Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-09-11
TIE PERvERSION OF SCRIP
TERE.

No sane man will doubt but what the
law of morality and the law of the state
ought TO be identicle, and that every
precept of Christian virtue and love,
should be as binding upon the conscl-
ence. and as forceable in deciding indi-
yidual action, as though it were written
with all the formlaities of a legislative
enactment. The revealed will of God,
rightly understood without the CLOSES
of superstition or sectarian bigotry, must
be the proper and correct rule of action,
but we are sick of this mock reverence
that seeks for an endorsement of scrip
ture for all kinds of oppression and in
justice they desire to commit against
their neighbors or the community, that
they may make gain thereby. We sym
pathize heartily with the individual, who
honestly seeks to know the will of God
and follow it, but we have no patience
with him who perverts the word of God
to his aggrandizement.
We have only to go back in the his
tory of our own country, less than a
quarter of century, to find eminent teach
ers of religion and the morality of their
times, bolstering up, and sustaining by
force of preaching and numerous QUOTA
tions from the holy word, the heni-
Gus and abhorant crime of human
chattlehood. The injunction, Servants
obey your masters" has been reiterated
over and over again, to the soul and con-
science of the poor slave, whose heart
yearned for freedom, and whose CALLED
shoulders WINGED under the cruel yoke
of bondage. Now we should pity the
weakness of intellect of the man who
sought to bring on conflict between
scripture and the natural equality OF
right of all men. The man who finds
in the bible creed for the enslavement
and ownership of his fellowmen, finds
something that is not taught there, and
he, who, to sustain his right of property
in man, made use of Gods word, and
perverted Gods justice to his purposes,
was guilty of sacrelige more abhorent
than he who defies the will of his Gre
tor.
We have seen two instances, recently,
of this same kind of gospel perversion.
The first was the precept, "Wives obey
your husbands" which was taught as an
authority for married women to submit
to the brutal tyranny and indecent man
dates of drunken and jealous men, who,
in their youth, had fooled them into the
semblance of holy matrimony. A blind
obedience by wife to the commands of
the man whom she calls husband, with
out regard to their reasonableness, is no
more within the spirit of the Christian
dispensation than was the code of the
slave-traders, and its requirement is as
much an offence against God and So
ciety. The precepts of Christianity do
not require impossible things, neither
are they opposed to reason and con-
science and the command to husbands
to love their wives, should always be
capable of being performed, and unless
ii is not only literally fulfilled, but is
also reciprocated, there is no marriage in
the sight of heaven. Where love reigns
and true marriage exists, founded upon
a reciprocal affection, the slightest de-
sire of either party will be a law unto
the other, and all mandates of love and
obedience will be gladly obeyed but
without that condition, the relation of
servitude does not exist among adult
people, where a command must be obey
ed simply because it is a command, not
even in the most arbitrary of military
establishments.
The other instance to which we re-
ferred was where liquor seller, who,
day by day, deals out liquid damnation
to satisfy the depraved appetites he has
cultivated, in the lower classes of his
kind, puts upon his business cards ex-
tracts from the bible to encourage his
customers to drink and become drunken.
1t is in perfect keeping with using the
bible as an authority to sanction negro
slavery or the servitude of married wo-
men, to use it to encourage mento drink
liquor, or indulge in the iniquities of
life. These men who so use it may be
shrewd business managers, and may
make dupes of some Predetermined per-
sons who will submit to the lash of bond
age or marital tyranny, or evens wallow
the vile mixtures concocted in the sa-
looms and dens for their destruction
yet most of them are those that make
the word OF God cloak for what they
know to be wrong, and are worse sinners
than the infidel or heather. We have
no sympathy or reverence for a use of
holy writ to destroy natural rights to
reasonable freedom, impose CALLING So
cial claims or make men drundarks and
criminals, or with o scheme that would
make Deity, a teacher of immortality, or
monster of cruelty or depravity.