Show ENSLAVED TO all mankind arc or have been more or less the slaves or fictitious opinion when abo mind becomes accustomed to accept an idea or principle as correct it takes to the belief i n said idea and ia to look with impatience upon any effort to investigate or question the accepted authenticity of an already enter notion opinion or belief this the christian world has accepted and practiced for the idea of the rightfulness of enforced monogamy by common consent the conventional idea of marriage has been established upon the basis of the union of one man with only one woman therefore the ordinary firm and decisive conventional vent ional gentile mind revolts from entertaining a plea made against enforced monogamy in favor of pluvial marriage around the idea of the rightfulness of plural marriage has been placed the uniform prejudices of society for hundreds of years and by the common consent ot gentiles generally polygamy has been arid is popularly tabooed throughout glo sason and latin world outside of utah As a consequence any individual or creed that presents the merits of plural marriage before the monogamous believing public is not given a fair or thoughtful and conscientious hearing nay the disciples of monogamy in the thoughtless assurance of their own conviction do spontaneously and without stopping to reason stigmatize polygamy as friang and utterly repugnant to their notions of proper matrimony and as a consequence the logical advocate of polygamy ia covered with abuse and often roughly and brutally handled aaen take the case of the hin doo mother who haa accepted as her most and imperative duty the horrible sacrifice of her new boru infant in the ganges river acting under the authority and accepted ideas of right and animated solely by sublimely tragic but false notions of heroic piety the indian mother would throw her babe into the river and see it perish before her eyes through the practice of generations this act had been approved by her ancestors and the common consent of her neighbors and friends and when christian or other missionaries undertook to reason away the beliefs and which were cespon aible for this monstrous tho innocents the indians would not listen to them but conscientiously kept up the practice until british bayonets and british irce interposed to save the child from the accepted ideas of the mother which made her seek to drown her own offspring or again let us an from the history of witchcraft some years ago in M iw england the theory or idea of the existence of witches pained some foothold upon the popular mind As a consequence laws were enacted to punish witches by the most bars barous methods and half witted old women were accused convicted and executed upon the charge of having assumed the form of a cat used the of the devil to destroy the health of the people or by calling on the nether powers dwarfed the growth of certain corn crops and the like while the popular voice sustained the law against witchcraft its champions and executors would laiten to no arguments against the idea of the impossibility of abo existence of witch ci until so many innocent imbeciles imbe ciles and eccentric individuals had been victimized that ft majority bean to drea d the action of the law thousands upon thou ianda of additional dit ional instances might be cited to prove the tyranny of ideas erroneously accepted as right and right boua aud sustained by popular choice with such a vengeance that no ear could be found to listen to tho clearest and most truo arguments in opposition to the accepted belief so wrong thus we are taught that there is no master so cruel and imperative upon occasion as accepted ideas an old man died a few days ago in ohio leaving a widow and four young children when his will ana read it was found that all his property had been left to catholic to pay for the celebration of mas aea to ensure the repose of his while hia widow and orphans were left homeless and destitute another penurious old gentleman in wisconsin spent considerable sid erable money in re sistine the payment of school taxes because ho had no children to go to school and finding it impossible to avoid the payment of such taxes legally he resorted to subterfuge and perjury but he willingly gave large sums of money to establish and maintain a sort of free dance house in milwaukee and later on he gavelin one lump ten times the amount of all the school taxes ho ever could have been ass egied for the erection of ft nunnery ideas conviction beliefs were the eccentric masters of these men and ideas of some kind are masters of all men happy indeed is that enviable vidual who can save himself from the despotism and often diabolism of false notions and bo a true cosmopolite weighing the merits of every cause thoughtfully and without the pro judice of ideas accepted and clung to in defiance of any and all argument and reason |