults and derelictions; The light touches on my lips of the lips of my comrades at parting. The tracks which I leave on the sidewalks and fields-- may all arrive at but this beginning of me; This beginning of me--and yet it is enough, O, soul! O, soul, we have positively appeared; that is enough. Yes, Walt Whitman has appeared. He has his place upon the stage. The drama is not ended. His voice is still heard. He is the post of Democracy --of all people. He is the poet of the body and soul. He has sounded the notes of Individuality. He has given the pass-word primeval. He is the Poet of Humanity--of Intellectual Hospitality. He has voiced the aspirations of America--and, above all, he is the point of Love and Death. How grandly, how bravely he has given his thought, and how superb in his farewell--his leave- taking: After the supper and talk: after the day is done. As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging. Good-bye and good-bye with emotional lips repeating. So hard for his hand to release those hands--no more will they meet-- No more for communion of sorrow and joy of old and young. A far-stretching journey awaits him to return no more. Shunning postponing severance, seeking to ward off the last word ever so little. Even at the exit door turning--charges superfluous calling back--even as he descends the steps. Something to eke out a minute additional--absdown night- fall deepening. Farewell messages lessening, dimmer the forthgoer's visage and form. Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness; loth, oh, so loth to depart: And is this all? Will the forthgoer be lost, and forever? Is death the end? Over the grave bands Love sobbing and by her side stands Hope and whispers: We shall meet again. Before all life is death, and after all death is life. The falling leaf, touched with the hectic flush, that testifies of autumn's death, is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring. Walt Whitman has dreamed great dreams, told great truths and uttered sublime thoughts. He has held aloft the torch and bravely led the way. As you read the marvelous book, or the person, called "Leaves of Grass," you feel the freedom of the antique world; you hear the voices of the morning, of the first great singers--voices elemental as those of sea and storm. the horizon enlarges, the heavens grow ample, limitations are forgotten--the realization of the will, the accomplishment of the ideal, seem to be within your power. Obstructions become petty and disappear. The chains and bars are broken, and the distinctions of caste are lost. The soul is in the open air, under the blue and stars---the flag of Nature. Creeds, theories, and philosophies ask to be examined, contradicted, reconstructed. Prejudices disappear, superstitions vanish, and custom abdicates. The sacred places become highways, duties and desires clasp hands and become comrades and friends. Authority drops the scepter, the priest he miter, and the purple falls from kings. The inanimate becomes articulate, the meanest and humblest things utter speech, and the dumb and voiceless burst into song. A feeling of independence takes possession of the soul, the body expands, the blood flows full and free, superiors vanish, flattery is a lost art, and life becomes a personal possession, and the oceans, the continents, and constellations belong to you. You are in the center, everything radiates from you, and in your veins beats and throbs the pulse of all life. You become a rover, careless and free. You wander by the shores of all seas and hear the eternal psalm. You feel the silence of the wide forest, and stand beneath the intertwined and over arching boughs, entranced with symphonies of winds and woods. You are borne on the tides of eager and swift rivers, hear the seven-hued arch, and watch the eagles as they circling soar. You traverse gorges dark and dim, and climb the scarred and threatening cliffs. You stand in orchards where the blossoms fall like snow, where the birds nest and sing, and painted moths make aimless journeys through the happy air. You live the lives of those who till the earth, and walk amid the perfumed fields, hear the respers' song and feel the breadth and scope of earth and sky. You are in the great cities, in the midst of multitudes, of the endless processions. You are on the wide plains ---the prairies--with hunter and trapper, with savage and pioneer, and you feel the soft grace yielding under your feet. You sail in many ships, and breathe the free air of the sea. You travel many roads, and countless paths. You visit palaces and prisons, hospitals, and courts; you pity kings and convicts, and your sympathy goes out to all the suffering and insane, the oppressed and enslaved, and even to the infamous. You bear the din of labor, all sounds of factory, field, and forest, of all tools, instruments, and machine. You become familiar with men and women of all employments, trades, and professions--- with birth and burial, with wedding feast and funeral chant. You see the cloud and flame of war, and you enjoy the ineffable perfect days of peace. In this one book, in these wondrous "Leaves of Grass," you find hints and suggestions, touches and fragments, of all there is of life, that lies between the babe, whose rounded cheeks dimple beneath his mother's laughter, loving eyes, and the old man, snow-covered, who, with a smile, extends his hand to death. And we have met to night to honor ourselves by honoring the author of "Leaves of Grass." THE TRUTH SEEKER, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. 693 world---the imitator does not. The imitator abdicates, and by the fact of imitation falls upon his knees. He is like one who, hearing a traveler talk, pretends to others that he has traveled. In nearly all lands, the poet has been privileged--- for the sake of beauty, they have allowed him to speak, and for that reason he has told the story of the oppressed, and has excited the indignation of honest men and even the pity of tyrants. He, above all others, has added to the intellectual beauty of the world. He has been the true creator of language, and has left his impress on mankind. What I have said is not only true of poetry---it is true of all speech. All are compelled to use the visible world as a dictionary. Words have been in vented and are being invented---for the reason that new powers are found in the old symbols, new qualities, relations, uses, and meanings. The growth of language is necessary on account of the development of the human mind. The savage needs but few symbols ---the civilized many---the post most of all. The old idea was, however, that the post must be a rhymer. Before printing was known, it was said: the rhyme assists the memory. That excess no longer exists. Is rhyme a necessary part of poetry! In my judgment, rhyme is a hindrance to expression. The rhymer is compelled to wander from his sub ject---to say more or less than he means---tointro duce irrelevant matter that interferes continually with the dramatic actions and is perpetual obstruc tion to sincere silences. All poems, of necessity, must be short. The highly and purely poetic in the sudden bursting into blossom of a great and tender thought. The planting of the seed, the growth, the bed and flower must be rapid. The spring must be quick and warm---the soil perfect, the sunshine and rain enough---every thing should tend to hasten, nothing to delay. In poetry, as in wit, the crystallization must be sudden. The greatest poems are rhythmical. While rhyme is a hindrance, rhythm seems to be the comrade of the poetic. Rhythm has a natural foundation. Under emotion, the blood rises and falls, the muscles contract and relax, and this action of the blood is as rhythmical as the rise and fall of the sea. In the highest form of expression, the thought should be harmony with this natural ebb and flow. The highest poetic truth is expressed in rhythmical form. I have sometimes thought that an idea selects its own words, chooses its own garments, and that when the thought has possession, absolutely, of the speaker or writer, he unconsciously allows the thought to clothe itself, The great poetry of the world keeps time with the winds and the waves. I do not mean by rhythm a recurring accent at accurately measured intervals. Perfect time is the death of music. There should always be room for eager haste and delicious delay, and whatever change there may be in the rhythm of time, the action itself should suggest perfect freedom. A word more about rhythm. I believe that certain feelings and passions---joy, grief, emulation, revenge, produce certain molecular movements in the brain---that every thought is accompanied by certain physical phenomena. Now it may be that certain sounds, colors, and forms produce the same molecular and that these sounds, colors, and forms produce first, the molecular movements and these in their turn reproduces the feelings, emotions, and states of mind capable of producing the same or like molecular movements. So that what we call heroic music, produces the same molecular action in the brain---the same physical change---that are produced by the real feeling of heroism; that the sounds we call plaintive produce the same molecular movement in the brain that grief, or the twilight of grief, actually produces. There may be a rhythmical molecular movement belonging to each state of mind, that accompanies each thought or passion, and it may be that music, or painting, or sculpture, produces the same state of mind or feeling that produces the music or painting or sculpture, by producing the same molecular movements. All arts are born of the same spirit, and express like thoughts in different ways---that is to say, they produce like states of mind and feeling. The sculptor, the painter, the composer, the poet, the orat[or] work to the same end, with different materials. The painter expresses through form and color and relation; the sculptor through form and relation. The poet also paints and chisels---his words give form, relation, and color. His statues and his paintings do not crumble, neither do they fade, nor will they as long as language endures. The composer touches the passions, produces the very states of feeling produced by the painter and sculptor, the poet and orator. In all these there must be rhythm---that is to say, proportion---that is to say, harmony, melody. So that the greatest poet is the one who idealizes the common, who gives ne meanings to old symbols, who transfigures the ordinary thing os 1995 life. He must deal with the hopes and fears, and with the experiences of the people. The poetic is not the exceptional. A perfect poem is like a perfect day. It has the undefinable charm of naturalness and ease. It must not appear to be the result of great labor. We feel, in spite of ourselves, that man does best that which he does easiest. The great poet is the instrumentality, not always of his time, but of the best of his time, and he must be in unison and accord with the ideals of his race. The sublimer he is, the simpler he is. The thoughts of the people must be clad in the garments of feeling ---the words must be known, apt, familiar. The night must be in the thought, in the sympathy. In the olden time they used to have May day parties, and the prettiest child was crowned Queen of May. Imagine an old blacksmith and his wife looking at their little daughter clad in white and crowned with roses. They would wonder while they looked at her, how they ever came to have so beautiful a child. It is thus that the poet clothes the intellectual children or ideals of the people. They must not be gemmed and garlanded beyond the recognition of their parents. Out from all the flowers and beauty must look the eyes of the child they know. We have grown tired of gods and goddesses in art. Milton's heavenly militia excites our laughter. Lighthouses have driven sirens from the dangerous coasts. We have found that we do not depend on the imagination for wonders---there are millions of miracles under our feet. Nothing can be more marvelous than the common and everyday facts of life. The phantoms have been cast aside. Men and women are enough for men and women. In their lives is all the tragedy and all the comedy that they can comprehend. The painter no longer crowds his canvas with the winged and impossible---he paints life as he sees it, people as he knows them, and in whom he is interested. "The Angelus," the perfection of pathos, in nothing but two peasants bending their heads in thankfulness as they hear the solemn sound of the distant bell---two peasants, who have nothing to be thankful for---nothing but weariness and want, nothing but the crusts that they soften with their tears---nothing. And yet as you look at that picture you feel that they have something besides to be thankful for---that they have life, love, and hope--- and so the distant bell makes music in their simple hearts. IX. The attitude of Whitman toward religion has not been understood. Towards all forms of worship, towards all creeds, he has maintained the attitude of absolute fairness. He does not believe that Nature has given her last message to man. He does not believe that all has been ascertained. He denies that any sect has written down the entire truth. He believes in progress, and, so believing, he says: We can consider bibles and religions divine. I do not say the are not divine. I say they have all grown out of us and may grow out of us still. It is not they who give the life. It is you who give the life. My thoughts are hymns of the praise of things; In the dispute on God and eternity I am silent. Have you thought there could be but a single Supreme? There can be any number of Supremes. One does not countervail another any more than one eyesight countervails another. Upon the great questions, as to the great problems, he feels only the serenity of a great well-poised sou. No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death. I hear and behold God in every object, not understanding God, not in the least. Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself. In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my face in the glass. I find letters from God dropped in the street and every one is signed by God's name. The whole visible world is regarded by him as a revelation, and so is the invisible world, and with this feeling he writes: Not objecting to special revelations---considering a curl of smoke or a hair on the back of my hand just as curious as any revelation. The creeds do not satisfy, the old mythologies are not enough; they are too narrow at best, giving only hints and suggestions; and feeling this lack is that which had been written and preached, Whitman says: Magnifying and applying come I; Outbidding at the start the old cautious hucksters; Taking myself the exact dimensions of Jehovah; Lithographing Kronos, Zeus his son and Herkules his grandson; Buying drafts of Osiris, Isis, Belus, Brahm, and Buddha; In my portfolio placing Manito alone---Alah on a leaf---the crucifix engraved With Osiris and the hideous face of Mexitll and every idol and image--- Taking them all for what they are worth, and not a cost more. Whitman keeps open house. He is intellectually hospitable. He extends his hand to a new idea. He does not accept a creed because it is wrinkled and old and has a long white beard. He knows that hypocrisy has a venerable look, and that it relies on looks and masks---on stupidity---and fear. Neither does h[e] reject or accept the new because it is new. He wants the truth, and so he welcomes all until he knows just who and what they are. X. PHILOSOPY. Walt Whitman is a philosopher. The more a man has thought, the more he has studied, the more he has trained intellectually, the less certain he is. Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why and the wherefore of things. As a rule, he is a believer in special providence, and is egoistic enough to suppose that everything that happens in the universe happens in reference to him. A colony of red ants lived at the foot of the Alps. It happened one day, than an avalanche destroyed the hill; and one of the ants was heard to remark: "Who could have taken so much trouble to destroy our home?" Walt Whitman walked by the side of the sea "where the fierce old mother endlessly cries for her castaways," and endeavored to think out, to fathom the mystery of being; and he says: I, too, but signify, at the utmost a little washed up drift, A few sands and dead leaves gathered together---merging myself as part of the sands and drift. Aware, now, that said all the blab whose echoes recoil upon me, I have not since had the least idea of who or what I am. But that for all my insolent poems, the real me still stands untouched, untold, altogether unreached, Withdrawn afar, mocking me with mock congratulatory signs and voices, With peals of distant ironical laughter at every word I have written or shall write, Striking me with insults as I fall helpless on the sand. I perceive I have not understood anything, not a single object; and that no man ever can. There is in our language no profounder poem than the one entitled "Elemental Drifts." The effort to find the origins of things has ever been, and will forever be fruitless. Those who endeavor to find the secret of life resemble a man looking in the mirror, who thinks that if he only could be quick enough he could grasp the image that he sees behind the glass. The latest word of this poet upon this subject is as follows: "To me this life with all its realities and functions is finally a mystery, the real something yet to be evolved, and the stamp and shape and life have somehow given an important, perhaps the main, outline to something further. Somehow this hangs over everything else, and stands behind it, is inside of all fools, and the exercise and material and the worldly affairs of life and sense. That is the purport and meaning behind all the other meanings, of LEAVES OF GRASS." As a matter of fact the questions of origin and destiny are beyond the grasp of the human mind. We can see a certain distance; beyond that everything is only indistinct; and beyond the indistinction is the unseen. In the presence of these mysteries--- and everything is a mystery so far as origin, destiny, and nature are concerned---the intelligent, honest man is compelled to say, "I do not know." In the great midnight a few truths like stars shine on forever---and from the brain of man come a few struggling gleams of light---a few momentary sparks. Some have contended that everything is spirit; others that everything is matter; and again, others who maintained that a part is matter and a part is spirit; some that spirit was first and matter after; others that matter was first and spirit after; and others that matter and spirit have existed together. But none of these people can by any possibility tell what matter is, or what spirit is, or what the difference is between spirit and matter. The materialists look upon the spiritualists as substantially crazy; and the spiritualists regard the materialists as low and groveling. These spiritualistic people hold matter in contempt; but, after all, matter is quite a mystery. You take in your hand a little earth---a little dust. Do you know what it is? In this dust you put a seed; the rain falls upon it; the light strikes it; the seed grows; it bursts into blossom; it produces fruit. What is the dust---this womb? Do you understand it? Is there anything in the wide universe more wonderful than this? Take a grain of sand, reduce it to powder, take the smallest possible particle, look at it with a microscope, contemplate it every part for days, and it remains the citadel of a secret---an impregnable fortress. Bring all the theologians, philosophers, and scientists in serried ranks against it; let them attack on every side with all the arts and arms of thought and force. The citadel does not fall. Over the battlements floats the flag and the victorious secret smiles at the baffled hosts. Walt Whitman did not and does not imagine that he has reached the limit---the end of the road (Continued on page 700.) 694 THE TRUTH SEEKER, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. Communications. The Spiritualist's Idea of Man. IN THE TRUTH SEEKER of October 18Th I find a somewhat lengthy dissertation by James Marceles on the "Idealist's Idea of Man" followed up by our friend Otto Wettstein with the "Materialist's Idea of Man." And I think that a fitting topic to follow should be the "Spiritualist's Idea of Man." The idealist argues his hope of immortality based on the difference of inorganic and organic matter; the inorganic being under control of and subject to the chemical laws of nature, while organized life is to a great extent under the control of a force or entity--an intelligent force we may say--which resides within life confines and controls its movements, etc. Matter as such is inert; and that the particles of a mass of matter are dead, as Otto pleases to state we infer, but no mass of inorganic matter has any power to move its bulk from place to place. The motions of any mass of inorganic matter are purely chemical or molecular. There is no consciousness of the forces exerted upon it by the laws of chemistry. The mass does not know when it moves, but it simply obeys the laws of nature or the propelling force, hence is inert. So when put in motion the mass has no power or choice to stop, but would go on eternally if not met and overcome or its direction changed or stopped. Therefore when Otto declares that matter is not inert and argues against the law of inertia on the ground of molecular action, he simply shows that he misapprehends the subject under discussion. Now, on the contrary, when a mass of matter is moved about, as is shown by organized beings, it also shows that such mass contains a force, an intelligently acting power, which can move a mass of organized matter on a plane much higher than that of inorganic materials. Don't you see, Otto? The idealist is therefore right when he affirms that the matter so moving about and manifesting intelligence must contain something more than mere chemical or molecular life. And when friend Otto asserts that his idea of inertia as applied to matter is becoming exploded, he greatly errs. No scientist will so affirm. Can he point me out the man who from a scientific standpoint does so affirm! No sir. The law of inertia is as firm and true as nature itself, and those who say differently do not have any grounds upon which to make such statement. The man who does not comprehend the difference between a man who moves and a cart wheel which rolls is a poor materialistic philosopher. The same laws which pertain to matter--that is, chemical force--act both on or in organic and inorganic matter, and from the peculiar combination of organic matter they set with even greater force and action than on the mass of inorganic matter. And yet shove all this there is an intelligent, ennobling force, which has hopes, fears, desires, and impulses, grand beyond description. The Materialist, bent on pulling this grand idea down, and holding man's aspirations down in the bog and mud, will not allow him to soar upward, and at last tear himself away from gross materiality, but when he does so escape declares him dead. My friend Otto, you can depend on this matter unorganized has no power to move itself, nor any power to stop itself. If you do not wind one of watches it will run down, and has no power to wind itself into motion, though in time the chemical effects of oxygen and hydrogen while eat it up and make its particles fine enough to be cast about by the air. Not so with a man; he know how to wind himself up, how to supply his wants and maintain his physical and mental well-being. The Materialist insists that all this life, intelligence, and motion is the result of the secret chemical forces resident in matter. That is, he attributes the properties of intelligence to inorganic matter. Inorganic matter he thinks can organize itself into an intelligent organic being. He admits that matter perse is not intelligent, no single atom can change itself into anything else. An atom of gold can never become an atom of silver or of anything else; as an atom it has no intelligence. But, he agrees, when it combines with millions of other atoms, equally unintelligent, they form an organized being manifesting intelligence. Now, this is the height of absurdity. He tries to show by electricity, which is caused by friction, and is a form of heat, an effect analogous to mind. Why so! Electricity is simple heat evolved, which was contained in the matter from which it was taken. There is no more relation or similarity between electricity and mind than between mind and a piece of rock. He says, "Mind, consciousness, individuality, memory, etc., are purely the result of living, complex organic bodies which in their perfect living state generate those mental forces or processes, very much as a battery generates electricity." Now please observe that electricity is analogous to latent heat, has simply been evolved, was beforehand contained in the battery; but mind, intelligence, love, wit or humor, desire, memory, etc.--was that contained in the meat, potatoes, and cabbage composing my dinner, or does it reside in any of the organs of my body? Is it in the bones, tendons, muscles, or fibers, or even in the insensate brain? Do you not see that the consciousness is not one thing only, but a multiplicity of feelings and desires! In fact, the mind of man is almost limitless in its aspirations and emotions, and does not depend but little upon what we eat or drink, so that the health of the body is not impaired. To say that mind is a result of matter, especially when we say that matter has no mind to start with, is an assumption, and is arguing that something is the direct result of nothing, or that mind, the most important thing of life, comes from nothing, or out of mindless matter. If we admit that mind is contained in matter, then there is no reason to argue against its immortality, for it would not follow because a portion of matter decays that the mind which had been generated from it would also cease to exist, for the matter which produced so fine an organization may hav produced a much finer body or spirit in which the mind could, under new conditions, continue liv and manifest its acquired intelligence. To argue that when the body dies the spirit must also die, would be equivalent to saying that when the mother dies the child must die also. We see, however, that the child is a distinct individuality produced by the mother, but being no longer dependent upon her body and mind for life, will continue to liv on when she dies. The Materialist argues that as a spirit it must hav always lived, must hav always been an entity, or having had a beginning it must hav an end. Why such an inference? The child did not liv before its mother. In truth and probability, the child inherited all its mind from its parents; it had no existence as a mind until the physical and mental forces of its parents were brought together, and yet when either or both of its progenitors died the child remained strong and healthy, because by the laws of being it had set up an independent existence and there was no necessity for its death because the parents died; so with the spirit of man, when it has attained to all the intelligence and life it can obtain from the organization of matter, it will hav developed from the finer elements of matter a spiritual body in which to liv on in a more purely mental sphere than this life is fitted for, and there is no more reason why it should hav lived before its mother. Such ideas are simply absurd. To say that because a thing has a beginning it must of a necessity hav an end amounts to nothing when we consider the constant and everlasting change of matter and things. You might with the same propriety argue that a child could never grow into a man. As matter is eternal and indestructible, why may not mind be also? It will be seen then, that for proofs of immortality we must seek in the realm of the spiritual forces, and by a careful observation of the phenomena of the later developments Spiritualism can they be established, and in no other way. We may argue as we please, the idealist may idealize and the Materialist may materialize, so to speak, but the only way to settle the question is to observe the manifestations of intelligence given through independent slate-writing, rapping, table-tipping, and the movement of physical objects which appeal to the intelligence of the man and identity his spirit from knowledge which no one else could impart; and if the spirit can materialize, all the better. The fact that so many have cheated and defrauded for the sake of getting a living out of that desire, is bad enough, and no wonder that so many hav become disgusted with the subject; but if anyone is really anxious to obtain some evidence of a future life, and will go alone, and sincerely desires a knowledge of the spirit world, there is no doubt in my mind he can be satisfied of the truth, but he or she will hav to test the subject by an unbiased and, as far as possible, an unprejudiced mind. The spirits, who can read your minds, will permit no egotistic nonsense in the matter, and you will be most likely to draw to yourselvs just such a class of spirits as agree with your own feelings and desires. Otto infers that because during the carboniferous ages no organic life (animals) could hav existed on this earth, therefore no spirits could hav existed. Why not? The atmosphere a thousand feet or so above the mountains may hav been alive with spiritual life. In fact, it has been thought that all organic beings, from the infusoria to man, originated in those localities, away from the earth to those higher regions which were first cooled off. In the upper air these spirits began to develop, and when the earth was cool enough, they began to descend and filled the lands and seas. The chalk beds of England, three thousand feet thick, are but the cast-off shells of these uncountable billions of organic beings, and they all came down from the upper air--first one kind, then another, and, finally, why may not all organic life hav descended in the same way, becoming more and more material until the present form of solidity corresponding to the state of the globe was brought about? Otto objects that force can be superior to matter. He insists the matter is the thing and force only an attribute. Now, for instance, the cart and the horse, is a sample, the cart is everything and the horse which moves it only an attribute. Or a man and a rock; when the man takes a crowbar and moves the rock to some desirable place the force of the man was merely an attribute of the rock and the crowbar, the rock and the bar were the essential things, the force and the man, or his mind, mere attributes. This is the kind of sophistical reasoning of the Materialist. The mind is nothing, the material which it moves is everything. So the man who forces his body about manifesting life is a mere attribute of his own body. In fact, it is the body which is [bo??] and "kerflummuxes" his mind about as its chemical and molecular changes compel. He goes on to say, "There is no such thing as force and matter; matter is the only abstract existence, force its attribute. Matter divested of force, or force divested of matter, is impossible." Now, in my opinion this as just as absurd as the Christian Scientist's claim that nothing exists but mind. Otto asserts That nothing exists but matter. Such generalizations lead otherwise clear minds into the most irrational absurdities. To say that there is nothing in the world but mind and matter, or mind, is equally nonsensical. To see a mass of matter being moved by some independent force or forces, and call it an attribute of the thing moved, is to absurd to contemplate, and no language or illustrations can be ridiculous enough to meet the assertion. To admit this philosophy for a moment, is to assert that the lowest form of inorganic matter, or that farthest removed from mind and force, is the most superior form of it. Now we hav always been led to believe that the highest forms of matter, and those nearest the properties of force and thought, were the more excellent, but it seems this is to be ignored and the underdeveloped condition made the more important, or at least the equal of any. To look at all the vast productions of the intellect of man upon land and sea, to see his mechanical achievements, his mental qualifications, and his ability to move nations by the superior results of thought alone, and without the motion of a muscle, and then put him down as a mere automation, is belittling humanity and degrading the most magnificent things to the level of a mud pile. Oh no! The world is progressing, mind is advancing, and the time is coming when the ability to govern and control matter will be enhanced a thousand fold over the present. Now we handle electricity and some of the higher forms of matter and force; then the present achievements will seem as but the alphabet of nature's vast volumes. This will happen when man will not be considered a mere automation, but a mental and moral force. Wilkes Barre, Pa. J. B. PERBY. The Cause in Washington. The present standing of work as to religious exercises in public schools is as follows: While a carefully prepared presentation of the law and facts, backed by arguments and appeals to one's sense of justice, hav resulted in the cessation of religious exercises in most of our public schools, yet there are a number of places in the state where the school boards are willful, stubborn, defiant, and in some districts the teachers hav resorted to every mean, petty persecution of the children of those parents who hav made protests against the injustice of forcing their children to daily repeal the Lord's prayer. To end this throughout the state, a case must be decided of sufficient moment to be generally commented on by the press throughout the state. Failing in this, a test case before the courts is an absolute necessity. The directors of the Washington Secular Union hav decided that an appeal shall be made to the school board of this city (Seattle), as we hav discovered that one of the teachers compels the children to recite the Lord's prayer in concert. We desire to resort to every laudable means to, if possible, avoid litigation. If this city school board refuse our request, then we hav no resource but the courts. But we are hopeful of their compliance with right, justice, and the law; and that the publicity we can giv their decision will induce all the law-defying school boards and teachers to reform. Sunday law reform is progressing, but against opposition. Rev. Wilbur Crafts, the able, fanatical secretary of the National Sabbath Union (with abundance of funds, for the fanatics back up their opinions with their cash) has been in the state, making his headquarters in Tacoma. He is very subtle, and sends out instructions to his emissaries to all the cities of the state how to use underhand schemes to favor their designs. Realizing it is contrary alike to the letter and spirit of our constitution to make religious laws, they make catspaws of the barbers and store clerks. The cry is: Oh, dear, so; it is not a religious movement. Religion has nothing to do with it. It is merely to insure to the poor THE TRUTH SEEKER, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. 699 now it's coming on hatching time. If the scrape had happened in the Salvation Army there would be some excuse for the sky-pilot, but a high-toned Plymouth sheep-pen as it is, it is a bad exposure for the soul-broking business. I also mail a Salvation paper to brace you up. Its heading is blood and fire. No wonder they take that for a trademark, for all religion is founded on it. A city rough happening into a missionary meeting when the subject under discussion was "The Jews Killing Jesus," listened a short time, and the injustice of the act warming up his righteous indignation and pugilistic powers, he suddenly got up from his seat, rushed out, and struck the first Jew he met square on the eye. The astonished Jew asked him the reason of his treating him in such a manner. Bursting with indignation, the wronged gentile screamed out, "Damn you, you killed our Jesus." "Oh," the Jew replied, "but that was four thousand years or more ago." "I don't giv a damn," replied the other, "it's only twenty minutes ago since I heard it." A bear which a traveling showman is exhibiting about the suburbs took a fancy that while his master went to the public-house he would go to chapel. He selected a Nonconformist place of worship on the high road between Barnes and Mortlake. Service was proceeding; but, so far from welcoming the new proselyte, the congregation manifested a general desire to occupy the pulpit. The minister, who happened to be preaching on the text, "Be not afraid," abruptly suspended his discourse, while the intruder who caused all the commotion unostentatiously made his way to what we suppose were the best seats in the chapel--the "empty choir stalls"--and there lay peaceably down. It is to be feared that an edifying discourse on the text." Be not afraid" would hav been left altogether incomplete had not the owner of the bear happily appeared and dragged bruin away. A missionary going through the backwoods and coming rather unexpectedly on a lonely cabin, stopped and rapped at the door. A woman answering his knock, he found himself rather at a lose to know what he should say, but plunging into his subject he said, "Missus, I am gathering in the lost sheep." "Well," replied the party addressed as missus, not quite taking in the spiritual meaning of the words, "I saw an old buck and an old ewe goin' by here the other day and I jest wondered who the hell owned them. The missionary, as in duty bound by his sacred calling, and shocked by the woman's words, made a further attempt to improve the occasion by saying, "O woman, you're in darkness!" "There 'tis again," "I told Jake ter put a winder in that ere back kitchen six months ago. By God, he hain't done it yet!" W, CAMERON. NEW YORK, N. Y., Oct. 19, 1890 Mr. Editor: Tennyson says: I hold it truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selvs to higher things. i believe that love is better than annihilation, and consider progression preferable to oblivion. I think an eternity can not be burdensome if it be well employed, and that this brief life is too long to be spent otherwise. I know not if the path of the soul be a straight line. or a circle, or an eternal spiral tending upward. I defined the soul in my recent article but did not state its "component parts," and I know not if it hav any. Can my brother define the "component parts" of a homogenous entity? I can define the parts of the soul, abstractly, as love, and cussedness. I can not tell my brother what would hav happened had my maternal ancestor married a Mr. Jones, but the marriage of my parents was inevitably a link in that chain of causation and sequence which extends from out of the eternal past to the transient present to be prolonged throughout the everlasting future, and he might ask me with equal propriety, what gases oxygen could be divided into if it were not an elementary substance? Can he answer those questions from a Materialistic standpoint? I cannot now inform him where I was before my parents existed, but this knowledge may come to me later as a recollection. My learned brother disparages idealism, which he claims "postulates theories as abstruse as a Latin litany." I understand idealism in its simplicity to be the science of perception, the philosophy without a hypothesis or a theory. The idealists realize that the senses can only take cognizance of immaterial phenomena, which inevitably follow certain other phenomena, and they can predict that as this has occurred invariably in the past it must always come to pass in the future, as illustrated by the burnt picture; but knowing no more, they consider theories but figurativ explanations which are adapted to one's comprehension. The Materialists found their philosophy on idealism, and without any evidence whatever they ascribe phenomena to matter, and on this basis "postulate theories" that are as truly absurd as the "Latin litany;" and some of them ascribe the existence of matter to the work of a god, but these individuals seldom go farther, and all Materialists are bound to stick fast somewhere in the mud of sophistry. If my brother can tell me what matter is but the total of such immaterial perceptions as always "go together," and such special ones as pertain to any object under consideration--in other words, if he can show that materiality exists--he may hav the niche that he has so kindly reserved for me in the temple of fame, for I do not want it, anyway, and I believe that there are New Yorkers who are aggressiv enough to assault a statue. I do not think he can do this, and "If he does it" "it will still be "phenomena," and if not "phenomena" It will be nothing." I concurred with my critic regarding the fire, and mentioned the coals in the grate simply as an illustration of a paradox that I thought required a physical explanation to prove a metaphysical point. It matters not, so far as my argument in concerned, whether force is identical with matter, or inertia a property of matter or not. These ideas were taught twenty years ago in the village schools of Illinois, and I will not abandon them until I can see for myself that they hav been exploded. My principal arguments are based on the scientific statement that the body is renewed periodically, and I would defend this premis if it were assailed. My brother has mentioned the point I made regarding a memory existing in the mind unthought of during many renewals of the brain and body; but as he has answered me in this [respe???] cannot answer him. I claim that a man and a jackknife are comparable as material entities, but there is truly a great difference between them and between all organized bodies and organic ones. I stated so in my previous article, and showed just what this difference is. Yours truly, JULIAN MARCELLAS. BOWIE, TEX., Oct. 12, 290. MR. EDITOR: I wish again to drop a few random thoughts regarding a secret order composed of Liberals. I think the Liberals should organize similarly to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, having three degrees, and floor work, also unwritten secret work; charging a stipulated amount for the initiation and degrees, each member to pay into the treasury or general fund so much as monthly dues; and say ten per cent of all moneys received, to be known as the Widows' and Orphans' Fund, to go to pay a certain amount to the widow of a deceased brother for funeral benefit, thus to make it compulsory on the lodge and its members to educate the orphans of deceased brothers when left in destitute circumstances, and to visit the sick and relieve the distressed. Let the qualifications for membership be that there shall be admitted "white, male persons of the age of eighteen years, of good moral character." Allow each member so much as sick benefits for each week's sickness, to be paid out of the general funds of the lodge. When the membership has reached a sufficient number they shall hav power to elect delegates from each society to meet together and organize a grand or sovereign lodge, by electing its executiv officers and transacting such other business as shall be brought before it and for the general welfare of the subordinate lodges under its sovereign jurisdiction, Also, when the membership in any state or territory reaches a certain number they shall hav the power to organize into a subordinate grand body, to hav control of all subordinate lodges in their jurisdiction, the same not conflicting with the sovereign lodge. And when the society shall attain to a sufficient number in all the jurisdictions, the sovereign lodge shall devise plans to allow an assessment on the death of a brother in good standing, of sufficient amount to pay as benefit not less than $1,000, the assessment to be equal on every member of the entire brotherhood. Now, friends, while it is an easy matter to picture out the future on paper, some may say, Can we accomplish the above? Well, for an illustration I will giv you a brief history of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. On April 26, 1819, there assembled in a small room in an obscure tavern in Baltimore, Md., five humble progenitors. Then and there they formally and solemnly organized Washington Lodge No. 1, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The tallow dips shed their dim light on the bronzed faces of the entire brotherhood then assembled to establish an organization that was destined to startle the world. The wildest dreams of that humble five could not hav pictured to them the results to be obtained by organizing--that in less than three-quarters of a century that little band of five would foot up the grand total of 1,635,381 initiated members, with 634,331 members in good standing in 1889, giving relief to 1, 480,331 brothers, relieving 183,601 widowed families, and burying 143,504 members, footing up the enormous sum of $51,258,391.26 for relief. The above are facts. Now, Liberals, can we not do likewise? We should be able to do more now, in this enlightened age when electric lights hav taken the place tallow dips, when the earth has been girdled with an electric chain by means of which the records of to-day's transactions will be whirled across the continent and road before to-morrow's sun shall hav opened and drawn aside "the curtains of his eastern couch." The investigations of the scientist hav brought to light many of the hidden secrets of nature. The investigations of philosophers, like Paine, Voltaire, Humboldt, Darwin, Huxley, and Franklin, hav brought to light and exposed many of the dogmas and impositions taught by priests. The continent has been spanned by the iron railway, whereby a four month's dangerous, tiresome journey overland from ocean to ocean has been reduced to a holiday excursion of but a few days. Now, with all these advantages, certainly we can organize. Separated as we are, we are like a bundle of sticks. Sperate them and the strength of a child could break them, but bind them together and the strength of a giant would be exhausted. So with the Liberals. Separated, the strength of a few weak-minded soul-carpenters could break us asunder, but bound together by the bonds of universal love, welded in the fires of Universal Mental Liberty, the combined strength and influence of heaven and hell, gods and devils, spooks and spirits, could not loosen the cords that bind us together as brothers. We would march triumphantly onward and upward--not heavenward--until the whole world would feel the soothing influence. Love would exert its gentle influence over all. Truth would appear in all we say and do. With fraternity as an eccentric the whole world would move in unison with the dictates of highest and grandest of principles, the brotherhood of man. We should all labor for the interest of humanity. It is a cause that is worthy of the noblest efforts of man; one which it is not only our duty to advocate but which it should be our pleasure to pursue; a cause which recognizes the true mission of man to be fraternity; which unites men everywhere as brothers, bound together not only by common sympathy but by common wants. S. P. BENTON. FORT WORTH, TEX,. Oct. 14, 1890. MR. EDITOR: I cannot resist the temptation to write a few words to thank John P. Guild, of Tyngsboro, Mass., for writing, and you for publishing, his humorous but noble and spirited defense of Prohibition and his splendid array of statistical evidences that proves its great success in Kansas and Iowa. It is both amusing and vexing to hear the rum and beer advocates tell such infernal lies about the failure of Prohibition is the states which hav tried it. They say the experiment in Iowa and Kansas is a total failure; that more liquor is drank under the Prohibition regime than before; that the people are disappointed and dissatisfied, and are now urging the resubmission of the amendment to the people, all of which is false. I am sorry to see so many Liberals joining in the cry. I understand Liberalism to mean emancipation from superstition, ignorance, and vice. Is not liquor-selling a vice? Is it not the duty of Liberals to prohibit vice in any form if they can? Why then should Liberals oppose the reform which it is their special duty to advocate? To oppose Prohibition is to favor intemperance. In Liberalism opposed to the laws which prohibit theft, arson, robbery, felony, defamation, and innumerable other crimes? No, of course not. Then why say that it is opposed to Prohibition of the liquor traffic, which is more destructiv of the good order of society, and the welfare and happiness of the people, than any other crime, and is the cause of a majority of all other crimes? It is a source of constant regret and sorrow to me that so many Liberals papers and magazines decry Prohibition and scold the Prohibitionists. If it is the peculiar province of Liberals to elevate humanity, it seems to me they, before all others, should teach and propagate temperance, and help, by their influence, to enact and enforce Prohibition. Every sane mind must know that legal restraint, that is, Prohibition, is the only possible remedy for the prevailing, almost unlimited, drunkenness. And we know that this is the remedy, as Mr. Guild so abundantly proves, and as has been proved in Maine for more than thirty years, where true and genuine "personal liberty" has been more fully enjoyed than in any community where liquor-drinking is permitted and practiced. Then why not adopt the remedy? Some Liberal say, "Liberalism and Prohibition hav nothing to do with each other." Some "cannot see how a consistent Liberal can be a Prohibitionist." Some Liberals say, "Liberalism covers all moral and economic questions; Prohibition only one." One says that "Liberalism and Prohibition are radically opposed, that Liberalism is jealous of all interference with personal liberty." One says, "Prohibitionists are mostly orthodox." Some say, "Liberalism has largely to do with temperance, but nothing to do with Prohibition." One says, "To yield to another the rights and privileges we take for ourselvs is the opposit of Prohibition, which says distinctly, 'Thou shalt not' do thus and so." "Prohibition is a church movement, bound inseparably to the Sunday movement--the God-in-the-Constitution movement." One says, "The relation which Liberalism bears to Prohibition is the relations that truth bears to falsehood, the liberty bears to despotism, the relation of complete opposite." Such are some of the views expressed by certain Liberals. Now, I confess that the societies organized as secular, ethical, and anti-religious orders hav in their organizations nothing special to do with any theories of reform except those embraced in the Nine Demands, but the gist of that excellent creed is condensed into a few words--Emancipation from ignorance, superstitious, and vice. And all consistent Liberals will do all in their power to dispel ignorance and superstition, and prohibit vice. The eighth Demand of our creed requires "that all laws shall be conformed to the requirements of natural morality, equal rights, and impartial liberty." It seems to me that a law which shall prohibit the selling of liquor for a beverage, and which shall close up the saloons, will conform to all three of the above requirements, and specially to natural morality, so that Prohibition, instead of being opposed to Liberalism, is in harmony with and comprises part of it. Mrs. E. D. Slenker says, "a generous prohibition of all evils is best." Miss Susan H. Wixon says, "As all laws are necessarily prohibitory, Prohibition might in a certain higher form of ethics be regarded as sustaining harmonious relations to Liberalism." I agree with both these ladies; and that form of ethics embraced in the creed of Liberalism is the highest form, requiring human emancipation from superstition, ignorance, and vice. I understand Prohibition is in harmony with and forms a part of Liberalism. That the orthodox religionists and the churches are assuming to control and manage the great reform, is no argument against it, though those who urge that fact are, unconsciously perhaps, complimenting the churches and the orthodox. Will Liberals, by and by when the churches adopt, and claim to hav originated, the Nine Demands, deny them and repudiate them? For my part, I am perfectly willing to let the churches and orthodoxy teach temperance, Freethought, liberty, and any other true reform, but let us not take a back seat of our own accord, and let the orthodox and the churches run the true and real reforms just yet. It is as truly the province of Liberalism, and the duty of Liberals, to suppress vice, as it is to dispel ignorance and encourage intellectual culture; and I propose that the Liberals organize and take the lead in every true and rational measure for the elevation of human character, and cease opposing real reforms because some of the bigots in church organizations advocate the same. The truth is, the Nine Demands comprise all reforms, and Prohibition is one of them, and Liberals hav no right to oppose it. [*1998*]698 THE TRUTH SEEKER, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. Letters from Friends. SIOUX FALLS, S.D., Oct. 6, 1890. MR. EDITOR: The "Pictorial Text-Book" at last came to hand. I hav waited long for it, and it is a jewel, worth waiting for. It is worth its price multiplied by ten. It is a remarkably good Sunday-school text-book, and I shall use it as such in my family. N.S. JOHNSON. ROSLYN, WASH., Oct. 7, 1890. MR. EDITOR: Inclosed find $6, for which send me three more copies of the "Freethinker's Text-Book." This makes twelve copies that I hav ordered. I wish to show Mr. Heston my appreciation of his work, and make converts for Liberalism and bones of the holy groans. Very truly yours, HENRY BRISCHLING. WEST UNION, IA., Oct. 9, 1890. MR. EDITOR: I am anxious to get the book that one can read as fast as one can turn the leaves. I hope that Heston may liv forever-- which means fifty years or more. To pray is heathenish and to giv thanks is a mockery. The $2 inclosed is for our picture book, and I hope that I may be able to sell a few this winter. J.F.S. OAKWOOD, S.D., Sept. 27, 1890. MR. EDITOR: My brother takes your valuable paper, and we are very anxious to hav Mr. Heston return, for we miss the cartoons so. We went to hear one of Mr. Remsburg's lectures, and thought it just grand. It was "The Sunday Question." Elder R-- was there, and he thinks Mr. Remsberg a gentleman in every respect. BELLE CROSBY BOZEMAN, MONT., Oct. 1, 1890. MR. EDITOR: I should like to inquire through your paper if any of its readers know H.L. Burk. My brother, Henley Lybrook Burk, left his home in the state of Michigan many years ago, since which time not a word has been heard from him. We conjecture that he is somewhere in the West. Any information as to where he may be would be most thankfully received. THOS. BURK. AUSTIN, ILL, Oct. 8, 1890 Mr. Editor; Please find inclosed $6, for which mail three "Pictorial Text Books". Do not abandon the illustrations. We like the paper better with them. I cannot understand why people do not find them beneficial is showing the absurdities of the Bible history. Let us hav them in plain figures, and on front and back pages. Long liv Heston. His pictures will never die. PARKER WISEMAN HARWICH, MASS., Oct. 13, 990 Mr. Editor: Find $2 inclosed for the "Freethinkers Pictorial Text-Book." I am surprised and pleased with the ability of the editorials and communications in THE TRUTH SEEKER and look eagerly for its weekly advent among us. More and more do I see the abominable fruits of the huge blasphemy called Christianity. Speed the day when it shall hav been swept from the face of the earth. B. F. ROBBINS BRATTON, N.Y., Oct. 6 1890 Mr. Editor: I hereby send my thanks to John Peck for his hard pecking of the old copperheads of the orthodox churches. I hope he will keep on pecking their old flinty heads until they surrender up their fort and give their dupes fair play. I hereby thank Mr. T. E. Longshore for writing out my principle of the immortality of the soul. Death with me ends all. He expresses my views of another life better than I could myself. There is no proof in all nature of another life. All the flowers of the field, all the trees of the wood, all animals, all fowls of the air, all fish of the sea, and man not excepted, die, decay, and waste away, and make a little earth. Here is the end of man, for the God of nature has decreed it so to be, and no one can pass her bounds, for nature is the highest law known, and from her decisions there can be no appeal. Her judgments are final. ASA W. BRAYTON CENTER, ALA., Oct. 10, 1890 Mr. Editor; I hav read somewhere--I think in THE TRUTH SEEKER--where it was against the law for a man to kiss his wife on Sunday. I think it was in Connecticut. It was an offense only in the streets, or in public, or going or coming from preaching. The editor of the Albany Law Journal ridicules the idea that such ever was against the law. See the number of Oct. 4, 1890, 261. Giv me reference to the law and a copy of it if it can be had. I am the correspondent referred to. C. Daniel. [The law nearest to the one you mention, that we recollect, is this given by Rev. Samuel Peters as a Blue law of Connecticut in his "General History of Connecticut". "No woman shall kiss her child on the Sabbath or fasting-day." The genuineness of this citation of the Rev. Samuel Peters has been impugned, but not, we believe, with success--En, T. S.] DE WITT, LA, Oct 11, 1890 Mr. Editor: inclosed please find $5. Continue THE TRUTH SEEKER and also send the "Pictorial Text-Book." I think your paper worthy the support of all Liberal and fair- minded people. Your contributors are men and women that think and study themselves. They do no let priests and preachers influence their thoughts, but are fearless and outspoken in what they hav to say. In this country--if it is a free one, as the majority claim--we hav the right to our honest convictions, which are reason and common sense, and we should hav the same privilege as those that differ with us in expressing them. What the people of this country want more than anything else is to reason, think, and act for themselvs. By so doing their vision will become brighter, and all that they see around them and those that they come in contact with will help them to be happier. Now, they will soon learn that if they violate the law of nature they must suffer; and I know of no other law, morally speaking, that we are responsible to. F. L. WARNER. DES MOINES, IA, Oct 6, 1890 Mr. Editor: Inclosed find $2 for the book of pictures. I would not say that THE TRUTH SEEKER without Heston was the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out, for the paper is of intrinsic value per se; but I may say that Heston is a valuable "condiment" in spicing the paper. What can be more realistic than his last, "The specter that threatens Ireland?"--what more truthful than his depicted cause, Catholicism lugging off on the back the life's-blood of Ireland, Peter's peace? The naked truth is, Ireland is so utterly besotted with priestcraft that to lend a helping hand to save her from starvation is like giving money to a famishing inebriate, who will spend his last cent for liquor. Still, benevolent America will not see Ireland starve; it will contribute munificently, and Ireland will buy some food and the pope get the lion's share. Protestant Ireland seems to be all right. My observation is that Chiniquy's book, "The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional," is better calculated to deal a death-blow to Catholicism than anything of the kind yet given to the public. It is an eye opener par excellence. Yours truly, V. C. TAYLOR. HUBBARD, Oct. 14, 1890. MR. EDITOR: In THE TRUTH SEEKER of October 11th I see Nelson Hunt wants to know what Burns meant by the "rye through which Jenny draggit a' her petticoatie," and also who "Racer Jess" was in "The Holy Fair." Now, I spent some of my boyhood's days in Scotland, in the land of Burns, and heard the song, "Coming Through the Rye," sung many times, and was informed that the meaning was that there is a small steam in Ayrshire called the Rye, and that there was no bridge, but stepping-stones, as they were called, and people crossing had to step or jump from one stone to another, and when the water was a little high these stones were covered, and that was how Jenny "draggit a' her petticoatie" coming through the Rye. Now, of Racer Jess my edition of Burns has this foot-note: "The following notice of 'Racer Jess' appeared in the newspapers of February. 1818: 'Died at Mauchline a few weeks since, Janet Gibson, consigned to immortality by Burns in his "Holy Fair," under the turf appellation of Racer Jess. She was the daughter of "Poosie Nancy," who figures in the "Jolly Beggars." She was remarkable for her pedestrian powers, and sometimes ran long distances for a wager.'" ADAM ARCHIBALD. GRAND FORKS, Oct. 4, 1890. MR. EDITOR. Inclosed please find $6 for the old TRUTH SEEKER and the "Pictorial Text-Book," and other books as per bill. I think the old TRUTH SEEKER, which I call my Bible, all right with or without the pictures, but the pictures put on the finishing touch, like paint on a lady's cheek, so I am for the pictures, and I will giv fifty cents towards paying Brother Heston for making one showing some of our great, great statesmen on their knees like a priest confessing that they had eaten meat on Friday, contrary to the rules of our sacred church, and the priest making them do penance by walking around the church on their bare knees on a gravel walk, reading the Holy Rosary and counting their beads. If some of them won't hav to do it, their children will, if they keep selling us to the pope and churches as they hav for the last few years. It is not that which goeth into the mouth which defilith the man, but that which cometh out. Also I wish a picture of Holy John and some of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union ladies driving the cockerels in the coop on Saturday night and marking the door, "No admittance. Selah." Yours for truth, LEVI BANCROFT. NEW HAVEN. O., Oct. 13, 1890. MR. EDITOR: I write with a depressed feeling of sorrow for the loss of one of the best friends that a man can hav. His name was John M. Shult He became a subscriber to your paper, I think, about July 1, 1890. About August 21st he went to Chicago, Ill., to make some investments in real estate, expecting to be gone about six weeks. He made arrangements with the postmaster at Plymouth that I should have THE TRUTH SEEKER whilst gone, and to giv it to no other person. I hav got the papers and hav read them; but now comes the saddest part of the affair. On last Wednesday, October 8th, his body was shipped home, supposed to hav been murdered and thrown into the lake, where it was found floating. Other than this we know nothing of it, but it is thought that his having considerable money caused an assault. His death must hav been caused by some violent means, as his body bore marks of assault. He was a bright and shining light--a well-educated, well-informed young man. I can look at it only as a great loss to us Freethought people. I wish I was able to be a subscriber to your valuable paper, but I am a poor broken-down soldier, not having done a day's work in over two years on account of heart disease, for which I am only receiving twelve dollars per month, so you may know that after keeping my family I hav no money left, but whilst my good friend was living he supplied me with reading matter. And may he ever be remembered by the good, is my fervent wish. THOS. S. CHARITY. PITTSBURG, PA., Oct. 13, 1890. MR. EDITOR: The rancorous hatred of all religious bodies to secret societies is well known; but it remained for a Chicago "religio-philosophical" paper to express its open hatred to the workingman's cause in general, and to labor organization's in particular. By carrying the favor of the capitalists and tyrannical employers they gain support for themselves and their tottering churches. I extract the following from the Chicago Christian Cynosure: The carpenters' strike began with so much belat in this city last week, was over almost before it began. . . . Many of the union men had no complaint, and did not obey the bosses. Let these manufacturers and employers use a little of their profits to instruct the men against the seductions of secret societies and secure their suppression by law, as approved by Daniel Webster, Joseph Cook, the New York Mail and Express, etc., and they will find the labor problem very east of solution. That these utterances should find their way into a "Christian" paper is no wonder, considering the deeds and records of the church in the past ages. Always on the side of power, and herself (the Roman church) being for over a thousand years (from Constantine to the Reformation) the greatest hierarchy in the world, she has yet to shoe her sympathy for the toilling masses or her love for mankind. And this applies equally to her numerous offspring and all supernatural religions. The countless murders and wholesale butcheries committed under the cloak of "Christianity" are too well known by every intelligent reader. Founded by a few fanatics in a superstitious age, and her whole claim to belief resting on a collection of nonsensical books and more foolish miracles, she still counts her dupes by the millions. It is sad indeed that so large a number of the human family is still in the grasp of the fiery dragon of oppression-religion. Religious has nothing in common with the poor. As soon as the masses become more educated, and knowledge becomes universal, they will turn their backs on their oppressors. Under its banner slavery and oppression hav flourished long enough; the day is not far distant when another banner, Liberty and Brotherhood of Man, will lead mankind. Then will men know where their rights end and others' begin; and human kindness and good will toward man will be the religion of civilized men and women. J. G. GREENWOOD. LEXINGTON, KY., Oct. 6, 1890. MR. EDITOR: I hav perused with with pleasure Mr. Putterbaugh's letter, and devoutly wish that all intelligent people would summon courage to investigate the claims of the Bible to that belief and reverence which amounts to idolatry. Compared with the Shaster and Veddsa of India, it is a modern book. Its sensuous, warlike, and energetic character is what might be expected from the disposition of those who held it sacred. As a work of fiction it is inferior to the "Arabian Nights' Entertainment," "Gil Blas," or Fielding's novels. It is far inferior to the Veddas in language and philosophical tone, betraying its modern origin by the weak, diluted character of its moral sentiments. All that is robust and healthy was borrowed from the Stoles, whose philosophy is now the true religion of the world---all that saves the human mind from shipwreck. The Jews borrowed their literature in some measure from the sacred books of Assyria and Persia, to which it is inferior in every respect. How can the Jewish books compete with the Veddas in antiquity, when internal evidence proves that they were written when the nation had just migrated from their Aryan home, and were living, a pastoral people, on the borders of India---sacred India, the Holy Land of Asia? That the Jews were not a people of much dignity, is known by the fact that Josephus speaks of their troops as the most inferior in Xerxes's army. How could they be called ancient, when they went to Egypt as shepherds and found there a nation with a venerable antiquity? Instead of teaching religion, they learned to worship one god from learned men in that region. Even the Stoles allude to one god as a deity known and worshiped by many. The sacred books of an ancient nation comprised their whole literature. Every age added some refinement of thought or some new truth. The Jewish philosophy was meager at first, but as time rolls on doctrine multiply and sacred books grow voluminous. And on such unhealthy food the human mind has been fed for centuries, absorbing money and treasure to satisfy the wishes of the learned, ambitious, or licentious prelate. The Jews could not be very ancient, for the Hebrew or Phaesician languages left so trace even in Asia Minor, where the Phrygian was spoken, a compounded tongue, a mixture of Persian, Assyrian, and Ionian. Ionia preserved the Hellente tongue or parent of the Greek. Barbarous tongues also were spoken there. The Jews were mostly distinguished for their marvelous tales, the Bible being merely a heap of such fables, vulgar and silly, told around the woodland fires to entertain the passing stranger. The grand ruins which we should look for in Palestine are wanting, or are left by Persians or other outside nations. Why does not Herodotus make mention of their antiquities, or why does not Sesosiris, who traversed Asia as a successful general? ALHARA. SCRANTON, Pa., } Oct. 15, IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, HOLY } GHOST & CO., LIMITED CONTRACTIONS, 1890. } MR. EDITOR: The reason I send stamps is, I think it safer, as the letter will go through the hands of so many of Wanamaker's lambs and if any of them should feel the dime they would crack the letter for an eye-opener, or chip it in to their pet lamb God. I also inclose some reading that I would like you to insert in THE TRUTH SEEKER. I also mail you an Elmira Telegram giving an account of some holy doings of a sky-pilot in this city. Oh, what a holy howl those pious frauds would set up if it had been a bad Infidel. They would never hav got over croaking and groaning over it. But as it is on their side they are doing their best to smother it up for their pet Christ's sake, fearing they may spoll beood THE TRUTH SEEKER, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. 695 tired workers the needed rest on the Lord's day. We are now in the midst of a big fight. The barbers, finding they could not obtain the passage of an ordinance by the city council to enforce Sunday closing, fell back, at dictation of Crafts emissaries on an old territorial statute. They arrested three barbers for keeping open shop on Sunday. Two of them were scared into paying $25 and costs. Mr. Samuel Christopher, a Liberal and member of the Washington Secular Union, fought the issue, and as in duty bound the Union resolved to defend him in his constitutional rights. Our president and Mr. McDivitt appeared before Justice Miller, changed venue to Justice Rivers, and entered demurrer and motion to discharge the prisoner---first, because under the complaint he had no committed any offense against the law; second, that the statute under which the complaint was made was repealed by the adoption of the constitution, which guarantees "absolute freedom of religious sentiment, belief, and worship to every individual, and no one shall be disturbed in person or property on account of religion." On Thursday the case was argued, Mr. Richard Winsor making a most able, eloquent, and convincing speech. On Monday Judge Rivers, who had reserved his decision, gave judgment in our favor and Mr. Christopher was discharged, it being decided that the wording of the statute did no apply to a person following their trade, craft, or avocation, but only to opening places of business for trade---that is, sale or barter. Rage filled the hearts of the goody-goody, pious bigots. On Monday the members of three leading clothing firms were arrested. One of them, H. Hershberg, is a member of our Union. All declare intention to fight the case. We hav the three most able and eloquent lawyers of the city retained for the defense, Richard Winsor, James H. Lewis, and Gen. J. B. Metcalf. They moved to dismiss the complaint on these grounds---first, because the Sunday-closing law is contrary to the spirit of the constitution; second, because it is contrary to a clause of the constitution which expressly excepts this law from being in force; third, because cases of this kind must be founded on an information filed by the prosecuting attorney, the same as if they were before a grand jury. Judge Miller set the hearing of the case for Friday at 3 P M. There is a very great interest manifested in the case. We hav law, reason, right, common sense, and justice all on our side, but we hav the bitter prejudice and fanatical zeal of Sunday devotees in opposition. They are united, well organized, and hav pledged ample means and generous support to the district attorney in conducting the prosecution (persecution) and hav provided, at their own cost, able associate counsel to assist him. We are repelling the malignant onslaughts of the enemy, not in behalf of individuals only, but principles; not alone to secure free exercise of our constitutional rights in this city, but of all the people throughout the state. Never was the necessity of earnest of cooperation and efficient organization of Liberals made more apparent. What are you going to do about it? C. B. REYNOLDS,, Sec. Wash. Sec. Union 2,104 Sixth st, Seattle, Wash. Sunday Reflections, Natures mighty miracle is still over and around us; and hence our wonder and reverence remain to be the inheritance of humanity.---John O. Whittier. After reading Mr. Longshore's essay on immortality in THE TRUTH SEEKER of July 19th, which inits range was too far-reaching of vague for my full comprehension, I took an hour's walk, during which some questions presented themselves which I found not easy to answer. Within an easy hour's ride, and only a few miles from the greatest summer resort in the United States, Saratoga, during certain hours on the main road out may be seen hundreds of equipages, and thousands of gaily dressed ladies and gentlemen, attended by coachmen and servants in livery. And in sight of that thoroughfare which so many pass and repass, is a deserted burial-place, on a barren sand knoll covered with stunted pines and other trees, some of them of twenty years' growth, some standing on the graves and others fallen. The standing monuments designate about a dozen buried, the last date some forty years ago. I asked myself, when another forty years is past how many of those daily rolling by seeking pleasure, enjoying life, killing time, etc., will remain? And will any traces of this barren and deserted sand knoll be visible? Will the stunted shrubbery, the most-adorned monuments, remain to mark the site of the bones moldering beneath? It is only a question of time when the places that know them now will know them no more forever. On my return I heard a surpliced doctor of divinity read from a book he called the only infallible guide: "I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life immortal." That is, the life immortal of that resurrected body. My thoughts went back to the neglected sand knoll and the forgotten bones Where would they go? What will they do? Speculation is needless, because it is a palpable impossibility. [1996] I read from their so-called inspired book of Psalms, viii, 4: "What is man that thou art mindful of him?" Again, from Job viii, 17: "What is man that thou shouldest magnify him; and that thou shouldest set thy heart upon him?" Which he answers in this emphatic way: "For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground, yet through the scent of water it will bud and bring boughs like a plant. But man dieth and wasteth away. So man lieth down, and riseth not; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." Again I return to the moldering dead, and try to make a comparison between the doctor's reading and the logic of Job. There is none. The one is a demonstration, logically proved. The other an assumption without proof. Not that alone, but common observation and nature's laws prove it an impossibility. Again, is there anything, any substance or matter, having form or outline, endowed with life, that can be when dead resurrected? Or can it be proved that life can exist independent of matter? Among the most profound of mysteries, is that of life and death. I use the word life, while at the same time I do not know what life is. I do not know that anyone does. And can thought exist independent of matter? I believe it will be in a general way admitted that animal structure would be inert, incapable of action or force, but for that invisible propelling power called mind. The mind directs the hand holding the pen to write out the thought. Would the limbs move, or the body be carried along, if the mind did not say so? I can hardly think this will be disputed. Then what do we know of mind? Only that it is an invisible force that acts under conditions. And does it continue on in an endless round of progression? Is it something or nothing? If something, it is immortal, like all existing things, and cannot be annihilated. Does anyone know? We hav the statements of some of the ablest men and women that they do know. How? By experimental test and observation. These men and women hav been in their investigations severe, clear in their perceptions, and logical in their conclusions. Many names might be called; I will only name three---Juliet H. Severance, M. D., Chas. McArthur, and W. H. Burr. Shall we accept their testimony as conclusiv? I think we are bound to do so by all the rules that govern testimony in law. All accept many things as truth that hav not come within the range of our observation. How then can we do otherwise than believe that they do know, until we find one competent to prove that they do not? It needs more than a simple denial, or personal invctiv, which no gentleman will resort to in debate. Milwaukee, Wis. J. VAN DENBURGH. Would a Writ of Error Release Mr. Heywood? John Orvis in Dr. Foote's Health Monthly. I wish to report to you, as the secretary of the National Defense Association, that in company with another gentlemen, by invitation of Flora and Josephine Tilton, I accompanied them on a visit to Ezra H. Heywood. I was surprised to find how splendidly Mr. Heywood looks, and how nobly he bears himself under his duress. His health has actually improved during his confinement. I was struck with the simplicity and sweetness of his whole bearing. No railing, no fault-finding, no crimination escaped his lips; but while speaking with the deepest earnestness of the absolute necessity of standing for the liberty of speech, writing, and printing as the very palladium of public safety, though his eye softened with emotion, his bearing was that of a teacher of conquering hosts. Mr. Heywood spoke most feelingly of the absolute necessity that the people should be roused to secure the recognition of the great rights for which he contends and suffers. What hope is there, he asked, for labor on the advance of social reform if anybody, or any power under heaven, may interfere with these fundamental rights of citizenship? It is believed, not without good grounds for it, that Mr. Haywood might, with comparativly little effort be released on a writ of error. In such an effort it is of the first importance to secure good legal talent and experience. What can the National Defense Association do about it? I am myself too invalided to do more than put in a "lick" here and there, as in writing this report of my visit. Mr. Haywood will outliv his enemies and persecutors. When the Shoe Pinches Them They Cry Out. From the Weekly Constitution, Atlanta, Ga. The freedom of American institutions, the liberty of the press, are great and glorious things. We are supposed to enjoy them at home and to boast of them abroad. But in spite of this, there are tendencies in our government that giv grave cause for alarm---tendencies that threaten to usurp the rights of the citizen and to undermine our free institutions, among the greatest of which is the liberty of the press. The political party now in power is occupying advanced ground on this line and in many respects is establishing dangerous precedents. With the high government officials, every man appears to be a law unto himself; in other words, he interprets the law to suit his prejudices, places his own construction upon it, and issues his edicts as though he were the head and fountain of all law, the judge and censor of all people. Here, for instance, is a postmaster general who occupies this advanced and unheard-of position; who constitutes himself the censor of the press, and issues his orders to a host of underlings, to be executed at their discretion---according to whatever construction they may place upon them. We see him issuing these arbitrary decrees and exceeding the authority vested in him; his prejudices are great; his judgment weak. An author writes a book; the postmaster-general is a book agent; he wants to sell the book; he writes the author to that effect. For some reason---this is the case of the "Kreutzer Sonata"---the books are not forwarded. Then the postmaster-general declares that the book is obscene and issues his decree: It shall not pass through the mails! We are not taking the part of this particular author and his book; it is the principle of the thing that we are after, it is the dangerous precedent thus established. According to the postmaster-general's strict rules of official propriety, this prohibition must be wholesale; it must reach a million books which are now being issued in this country, and which, to him, may come under this head of "obscene;" it is an attack upon Shakespere and other standard works; it is an attack upon the liberty of the press of the United States, for scarcely a newspaper is published which does not contain one or more columns hat may offend the acute moral sensibilities of the postmaster-general and move him to exercise this tyrannical prohibition. He is carrying the thing too far. To bring it nearer home, there are one hundred and seventeen post-offices in Georgia. Under the precedent established by Mr. Wanamaker each postmaster is a judge of what is mailable and unmailable matter. This would be right to a certain extent; but are they not likely, also, to exceed their authority, place their own construction on the law, and carry matters too far! Assuredly. An editor may print some article in his paper which would render the whole edition liable to seizure, and the business of the paper and its patrons might be seriously affected in consequence. The postmaster and his clerks, placing their own construction on such an article, could muzzle the press and hav the man at their mercy. When the lottery law went into effect the Constitution struck all lottery advertisements from its columns, both from its city and mail editions. It has been the custom of the weekly Constitution, in return for services rendered, to distribute gifts among its subscribers. It was not thought that the lottery law would be as far-reaching as this, and so it continued to offer inducements to subscribers as of old. After the law went into effect two editions of the paper were mailed and went safely to their destination. The post-office authorities must hav known that these editions contained the usual inducements to subscribers, but no complaint was made. It was not until the third edition, in the third week after the passage of the lottery law, reached the post-office, that anything was said. Then, after the editions had been prepared for mailing, the Constitution was tardily notified that it could not pass through the mails---at what loss to the paper and its subscribers may be readily imagined. We submit that this was wrong, and that the law which make it possible is wrong. Every newspaper in the country will be affected by it; the business of each will be crippled and the liberty of the press restricted. We do not believe that it is the true spirit of the law, or that the law was intended to cover the legitimate business of newspapers. Encouraged and sustained, there is no telling to what lengths it may lead. Under its working we can no longer boast of the liberty of the press, for the press will hav no liberty; it will find a censor in every postmaster and government detectiv, and, in many instances, ignorant and prejudiced men will hav it in their power to suppress the fee speech and actions of its shackled editors. In this connection, it is not going too far to say that the freedom, not of the press, but of the people of the whole country, is in danger. When the greatest engin of civilization can be stopped at will, its actions censured and its products seized, it is time to call a halt. With the power thus acquired there is no knowing to what it may lead. Great consequences may follow and exercise a fatal influence upon our free institutions.696 THE TRUTH SEEKE, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. THE TRUTH SEEKER. FOUNDED BY D. M. BENNETT. E. M. McDonald, --- Editor. C. P. Somerby, --- Business Manager. THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY in LAFAYETTE PLACE, NEW YORK. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY AT $8.00 PER YEAR. Address all communications to THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY. Make all Drafts, Checks, Post-office and Express Money Orders payable to CHARLES P. SOMBERBY. SATURDAY - - NOVEMBER 1, 1890. SUBSCRIPTION RATES. Single subscription in advance --- $8 00 One subscription two years, in advance - - - 3 00 Two new subscribers - - -3 00 One subscription with one new subscribers, in one remittance - - -5 00 One subscription with two new subscribers, in one remittance - - -7 00 One subscription with three new subscribers, in one remittance - - -8 50 One subscription with four new subscribers, in one remittance - - -10 00 Any number over five at the same rate, invariably with one remittance. What They Say About the Picture Book. From the Boston Investigator. This book contains over three hundred and sixty pages of pictorial and literary arguments against the absurd claims and doctrine of Christianity. The pictures, of which there are nearly two hundred, were designed by Watson Heston, and were published in THE TRUTH SEEKER, during the years 1886-1889, and are in themselves powerful side in showing up the foolish pretensions of religion and is exposing the designs of priestcraft. Mr. Heston deserves to be called the artist-hero of Liberalism. He has dedicated his genius to Freethought, and has done faithful and noble work for the cause of right and truth. But the pictures do not make up the whole of this volume. There are nearly two hundred pages of reading matter that serve first as explanations of the illustrations, and secondly as texts to prove the utter falsity of the church's professions and the hypocrisy of those who uphold them. Altogether the book is one of the best weapons against Christianity and the church that has ever been put in the hands of Freethinkers. ________________________________________ A Testimonial to Walk Whitman. By the kindness of Colonel Ingersoll we are enabled to furnish the readers of THE TRUTH SEEKER with a complete report of his address at the Testimonial to Walt Whitman. No other paper contains it, up to date, and those who read it here can consider themselves favored mortals. The beauty and truth of the address are not less great than the generosity which prompted the testimonial. By it Colonel Ingersoll has laid at the feet of the aged poet wealth sufficient, and at the same time he has again made this world his debtor for clothing and noblest ideas in garb so brilliant that even the thoughtless will remember them. Poetry as well as the poet has been enriched. After reading this address, think of the value of a religion which caused the managers of a public hall in Philadelphia to refuse it utterance within the walls they own! _______________________ "Practical Bible Christianity." The editor of a religious journal says that we "should read the twelfth chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans, and learn what practical Bible Christianity is." The chapter is as follows: "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable, unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same efface; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophecy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering; or he that teacheth, on teaching; or he that exhorteth, on exhortations; he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that showeth mercy, with carefulness. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another; not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality. Bless them which persecute you; bless, and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves; but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written. Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals for fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." By the terms of the assertion we are debarred from going outside of the Bible to show whether or not this is real Christianity, and of course no Christianity can be found in the Old Testament. but if because this chapter is in the Bible it is Christian teaching, so must the doctrines taught in the following passages, which are also from the Bible and therefore as really "practical Bible Christianity" as is Paul's good-natured homily We are told (2 Thess. ii, 11) that "God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie." We do not assert that this refers to the chapter above cited, but when we compare the teaching of that chapter with the acts of Christians' -- their deceptions, their thefts and robberies, their cruelties, their ostentatious professions, their wars, their unmerciful conduct toward opponents, their persecutions, their hatreds of each other, their coldness to strangers in their churches, their revengeful spirit, their rancorous differences of opinion, their contempt for men of low estate and esteem for "high things," their arrogance, their dishonesty -- it certainly appears plausible that anyone who thinks that the chapter is an epitome of Christian doctrine is one whom God has sent strong delusion, that he should believe a lie. For if that chapter be Christianity, where shall we look for, and whenever should we have found, any Christians? In chapter twelve of the epistle to the Romans Paul recommends honesty (v. 17); but in the third chapter he says: "For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner?" Perhaps Paul was trying to make the truth of God abound when he recommended the providing of honest things, for he admits to the Corinthians that he caught them with guile (2 Cor. xii, 16), That, we suppose, is "practical Bible Christianity," as the vote buying, slandering of opponents, and deception of the people nowadays by Christian statesmen is "practical politics." Here is another Christian doctrine give by Christ himself, and we earnestly desire to know whether it is practiced by Christians. Jesus said: "Of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again." When Jesus said that did he mean, ask a policeman to recover the goods, or, let the thief have them? Again: "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man . . . whether it be to kinds as supreme; or unto governors" (1 Peter II, 18). "Let every soul be subject unto higher powers. For there is no power but of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation" (Rom. xiii, 1, 2). "And these sentiments were uttered when a Nero sat upon the throne -- when Palestine was being crushed beneath the iron heel of despotism - when brave and patriotic men were struggling for freedom. The Bible has ever been the bulwark of tyranny. When the oppressed millions of France were endeavoring to throw off their yoke -- when the Washingtons, the Franklins, the Paines, and the Jeffersons were contending for American liberty -- craven priests stood up in the pulpit, opened this book, and gravely read: 'The powers that be are ordained of God; they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.'" Is that practical Bible Christianity? Then here is some more Bible Christianity, painfully practical: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned" (Mark xvi, 16) "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire" (Matt. xxv, 41). "Those shall go away into everlasting punishment" (Matt. xxv, 46). "Cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched" (Mark lx, 45). "If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house" (2 John i, 10). In this famous twelfth chapter Paul exhorts the brethren to be of the same mind. How he would accomplish this he tells in another epistle: "If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Gal. l, 9). "I would they were even cut off which trouble you" (Gal. v, 19). Paul had warrant for this practical teaching in the teaching of Jesus: "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me" (Luke xix, 97). Jesus made is parables a medium through which to teach practical Bible Christianity; and we will do the Christians the justice to say that they have followed the doctrine as faithfully as their opportunities allowed. "We see earth covered with the yellow bones of murdered heretics and scholars; we see the persecutions and butcheries of Constantine, of Theodosius, of Clovis, of Justinian, and of Charlemagne; we see the Crusades, in which nearly twenty millions perish; we see the followers of Godfrey in Jerusalem -- see the indiscriminate massacre of men, women, and children -- see the mosques piled seven deep with murdered Saracens -- the Jews burnt in their synangogs; we see Coeur de Lion slaughter in cold blood thousands of captive Infidels; we see the Franks in Constantinople, plundering, ravishing, murdering; we see the Moors expelled from Spain; we see the murder of the Huguenots and Waldenses --the slaughter of German peasants -- the desolation of Ireland -- Holland covered with blood; we witness Smithfield and Bartholomew; we see the Inquisition with its countless instruments of fiendish cruelty; we see the Auto-da-fe, where heretics clad in mockery are led to torture and to death; we see men stretched upon the rack, disjointed, and torn limb from limb; we see them flayed alive -- their bleeding bodies seared with red hot irons; we see them covered with pitch and oil and set on fire; we see them hurled headlong from towers to the stony street below; we see them buried alive; we see them hanged and quartered; we see their eyes bored out with heated angers -- their tongues torn out -- their bones broke with hammers -- their bodies pierced with a thousand needles; we see aged women tied to the heels of fiery steeds -- see their mangled and bleeding bodies dragged over the frozen earth; we see babes flung into the flames to perish with their mothers, or with their mother sewed in sacks and sunk into the sea; in short, on every hand, we see hate, torture, death!" That was practical Bible Christianity! A good Christian doctrine taught by John is this: "Except ye eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you" (John vl, 53). The practical side of this teaching was a few years ago found to be illustrated in Russia. "We hear," said a writer in Harper's Weekly, "of horrid sects at present in Russia, practicing cannibal and human sacrifices with rites almost more devilish than any recorded in history. 'The communism of the flesh of the lamb,' and 'the communism of the blood of the lamb,' really seem to have been invented by the lowest demons of the bottomless pit. The subject is too revolting to be pursued in detail; it is enough to say that an infant seven days old is bandaged over the eyes, stretched over a dish, and a silver spoon thrust into the side so as to pierce the heart! The elect such the child's blood -- that is 'the blood of the lamb!' The body is left to dry up in another dish full of sage, then crushed into powder and eaten --that is 'the flesh of the lamb!'" Another bit of practical Bible Christianity is the New Testament utterances which particularly concern the ladies. We have space to quote but a few: "Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee" (Gen. ill, 16). "Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands."(Col. lll, 18). "As the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything" (Eph. v, 24). "Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for a women to speak in the church" (1 Cor. xiv, 34, 35). "Ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. . . For after this manner is in the old time the holy women THE TRUTH SEEKER, NOVEMBER 1, 1890. 697 also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands; even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord" (1 Peter iil, 1-6). "Let woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression" (1 Tim. ii, 11-14). Practical Bible Christianity, too, is well presented in these extracts from a writer called Matthew -- although he didn't write it, and no one knows who did. They are rules for Christians to live by, and are more authoritative than the letters of Paul, for they were drawn up by Jesus Christ: "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for you body what ye shall put on . . . Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns . . . And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin . . . Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? . . . The morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" (Matt. vi, 25-34). We trust that our religious contemporary will be kind enough to say whether it approves of the practical Bible Christianity outlined in the passages we have quoted; and if it does not to say why. They are just as authoritative as any other passages, are as much a part of scripture, and if the church does not approve them we desire to know what the reason is -- whether she has received a new revelation or whether fallible men set their reason and human feelings above the word of God? At any rate millions of Christians follow the teachings inculcated in them where one obeys the comprehensible commands of the twelfth chapter of the epistle to the Romans. _________________________ "Sabbath Prosecutions in Washington." The "Sabbath" fanatics of Seattle, Wash, having been thwarted by the Washington Secular Union in their attempt to have enacted municipal ordinance closing barber shops on Sundays, have now fallen back upon the state Sunday law to gain their end. That statute is as follows: "Section 2.067. It shall be unlawful for any person or persons of this territory to open on Sunday for the purposes of trade, or sale of goods, wares, and merchandise, any shop, store, or building, or place of business whatever; Provided, that this chapter shall apply to hotels only in so far as the sale of intoxicating liquors are concerned, and shall not apply to drug stores, livery stables, and undertakers. "Sec. 2.068. Any person or persons violating the foregoing section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof be fined in any sum not less than twenty-five nor more than one hundred dollars." The "emissaries of the National Sabbath Union," as Mr. Reynolds designates them, propose however to make some exceptions in enforcing the law upon barbers. At one of their meetings, "after considerable discussion, it was decided not to interfere with the proprietors of barbe shops who should keep their baths open on Sunday." That is to say, the clique of "Sabbath" fanatics propose to dictate to business men as to who shall and who shall not violate the Sunday laws. The possibilities of blackmail in such a scheme are large, and if they are allowed to carry out their program, their organization, or at least the executive officers, will probably wax rich. The absurdity of the distinction is well depicted by the Seattle Morning Journal. "It seems," it says, "that the carefully balanced moralists who want to reform things in this neighborhood have made a review of the barber-shop controversy, and they decree that it will not be wise to make war on such shops as have a bath-room annex. These can open on Sunday with perfect propriety, because cleanliness is next to godliness, and it will never do to crush any agency that will put a man in a more moral frame of mind. To a personage up a tree, however, it looks as if this thing has reduced itself to a question of anatomy. If a man's piety is to be encouraged on Sunday by a bath - if he can take a dip without offending the religious sense of the community, he certainly should have the right to clean his nails, cut his hair, and keep his chin in repair, for all these things contribute to good citizenship and prepare him for communion with his Christian brethren. The right to have the stomach keyed up to concert pitch on Sunday keeps the restaurants sacred from the pious crusade of reformers, but t his delicate distinction between the sinful qualities of a bath-tub and a razor is rather too rich for our Liberal blood." The Journal adds: If this sort of 1997 cross-eyed reform is to be the watchword of the hour, the Journal desires to say this: it would like to see the authority by which these hair-splitting distinctions are drawn. Who gave it? Where did it come from? Does the constitution of the state of Washington vest the power in any clique or faction to declare that a Sunday bath in a public house is a moral institution, while a Sunday shave in the same shop is an agency of the devil? Such ridiculous and arbitrary and fanatical decrees are as much out of place in Seattle to day as a polar bear in the orange groves of Florida. We believe in law and order and a decent respect to the honest convictions of every class, but the disposition of some folks to recognize no class as honest and conscientious but themselves is a species of slavery which no liberal citizen can endorse." But the Washington Secular Union is still alive, and its secretary announces its determination to have something to say about this blackmailer's style of enforcing laws. Two sections of the Sunday law read as follows: "Sec. 2.069. And it shall be the duty of any and all public officers in this territory, knowing of any violation of this chapter, to make complaint under oath, to the nearest justice of peace from where the offense was committed. "Sec. 2.070. Any public officer who shall refuse or willfully neglect to inform against and prosecute offenders against this chapter shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction shall be punished by a fine of not less than $25 nor more than $100, and the court before which such officer shall be tried shall declare the office or appointment held by such officer vacant for the balance of his term." After a test in the courts as to the constitutionality of the Sunday law, if the decision shall be adverse to the Secular Union's claim, the Union will see that the law is impartially enforce, with a view to its repeal. Mr. Reynolds declares: "Since the best way to ensure the repeal of a bad law is to rigidly enforce it -- let it be known there can be no more open stores, no more sales by the publishers of news- papers on Sunday, nor can the necessary work be done on Sunday to get out the Monday morning edition -- no more business of any kind that comes within the scope of this law." The statute ($2,070), provides a means of doing this, for any officer refusing to inform and prosecute is liable to fine and deposition from office, and the Washington Secular Union can put the machinery of law into motion. The statute was made for the use of the "Sabbath" fanatics, but it cuts both ways. Let everybody observe the law or none. It is significant that the first man singled out by the "Sabbath" fanatics for prosecution is a member of the Secular Union. It is encouraging to add that the Union promptly retained counsel to defend him. The fight is on; let it proceed! _______________________________ Morality and Religion. The American Sentinel quotes from THE TRUTH SEEKER: "It seems to be necessary to continually remind the priests that morality has nothing to do with religion. Morality appeals to the experience of mankind. it cares nothing about faith, nothing about sacred books. Morality depends upon facts, something that can be seen, something known, the product of which can be estimated." And thus comments upon it: "But morality has much to do with religion, and we doubt not that even THE TRUTH SEEKER admits it practically, even if it does not as a theory. We have known THE TRUTH SEEKER to remark upon the immorality of professed Christians as something not in accordance with their profession. Why, if morality has nothing to do with religion? THE TRUTH SEEKER certainly knows better." Still we are not convinced that we were wrong, and do not practically admit what we deny in theory. The reason that we sometimes refer to the moral delinquencies of the preachers is because the Christians claim that their religion makes people more moral. If this be so, then the teachers of that religion ought certainly to be moral. We find, however, as a matter of fact, that they are not so; indeed, it is the reverse, for what class of professional men are so often detected in immorality as the ministers? This fact disposes practically of the claim that Christianity of itself --the possession of religion, a "new birth," a "change of heart"--makes men better. And that is the answer to the Sentinel's question why we refer to these things if we do not think that morality has anything to do with religion. Morality is an elastic thing, and, like blasphemy, changes with the country one is in. Immemorial custom, Thoreau calls it, with good reason. American morality on marriage customs, for instance, is not the same as the Turkish, though the practice is very similar. Yet the Turks are fully as religious as the Americans. There are dozens of acts called immoral by one people which are not at all immoral to other nations. Drinking wine is called very immoral by the Mohammedans; but it is not so regarded by Christians. "The pope he is a happy man, His palace is the Vatican. And there he sits and drains his can; The pope he is a happy man. I often say when I'm at home I'd like to be the pope of Rome. "And then there's Sultan Saladin, That Turkish soldan full of sin; He has a hundred wives at least, By which his pleasure is increased, I've often wished, I hope no sin, That I were Sultan Saladin. "But no, the pope no wife may choose, And so I would not wear his shoes. No wine may drink the proud paynim, And so I'd rather not be him. My wife, my wine, I love, I hope, And would be neither Turk nor pope." The commandments of Buddha, as transcribed by the writers of the Old Testament, are supposed to be an epitome of religious morality, but they are not all such by any means; they are simply a few rules found by the race to conduce to human happiness. The religious part of them is not morality at all. "Religious morality" is what one must observe for the welfare of religion--like, "Believe or be damned." That is a religious "moral" commandment. The first commandment is, "Thou shall have no other gods before me." That certainly has nothing to do with morality. It is perfectly moral to worship any God one chooses to. The second, against idolatry, also is not a moral but a religious commandment. So is the third, against what is called profanity, or blasphemy. The fourth, against Sabbath-breaking, the Adventists themselves deny with all the strength they possess. The fifth, against irreverence toward parents, is the first moral commandment, and proceeds from no religion, but purely from human love. The sixth, against murder, needs not religion to make it moral; it is the result of a human desire to live. The seventh, against adultery, is also a human rule, springing from human love of wife and husband. The eighth, against stealing, was probably made by the first man who succeeded in getting one meal ahead of his hunger. So with the ninth, against false witness; any many who hates to be lied about would say that. The tenth, against covetousness, is a human rule made by the rich for the exclusive benefit of the poor. Thus, we see in these commandments that whatever is "moral" is that which conduces to human earthly welfare. The rest are religious commandments, which it is not practically immoral to break, because no one is injured thereby. Any act is moral which injures no one, but conduces to happiness. Four of these commandments are religious, and were evidently made by the priests of early times for their own benefit. The others are the sum of human experience as to what benefits the people. They are moral, not religious, and need no religion to sustain them. They depend for their authority "upon facts, something that can be seen, something known, the product of which can be estimated." The Christians have been taught by their priests that their religion is the foundation of everything good, and they do not take the trouble to go to the root of these questions and find out the truth. Any one who accepts the Bible as infallible, or as an authority in morals--or anything else--will be found sadly lacking in true knowledge. ___________________________________ Owing to pressure of work consequent on the forthcoming Congress at Portsmouth, the corresponding secretary, Ida C. Craddock, finds it impossible to answer many quite important letters until after her return from the Congress. She hopes that those who are wondering why they have received not answer to their letters for the past week or two will make allowances for her unavoidable delay in replying. _____________________________________ The Portsmouth, O., Blade thus welcomes the heretics to that city: "The Secular Unionists meet here next week. Noted men and women of letters belong to it. We may not see as they see, we may not be in accord with their views, but we can show them what hospitality is. That belongs to humanity. it is not bounded by beliefs. It is as broad and as endless as space. It is the noblest attribute of the human heart. Where it is not there is no Christianity. Where it is not there is no love. Where it is not there is no soul. Let us make it pleasant for these strangers. If they preach strange gods, go into the temple as did Paul and dispute with them. If they desire to give reason for the faith that is in them, give them respectful audience--hear them for their cause. No faith as we see it is worth the having whose bulwarks cannot withstand the most searching scrutiny. To run away from, to ignore argument from whatever source or in whatever disguise the alleged devil may come, is a confession of weakness not creditable to the faithful."