Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1860-08-10

4
domestic relations, yet they show what
natural government was.
Women are not free. Artificial civilization
has provided partial freedom for them, but
among people who were nearest state OF
nature, and we might say, OF Providence,
they were slaves. Freedom is thing Of
civilization, and of artificial growth, not of
nature. The Scripture ought to be pretty
good authority on natural rights, and II GER
tainly does not show that freedom was one Of
them. The Commercial states a definition of
common law, as the perfection of right rea-
SON; yet IL holds that It is contrary TO the
scriptGral institution of slavery-making
human reason superior to the word Of God
This would be "presumptuousfsult" in that
paper, if il were not that its ideas Of Script
ure are probably as vague as Of common
law. They who deny the universal right Of
slavery, must cut loose both from Scripture
and from common law, which one would natu-
rally think ought to be founded in Scripture.
The Druses ActinG up TO the Old Prccedents.
The difference between the two parties in
Syria, which is the occasion of the rapine
and massacre, at the latest advices going on
in that country, is the consequence Of dis
pute upon point of religious doctrine. The
Druses are Unitarians; the Christians, as they
are called Trintarans. The former, being
the most active, are simply following pretty
well established precedents in the propaga-
ton of their faith-being little more radi-
cal, perhaps, in their practices than is COM
mon in the Christian countries of Europe and
America, but varying only in degree from the
means employed for similar purposes all
around u.s. We do not burn and murder, but
we do vilify and defamO, with vigor which
| Indicates that it is law, rather than religion,
which saves US from embarking in the more
radical processes for the conversion of obsti-
nats nbelievers-that, in fact, the restraints
| of law are necessary to save us from mutual
determination, in the name of religion.
| Nor is it easy to see how it can be other
wise as we will attempt to illustrate: There
are, for example, in the United States-to
say nothing of minor divisions-two great
tributed. Each of these accuses the other
of deceiving mankind in respect to the great
est and most precious interest which it is
possible to conceive, to-wit The salvation
of their immortal souls. The Protestant
Church charges the Catholic of misleading
men to their destruction; the Catholic returns
the charge on the head of the Protestant.
Both, doubtless believe with unwavering
confidence what they SO positively affirm.
Now, to mislead souls to their destruction,
no one will deny, is an enormous otfense-a
crime, in comparison with which all others
sink into insignifcance. What are murder,
rape, robbery, theft, as compared with that
| most awful of all felonies, the delivering over
of immortal souls to the torments of hell, for
ever and ever? What punishment is too great
or too summary for those who are guilty
Ought human laws to be permitted to inter-
pose to save the offenders from sudden de-
struction, such as was meted out in similar
case by Joshua to the people of Palestine
when, as we have every reason to believe
the Almighty himself consented to hold q
candle TO the proceeding? Are not the inter.
ests of souls infinitely more important, by
every standard of measurement, than those o
bodies and things; and ought the latter b,
permitted to restrain us from action wheI
the former are at stake2 If Catholicism i
the scarlet woman, or professionalism damn
ing apostacy, what is there logically to excus
the true church from doing to the false one
whichever it may be, precisely what tn
Druses are doing to the Christians in Syria