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Show So Slow Is Man to Lift His Eyes. Wm How slowly the races of men have made their jH advances, how often when a point has been gained have the ignorant rabble pounced upon it and IH trodden it into the dust. Through the ages the Egyptians traced out the processions of a few of the stars and designated the separate consetella- tions, but if the thought ever dawned upon them that this world was but a speck in the abys3 of space compared with those far off suns, they never gave it voice. Rather to them this earth was the world's center, and having no gods they jH invented them, offered prayers to them, sang anthems to them and when a cunning priest de- sired an increase in his perquisites, he appealed to the superstitious fears of his people to levy tribute from them, claiming that only in that way could Osiris and Isis be propitiated. Greek poets and priests invented mom gods. and goddesses; they had them for the heaven, the earth and the sea, and every season and every calling of man had a patron diety. They all had the same attributes that poor mortals have; from the Hebrews they caught the idea of offering sacrifices, to propitiate anger or to gain favors. And certain of the priests pretended that by a sorcery of their own, they could commune with the deities and gain from them forecasts of com- ing triumphs and defeats. And men as profound of intellect as ever existed, orators whose elo- quence still charms the classic world, artists who left works that it is the despair of modern men to excel, believed this religion and walked in its fear through all their lives. Ancient Rome bor- jH rowed most of her religion from Greece. It all jH ministered to the furious passions of the race, for it justified war, the looting of cities, the conquest of countries, the enslavement of men. And all the time the masses of women were' first the play- things then the slaves of men. Then slowly over the earth stole the religion of the Savior. He had come preaching peace, but when the adherents of the new faith became strong enough, they through their priests, justi-fled justi-fled war if through war more converts to the new faith could b'e gained. And when science began to work Its miracles through great-brained men, they in the eyes of those who directed the faith were heretics, and the ordinary workings of natural jH laws, as the coming of an eclipse, were set down by the blind guides as signs of God's wrath and tribute was called for by the priests. That same idea that the Infinite could be pacified, when an-gry, an-gry, by gifts, was the rule for quite five thousand years. The discovery of America was the first great object lesson to the masses of mankind that gave a clear idea of the universe, the inven-tion inven-tion of the telescope and Newton's discovery of the law that holds planets and suns in order were the beginnings of the dispelling of illusions. Fifty years after the death of the latter, there rang out upon the world the declaration that "all men are jHj created equal and endowed with certain inalien- able rights." It was a summons to mankind to jH 'bout face and forward march. Then came the jH creation of our Republic, the birth of the steam engine, the achievements of the cotton gin and jH such an advance in our Republic as the world jH had never known before. A free people working In concert or in generous rivalry, unhampered by any law, with the field before them to be subdued a continent; the world's oppressed rushing to our shores to take part in the work, and new inven- tions every year vastly increasing man's capacity for work and the flag growing in majesty and splendor daily, surely it was a spectacle to in- spire and awe mankind, and the picture has grown Hi more lumlnlous and more grand every day since. But hardly had the Republic started on its un-parallel un-parallel career when a man arose and said he came as a prophet of God, to restore the real religion that Christ introduced. His life is fa-miliar fa-miliar to many men still alive, but his most en- Ithusiastic follower would have exceeding difllculty I in finding in that life any parallel to the Mes- siah. The Master preached peace; this so-called J prophet organized the nucleus of an army and J appointed himself Lieut. General. The Master ! had not whore to lay his head; this new prophet ; not only had for himself a house built, but started ' a bank. The Master had neither purse nor script, the new prophet made the payment of tithes a test of his followers' sincerity. The Master lifted up the women who had fallen; the now prophet made full exaltation in the world to come impossible to any men who did not degrade from two women upward, by smirching them In polygamy. This so-called so-called creed has been in operation more than seventy years. Its chief oracles are all common men, the lives of quite half of them have been purely sordid lives; they practice every tyranny that attached to the old Hebrew creed when the people were slaves to their kingdom, and yet the head of the system claims to be the only legal sovereign on earth, and under oath he has stated what is equivalent to saying that he is a law unto himself. In direct violation of the Constitution Con-stitution of the United States, these chiefs are dictating the politics of one sovereign state and are stretching their tenticles around other states. Meanwhile the world has been filled with a new light which is imitation sunlight. Man "has put a girdle round about tho earth in forty minutes," min-utes," men talk with other men a thousand miles away, as friend talks with the friend by his side; science has photographed the planets and far-off suns; science and invention have worked hand ia hand to give progress to the world, the perfecting press gives the world each morning the previous day's history, but as the wisest men of Rome and Greece believed in their bunco gods and made offerings to them daily, so some thousands believe that this man who came on horseback with epaulets epau-lets and plumes and looked close after his finances, and who said he was the vicegerent of Almighty God, was really what he claimed and they pay tithing to his successor and obey him In direct defiance of the Republic's laws. |
