The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1874-04-10
The Reliuiou. CharIatan.
From the editors Essay Chair" In Harper
Mnpnzine for April1

From the "Editor's Essay Chair" In Harper's
Magazine for APRIL
The business ofthe religious charla-
tan, to which he assiduously devotes
his time and efforts, Is to advertise
himself, His life is passed in feeding
his own vanity. He seizes every occa-
sion to present himself to the public
attention, and metaphorically to stand
Oh his head and dance the tight rope
for public applause. He Is n harlequin,
n clown, appearing in the most unex-
pected places. The moment you see
his face you smell sawdust. When he
opens his mouth you expect the famil-
lar salutation, "here we are again ~
There is n circus atmosphere all around
you. The throng is as eager for the
expected excitement as an old Park pit
when the curtain was about to rise up
OH Finn In paul Pry,p or Fanny Ellis
Ter in the s'Cracovinne." Human gen
ius would be unjust to itself and to the
world if it did not expose this masker
to the sober censure of mankind. For
1t is to prick such bubbles and scourge
such charlatans with scorn that Provi-
dence vouchsafes the penetrating eye
and the faithful hand to the poet and
the story-teller. Theirscorching touch
avenges the wrong done by the reli-
gious charlatan both to heaven and hui
man nature. And, that no comedy
may be wanting, rs he writhes and
withers under the consciousness of
general contempt, he extlaims that to
unmask him Is to lay guilty hands up
on the Lords anointed.
This religious charlatan, of course,
speaks with the authoritative air of
one who has been admitted to the
divine secrets, He effects familiar
ity with Providence, and, MS if he had
private celestial information, gravely
announces that this or that is Goods
purpose" and that "God means" so
and 80. A shallow coxcomb, whose
sole object Is to make some kind of
impression upon the crowd before him,
and who has evidently no fine spirit
ual sympathies orinterests-who knows
neither human life nor the wants of
men and women, and to whom the
ecstatic heights and awful depths of
human experience are as unknown as
the sublime secrets of science, or the
noblest aspirations of the soul-fiip-
PANTY sets forth the divine Intentions
to hearts smitten by unspeakable sor-
row, or hungering and thirsting for the
truth. And while he does this, while,
panoplied in ignorance and conccit, he
calls himself the Lords Interpreter,
the religious charlatan is furious with
the Pope, for instance, for doing the
same thing.
Does the gentle reader not know
him? As he peruses his newspaper,
which has now become the history of
every day, Sundays not excepted, does
he never recognize in the detailed re-
port OF speech, or sermon, or prayer,
the religious acrobat, thimble-rigger,
charlatan? Is there no name--say,
Mawworm, PecksnifI, Joseph Surface
which he often sees in his paper, and
which suggests TO him one thing only,
and that thing humbug? Does he
never find himself in a public meeting
atwhich he hears aspeech full of ignor-
ance and denunciation atoning for Its
folly by its-fury, and giving the quasi
sanction of religion to the absurdest
'crudities, and to suggestions equally
sanguinary and silly? Does he not
know that the orator really means
nothing evil-means, indeed, nothing
whatever, except to make HIM
self little conspicuous, to produce
applause, to be mentioned
In the morning papers-in a word, to
advertise himself? And when the
scientific satirist, Dickens or Thacke-
ray, puts pin through the flimsy bah
bier, and labels him a religious charla-
tan, Is the satirist disappearing and
sneering at religion? Or, II the gentle
reader strays into church, and finds
q man in the pulpit evidently strain
ing to say something either in sermon
or prayer which will be odd enough,
or grotesque enough, or startling
enough to be seized by.a sensational
reporter to DO printed In newspaper.
something which Is plainly meant To-
give the speaker little notoriety, does
It never occur TO him that he islisten-
Ing to religious charlatan2 .f.I1,-
When raiinl0sla noeietiea eaok 0xet