Show OUR CHICAGO LETTER LEMR chicago people are asking each other the ominous question Is tle tile end of the world at hand it Is little wonder that such a question obtrudes itself when one takes up a morning paper and do such head lines as the following THIRTY THREE KILLED dreadful havoc wrought by cyclones cyclone in northern illinois sixteen persons killed by a cloudburst near earlville Earl ville la salle county six children and their teacher meet with a sudden and awful death the tornado completely destroys the town of paw paw causing a frightful loss of life hundreds of people injured by a storm which struck the village of sublette much property Ies destroyed troyed and a large number of persons hurt in livingston county disastrous floods ruin crops and cause a partial suspension of railway traffic this is only a sample of what is occurring in illinois disasters disaster of this kind are becoming so frequent that the energies of several large communities are completely prostrated from nebraska comes news of destructive cyclones the villages village of Pleasa pleasanton titon and sweetwater demolished by storms and so on for column after column where are our men of scie science it ce those sages who can foretell the flood and the storm who can baffle the elements and aad bottle the electric spark now is the time fr for them to show what is in them and in their potent arts they laugh at the man of simple mind who prays to the con aroler and director of these elements H his is ho homely mely orison n they call cal I 1 su bpersti tiou but in the face of such calamities as we now witness the highest science is tomfoolery some few years ago while visiting the hott hot springs in arkansas I 1 heard a man repeating the ards w ads of ingersoll angersoll who made horse play of job polishing his ulcers with a piece of burned clay the verbose infidel held that up as the medical science of prophetic times and then triumphantly antly pointed to our medical colleges and learned professors but what struck me as practically ludicrous was the position of this scientific infidel he was suffering from inflammatory rheumatism all the stores of science he had exhausted he was now bathing in a pool termed locally the mud egold and rubbing from time to time handfuls of sand and mud from the bottom bottora of the pool to his swollen knees I 1 asked him how mut h better off he was thim than job as far as science was concerned was he not scraping his sores with mud as job was with a piece of crockery I 1 remember that the scene so bo impressed a friend of mine that he produced some rhymes which struck me more for their simple truth than for their artistic poetry I 1 dont know k now that a better sermon bermon could be preached on nature and natures god that these few simple lines let science boast its rel regal rl and druggists prate a about out their pills I 1 let infidels with faces aces sour trace life to wasps and whippoorwills let minds romantic or profound phantasmal theories promote T is mine while natures balm flows round to treasure what the prophets wrote come heartless scowling seep tic tell was it caprice or chance or whim that caused yon boiling bubbling Z well to heal the p ulcerous limb come tyndall darwin huxley say Is not your science canting rant beside the health restoring spray which bounteous heaven here hi ere doth grant these wooded glades let sc offers see and taste of natures mystic bowl and learn what is divinity divin t and what a god created create soul I 1 here halt and blind and I 1 lame ame and sore and sinner saint and wild commune elen een eros bros son blear eyed and hoar all find alike the sought for boon behold with what impartial hand kind heaven her blessings fair bestows bestons be stows even on the unregenerate band whose carnal tastes have wrought their woes boes alas how weak a thing is man I 1 his grandest science mimic play pla g co compared with natures balm w which ich can work ork miracles even today and miracles were certainly worked in the way of healing by those waters men whose ulcers and sores were many times more hideous than job jobs Is were completely cured to come back again to the elements we are not alone threatened with destruction by these but news of cholera and yellow fever now reaches rea chesus chrs us we are advised to put our house in order for these grim visitants tants are on the way in addi biot to all this turmoil and disorder are creeping into politics and religion the school question is sure to be madean made an issue that will drag in religion and then what next gud god alone can tell the republican party in the northeastern states seems to be engaged in a triangular fight just at present with three very powerful interests these interests are the prohibitionists the personal rights bights men and lastly the free aduca tiona lists the prohibitionists have long ainee characterized the republican party as the child of the beer drinking personal brighters Right erS erg look upon it as hypocritical and insincere but the grand old party as if inspired by the genius of disaster herself has bas actually courted calamity by its interference with the german catholics and lutherans Luth erans as regards their educational matters no attempt was made to show that compulsory education laws with the offensive clauses so often mentioned of late were required in either illinois or wisconsin it is true that the germau german language in these states holds second place to the english and in commercial matters it dominates the english storekeepers in employing eo salesmen and travelers must of necessity hire persons who speak german A german merchant would as soon think of buying from a man inan who could riot not converse in his bis dearly loved guttural as he be would of cammi committing eting on suicide icide I 1 net fa he would do the latter more cheerfully upon smaller provocation the german has many reasons to dislike the english language first he himself speaks it with a decided ly foreign flavor and in a dialect which brings on redi cule of the comedian an l press humorist naturally enough this creates crates a certain measure of ludicrousness ludicrous for him even in the minds of his own chil iron iren secondly the german regards the average american newspaper and book as unfit reading in a family household even the german hee bee rhalls and wine cellars look upon the american newspaper as below their standard ot morality and esthetics the only explanation that can be given for the illinois and wisconsin education laws is that they are attributable to the anti catholic movement started in Mass massachusetts achki a few years ago the battle against parochial schools there made political capital for the republican party but there only french and irish catholics could be contended with and on the question or of public schools the irish catholics are not a unit in opposing them the fact is two thirds of the lower grades of teachers are of irish parentage and certainly an irish parent could not object to having his children aducat ed by his own countryman son or daughter with the french matters are a little different the french are clannish and in their ideas especially the catholics As a factor in the american republic they are nothing little color colonies ties of them are to be met with in towns and cities but scarcely figuring in trade or industry they are mostly cooks waiters factory hands ha D d 8 I 1 heap cheap 0 carpentere c arpe carp entera ante r s I 1 indifferent I 1 n d iff er ent tradesmen trad elmeri and so on there are no colonies of them settled on lands and that is why as a race they will fade away and become absorbed As to the irish catholic he be has got so much in the habit of being abused that like pat ford of the irish world he be looks around for somebody else to abuse in turn and thus give himself a status he too like the frenchi french i man will disappear as a race because becaas he hugged the city and the gin mill instead of spreading on the land esth such elements element sto to contend with in the eastern states it is little wonder that the republican party gained a pa partial artial victory in illinois and wisconsin the th dominant foreign race is german unlike the others the germany german though largely represented in citie and towns is still more mor so in agriculture the fact is th the german catholics were until force forced into it remarkably non don aggressive one might mix a whole year wit with a community of them and not know kno they were catholics the writer I 1 biffi personally cognizant of cases aher irish catholics were discharger di from shops purely on sectary sectarian grounds and a germans hired io id their place on the belief that tho thoa germans were protestants the fact was and is they are bette battet catholics from church and doctrin al views than the irish the race hithe in the world to support th tb catholic press is the irish in amer ameri ca the germans the best it is rare thing to find a purely church newspaper in an ala irish calholy home it is as rare to find a germa catholic home without on and it is the race which supports its press and its literature that finally makes its religion and its people effective and in the end dominant por for by this means and by this encouragement the best oi the me race are brought to the service of the church and people it is true the irish catholic will in fight gh in defense of the pope or if an insult usula is offered to the priest the irish irishman man takes tabes it epand up and entirely on sentimental grounds it will invariably I 1 be found that this militant milita t I 1 irishman ansh P man is not a practical catholic bathol ac he ma may y not have entered a church tor for 20 y years ars he is sure to be as ignorant ant of his catechism as he is of chinese nesland ne seand and yet he fights for the pope and the priest why simply because nationality race and religion are so 80 mixed up i in 11 the history of bib own country that a sneer at one includes all give ireland home rule and the popes power in ireland ini shed would be considerably diminished but I 1 am straying away from the germans wymans to ignore this race as a factor in religious development would the be a great mistake with history of martin luther the world is familiar in the early days of the present century german protestants were divided into two sects it lutherans Luth erans and reformed in other words evangelical lical and C of course toe the the lutherans Luth erans predominated but of prussia and other ruling families were calvan JIL itic HI in 1817 frederic Vv william illiam it was I 1 believe who issued a 9 ro royal aal yal mandate to the two sects to unite in his dominions saxony baden and an d hesse adopted the pruss prussian an KI aplan but the lu wo obey royal orders all trough 1 hough ob obedient tent to their kings in se secular cular afra affairs irs the sturdy lu therall por v or drew the line lineal at conscience twenty years these lutherans Luth erans experienced insult and obloquy from mobs of Calvini calvinistic sti and freethinkers ind and persecution from royal minions until 1 in 1835 the breslau lutheran synod at and declared itself an inde independent pend separate communion then came persecution in earnest everything them short of death was burled hurled at ind ana in 1840 old frederic die died d alone the new k king I 1 ng let the lutherans Luth erans he found that a victory over ruc auch sturdy subjects would be actually house a defeat for himself and his 1111 deriu during 9 their day of trouble large bumbera babers of f 0 lutherans Luth united erans came to the reates states missouri and 1111 illinois louis auls received holds eved most of them st their greatest theological at seminary co concordia cordia college present illinois Is has a large baber of their these same lutherans Luth erans and children when the republican pa party arty struck these lutherans Luth erans EL 8 nt asig ly was struck these brave monarchical monarc laical who boldly defied the absolutism of europe were not to be tramp by oppressive it at was va 13 luther enactments opened the door religious ious of 11 liberty herty lowera jowers in swope europ his fol america ma may y help to keep it open in bad in R rome 0 me luther has bai trust tr ally alfy and one Oile that inspires its dia 1 ii political sense sease mormon lormon A ism is the natural ally of lutheranism both are fr conscience free unfettered and absolute JUNIUS june 23 1890 |