The Arizona sentinel. [volume] (Arizona City [Yuma], Yuma County, A.T. [Ariz.]) 1872-1911, 1875-10-23
CIvILIZATION.-[No. 81
The March of Thought.

in one newspaper article. It's range
is so boundless and its work so
beneficent to the whole human
family, that volamns might be
written and yet the subject not
be exhausted. Wherever there
is advancement toward a higher
state of being, wherever ignor-
ance and prejudice are giving
place to intelligence and truth,
wherever the gross animal pas
sions are being subdued and vio-
lence and discord giving way to
peace and harmony, there civil
zation is doing her Heaven-ap-
pointed work, AS natural con-
sequence the march of thought
keeps pace with civilization, for
civilization is the mother of
thought. Man in a barbarOus and
uncultivated condition, dom t
think. He is only actuated by the
same instructive impulses that
move the brute to his animal de-
sireS.
He eats and drinks and sleeps, and then
He eats and drinks and sleeps again"
But when the blessed light of
civilization. DAVIS upon his mind,
he is awakened to anew life. He
begins to think. The reflective
faculties that had lain dormant,
are aroused, and a new world is
spread before his wondering eyes.
At each successive step in the
path Of intelligence, if his steps
are properly directed, he discov-
efs truths that he had never
dreamed of before. Thought,
that swift-winged messenger, car
ries him to new and UNEMPLOYED
fields, until at last the whole vast
arcana of nature opens to his
vision.
If the condition of man in
state of nature. before the light
of civilization has reached him,
is lamentable, how unexpressibly
deplorable is the state Of him
whose awakening vision is OBJ
scured and stiffled by false teach
ers. Millions of people now ex-
list upon the face of the earth, to
whom men say the light of civili-
zation has been carried, but who
live in a state of the most abject,
mental and moral slavery. Wick
ed and designing priests have
forbidden them to think beyond a
line marked by them. The thought
that should be- free to, soar and
grasp truth wherever found, is
fettered within the narrow bounds
of a false and fOSsilized theology,
a relic of the dark ages, which
cannot be supported in this en-
lightened age, by reason or re-
violation. But the ~ arch of
thought is onward and irresisti-
bic, and it is ever upward toward
better conception of man and
his duties toward his fellows and
to his Creator.
Let no man think that we OPP
pose religion, Far, very far from
it. We believe in religion. We
believe in God and immortality,
and we would not give our hope
of a better life beyond the grave
for all the wealth in this world.
And here let us say, that we do
not believe there is a sane man
in this world, whatever he may
say, who does not believe in the
immortality of the human soul.
But what our particular tenets
are, is a matter between God and
Ourself. We ask for no interpre-
ter or middle-man between us
and Almighty God, nor the inter
cession of confessor, who our
experience has taught us is more
sinful, depraved and wicked than
the cofessed. We 60 with our
petition direct to headquarters,
and we have found, with the poet
Burns, that A correspondence
cI .,;1L IIoox,oy 20 cura a No,