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Show t THE OVERSIGHT OP OUR REDEEMER. ' t Reverting to our article last week on "Mark ; , wain and Luke Thu," we are brought face to face, by the doctrines of Mark Twain's "Secret i iBook," with the effects of infidelity on the morals ' tf a nation, or ,a community. Webster defines "immorality" to be a free act contrary to the '. "'Divine Law," and morality to be "a free act in conformity with the Divine Law." The opinions fcdvanced by Mark Twain in his "Secret Book," ;when followed to their logical end, are subversive cf all morality. The book teaches, not indeed by direct statement, but by plain inference, that lying, jadullery and injustice cannot be morally bad, being jnechanical acts, but that they are considered bad .; ' ,-, ' icnly in the estimation of the ignorant, and that such ignorant notions will soon be dispelled by the enlightened rays of a progressive civilization. 1 ' The pretension that virtue and rice are products, ' 'like sugar and vitriol, that crime is the direct, natural and unavoidable result of the passions which trouble us, is revolting in the extreme, and en insult to our free will. This contention is not far away from the atrocious declaration of Ton Ilartman, who teaches in page 359 of "The Phi losophy of the Unknown," that "it is important to make the beast-life known to the young, that they may be refreshed and repose in it, for beasts are lappier than men." Were men and women to live up to the teachings of Mark Twain and Von Ilart-man, Ilart-man, crime would reign with impunity, and the ' midnight robber, the blood-stained assassin, and rthe unfaithful wife might all say, "We could not help it." In fact, their actions might be catalogued cata-logued with the cardinal virtues. If the instruction cf young boys and girls were based on such doctrines, doc-trines, they would learn that "a lie is not immoral," that the command, "Thou shalt not steal," was made by the strong to rule the weak; in fact, they would learn, like the boy of the Spartan echool, fthat the disgrace was not in stealing, but in being caught. i The beas.t men of today and the intellectual , advocates of the "moral of utilty" cannot lay claim to priority of originality for their views, as their theories were, a hundred years ago, anticipated and reduced to practice by Bolingbroke, by Mira-: Mira-: beau, who prematurely died of his sexual excesses, xnd by Robespierre and his crowd, who 'worshipped a fallen woman as their only god, and raised on the high altar of Notre Dame cathedral, Paris. ' & harlot for the adoration of the mad men of the Revolution. The promoters of the doctrines of "advanced thought," the men who arrogate to themselves the title of "Higher Critics," who are simon-pure infidels in-fidels and denicrs of "Christ come in the flesh," would have us believe that our civilization has hopelessly failed, and that to inaugurate a system superior to anything now existing, or that has ! xisted in past ages, we have but to place the in- r 6truction and training of the children of the re- ' public in their loving and tender care. ) . , The modesty of the request and the remedial action proposed by these enemies of Christianity commend themselves to fools. And right here we t ' are eye to eye "with the supreme danger, for, if, as Barnum is reported to have said, "a sucker (that is, a fool) is born every minute," the majority is with the "men of advanced thought." Sir Robert Walpole, who, in 1737, was premier of England, anticipated by many years the epigram of the "great American showman," as the following after-idinner after-idinner conversation between Sir Robert and his pon Horace will prove: "I have often wondered, sir," said Horace Walpole, Wal-pole, catching his father in an unusually commu-' commu-' - ' nicative mood, "what can induce you to take into $-our most intimate councils that Lord Sundon. All the world sets him down for an ass, and upon my !ord, I do not think the world is far wrong." "My dear Horace," spoke back Sir Robert, "the world is perfectly right; nevertheless, the man whom you very' justly call an ass is of more use to '' ' ' ! V L. me than all my cabinet put together. The people of England, like the people of most other countries, coun-tries, may be divided into two parties, the wise and the fools, and I am prime minister over both of them. Now, in bringing forward my measures, I know what the wise will think of them, but how am 1 to knovwhat the other party will think? So I submit them to Lord Sundon, and, when I listen to him, I know fairly well what the fools think. Every prime minister keeps a Foolometer; Lord Sundon is mine." Our Divine Lord, when legislating for our race, had no Lord Sundon for a Foolometer, and, as a consequence, His "measures" satisfy only the wise. |