# Anti-Syllabus and Tom Strang Killed/Anti-Syllabus

ANTI-SYLLABUS.
ADAPTED FROM DR. HERMANN KRASSER,
BY
LILY CURRY.
For whose keeping strives the toiler, though his lot be anguish-fraught, Plodding on in Christian silence till to verge of madness brought, Forced beside to fatten loafers, cheats and ne'er-do-well recruits, Beggars, vagabonds and swindlers, highway robbers, murderous brutes; Since the honest man's endeavor builds for every slothful wight Prison, hospital and refuge—most humane and goodly sight!— Whilst his own forlorn condition unbefriended still may go Till himself has sunk to thieving, overpowered by want and woe.
Human Nature's conformation, back as far as Olaf's days: Some to strive and strain forever, knowing naught of brighter ways, Others shirking, arrant sluggards, save when sheerly hunger driven,
Then upon the toilers' earnings graceless-hearted these have thriven.
If perchance these airy loafers, brutal force the mastery gave,
High they soared as sovereign rulers, made the laborer but a slave; Or, if haply they were weaker, strove through cunning and deceit— In a fashion also modern—industry to gull and cheat, Planting in the human bosom, sophist-wise with oily word Seeds of supernatural folly, fabrications most absurd, Bearing witness to the value of a mystic rigmarole, Pap of phrases mixed and seasoned for the welfare of the soul.
Thus arrayed, the dual forces, like a mighty regiment, Charged upon the weak opposers, careless of divine assent, Potentates and hierarchies, unsustained by heavenly grace, At their pleasure domineering o'er the feebler of the race. And the darkness of the ages, ere the embryotic time Of the old mosaic legend, swept and shadowed every clime. Never any season fouler than the days of shameful mirth When in Biblical tradition—came the deluge on the earth. Where the heaven-chosen leaders sinned so grievously and long That the Lord in righteous anger drowned them with the rabble throng. Lo, the years by thousands vanished, till the past becomes the now, And, as ever groans the farmer in the furrows of his plow, And the toiler of the city, striving madly as he may, Sees his famished wife and children growing gaunter day by day!
Shunned and driven forth forever by the haughty "upper class," Stung with insult and derision, hooted by the vulgar mass,
So the suffering one must wander through the paradise of earth, Hopeless-hearted and despairing of his manhood's real worth; Though for others life be laughter, freedom-buoyant, fortune-sweet, Unbefriended on his journey he must plod with weary feet, Blind to feasting or rejoicing, deaf to merriment or song, E'en denied the birthright blessings which to all alike belong. Speak the measure of his sinning, since like plague-corrupting sheep Sorely stricken from the presence of his brethren he must creep. Brethren who, in sluggard folly propped on pedigree, deduce That the best of earth was fashioned for aristocratic use, Aye, who revel in the product of their fathers' thievish art, Though it shine bedewed with blood-drops from the toiler's bursting heart;
Or attain to might and honor, held for kinship's sake in place By some pompous dignitary bare of dignity or grace. Speak, O rich and prosperous mortal: is the laborer's crime so grave. That the woman he would cherish, tarnished must become your slave? Strange abyss 'twixt man and master,—scorn the servant from your height, Yet regard his wife and daughters none too vile for your delight! Shining bribe and luring promise with a lavish hand bestow,— In the dwellings of the humble to achieve an endless woe! Priestly celibates and masses sinning early, sinning late, Who shall wonder at the foulness of the world's debased estate? Would you crush the wretched victim who in fear and trembling stands Sacrificed to meet the measure of your infamous demands? Hath he not behind his masking—weary brow and drooping glance,— Some degree of human reason—shadow of intelligence? 'Neath his garments' soil and tatters bears he not a manly heart, Throbbing day by day, and longing to embrace the better part?
Ah, your own long since confessed it, and perchance compassion pleads An array of schools and churches to accommodate his needs. Would you rescue and uplift him? Contemplate in earnest mood, And deny him not the age's all-ennobling spirit food. Let the blaze of truth and knowledge stream upon his joyless mind,
Till a soul awake and blossom in the garden of mankind;
Fling aside the holy legends handed down from ancient times, Where the chosen left a history of their lollies and their crimes! Life has need of other teachings, calls for comprehension vast, That the spirit mount forever from the darkness of the past.
If the great Creator's mandate on the second day made bright What was hitherto but chaos,—fired the universe with light,— If the fourth morn saw discovered sun and moon and starry way, To make radiant earth and ether, and to sever night from day; If Jehovah, the All-powerful, was obliged to pause and rest From the week's severe exertion, as the chronicles attest, If a human clod was mated with a rib from out his side, Then, because he ate an apple, doomed to wander far and wide,— If created in God's image—one—the first-born of the race Turned a fratricidal monster in that fair and heavenly place,— If the records of succession be a veritable guide, How, like patient brutes they wandered, found their homes, begat and died; If, with blade made keen and fearful, Abraham had nigh begun To atone for numerous sinnings by the slaughter of his son,— If with wine his zealous daughters plied the patriarchal Lot
To insure the perpetration of their strange, incestuous plot,— If the ever-famous lyrics of King Solomon, the wise, Stain the whiteness of the pages that their music glorifies: If the wayside tree was grafted—Absalom-wise, with human fruit,— If the Jews' amazing thievery 'twere laborious to compute, Ere from Egypt they departed, following Moses and his staff In the safety of the desert to adore a golden calf,— If Jehovah, God of justice, overwhelmed relentlessly Pharaoh's swift pursuing forces with the roaring of the sea,— If the gay Philistines perished by the jawbone Samson held, If Rebecca's instigations actually her son impelled To deceive his aged father, helpless, long bereft of sight, Thus to steal away the blessing that was patient Esau's right,— If Jehovah to reward him for the knavery, marked him well Future head and source prolific of his people Israel,— If the swallow and Tobias be a credence-worthy tale, Or if Jonah undigested roamed the stomach of the whale,— If the virgin mild and holy in her yet unwedded state, Having borne the infant Jesus, still remained immaculate,— If she tinned as custom ordered, and the Bible law recites,