Daily American organ. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1856, 1855-09-20


with ayeternal punishment hereafter when
misfortunes befal US, We should bear up ana
battle against them If they oyerwhe'm us,
wa should submit to them with resignation.
Rnt in all this we should be governed by
own conscientious sense of duty, andpay no
regard 10 those mountebanks in religion or
physic, who will offer to sell us an amulet to
protect us against that which is inevitable, or
interpret to us the purposes of God, which are
alike to all men. This, we repeat,
is the modern American Protestant sentiment.
Bishop McGill seems to have taken up the
old trade Of the soothsayers. He has, no
doubt, read Suetonius. He remembers that
none of the Caesars were born or died without
special set Of prodigies. And that no one
could interpret what these prodigies meant
except tho priesthood Of "the only true
church" Of that day. Then astronomical
phenomena were not understood to bear any
relation to the magnificent clock-work Of
worlds, poised and revolving under an eter-
nal and immutable law. Then no astronomi-
cal prodigy occurred, but it was interpreted
to have some relation to the political move
ments Of the miserable mortals upon this com
paratively insignificant planet The soothsayers
invariably assumed that every comet falling
star, or other specimen Of celestial pyrotechncs,
was cot up to rebulSc some hereto, or censure
some rebel. Science has since arisen and re-
duced the most erratic gyrations OF the heavenly
bodies to calculation The return Of comet,
which three or four centuries ago might have
terrified the people out of their wits, and
brought large gifts into the Golfers Of "the
only true church." is now announced in every
almanac, and its temperance may be calcu.
| lated upon with the regularity Of a circus
in country town. The fame of the sooth
saver is no more, and his harvest is gone wltt
his occupation, Nor can Bishop McGill, witt
"bell, book, and candle, reawaken q superstl
/ t;aus reverence for his knowledge of the causes
and ! -eyention of yellow fever, or Of any othel
affection 9Th which God chooses, in his owl
inscrutable econ, >my to affiict mankind
In our own independence we must say ina
we do not believe the Ga..,'eeans whose pioo'
plate had mingled with their sac 'nces were
sinners above all the Galileeans, because inc,
suffered such things" nor that those eighteen
upon whom the tower of Sloan fell and slew
| them,n !" were sinners above all men that dwell
| in Jerusalem"
| We do not believe that God employsa priest
to keep running account with every sinner
for this would put the unlucky sinner in the
4 Al, al 10 m
cans choose rather to account personally to the
Supreme Ruler and Creator of all things. The
attempt Of Bishop McGil to establish an agen-
cy may do with foreigners, trained in supersti,
tious obedience. But he cannot make free
people believe every steamboat or camphene
explosion, every railway collision, every ship
lost at sea, all monetary revusions, and all cpl
denies which appear are sent for special par
poses-that he, Bishop McGill knows what
they are sent for, and can tell how to prevent
them. We don't think the Bishops insurance
Office against yellow fever, measles, and other
epidemics, will pay--at least out OF his own
Church. In Catholic countries it may do very
well. In Mexico it was advertised that par
ticular form of prayer-price about dos reals
had been found livery efficacious against the
cholera!" But we doubt whether the Bishop
could retail his spiritual recipes against the
vomito at even two bits each.
Our Biblical readers will remember that
King David commanded the census to be ia
ken, and that Joab, then superintendent OF the
census-not having then the profits of the
public printing before his eyes-advised him
against it, IL was, however, done. David
then became sensible Of his error, and God
rave him choice between persecution by his
enemies famine, or pestilence upon his people.
David, unable to determine which OF these ca
lamities he should invite, left it with God to
determine, who sent n destroying angel and
only STAYED his hand after he had slain seven
ty thousand men.
This portion OF Sacred History is employed
by Bishop McGill to show that God punished
an innocent multitude for the offences Of their
governors He expressly says that 1t is not
"lawful for US to attempt to say what sin was
hereby punished, or by whom committed"
He gives his opinion that it results from the
sin OF having believed in the American doc
trnes.
Suppose any other fanatic, having just the
same right to his opinion, was to say that he
thought 1t was the sin Of having extended the
right Of free opinion to the most deadly enemy
Of the Protestant faithS What would 1t prove?
Just as much as the insinuation Of Bishop Nc
Gill That is nothing at all but superstition
or priestcran.
We cannot dismiss this attempt to charge
the epidemics Of tho season upon the popular
imprudencc Of having entertained heretical
opinions at the spring elections, without adj
verting to singular coincidence between
Bishop McGill's argument to convict the Amc-
rican party, upon tho testimony of King Da-
vid, Of having introduced the yellow fever, and
very learned and wonderful sermon published
in III, and attributed to DIR. Walmesly, a Cath