The Osceola times., 1880-10-30
Painful TO Think Of.

In gIanclng over a certain law
book recently, our eyes CHANGED TO
drop upon the concluding sentence
of the Declaration of American In.
dependence, beginning with the
words ave, therefore, the repre-.
sentatlves of tie United States of
American general congress assem-
bled, appealing to the Supreme
Judge of the world for the rectitude
Of our Intentions" and concluding
with the words: "And for the
support of this declaration, with
firm reliance on the protection OF
Divine Providence, VIC mutually
pledge to each other our lives, our
fortunes and our sacred honor
Tho weak INDECENT colonies were
about to engage IN struggle
Cor life. liberty, and the pursuit Of
happiness. They were about to go
upon the forlorn hope of ndepen-
dence, feeble, poor, without money,
friendless, and without allies, they
drew up their declaration, appealed
to God to witness the justice of their
cause, and committed the issue TO
Him, and then, from Lexington TO
Yorktown, went out, like young
David 10 meet the British Gollah.
We know the issue. Here we arc
to-day, forty millions strong, the
foremost power on earth. In view
of the teachings of the great and
good Bob. Ingersoil, is it not pain.
lul to think of, that the representa-.
tives of the United States IN gene.
raj congress assembled, were 80 ig-
norant, so filled with superstition, so
immersed in barbarism, that they
not only believed in God, but were
fanatical enough to commit the
future Of the infant nation to HIS
fatherly protection! Looked at
in the light of ,he blazing intellect
of Bob Ingorsoll, and the wlnking
light of his disciples, which, like
lightning bugs in June, change dark
ness into daylight, is 1t not humili-
ating to all to think, that Thomas
Jefferson wrote tins record of our
ancestors shameful superstition,
and he and fifty five other repre-
sentatives, in congress assembled,
signed it? What must add greatly
to the humiliation of tho great
lights of science, as will as the
lightning bugs OF intellectual dark
hess, is the fact, that there is hardly
a copy of the constitution extant,
not q statute book of any of the
states, hut what, by a strange kind
of iniatuation, this declaration is
printed in full, not emitting a word
of the concluding sentence. Why
not have the declaration of inde-
peudence amended by act of con-
rrcss, to make 1t conform to the
discoveries of modern science But
humlliatlng as is the thought OF the
imposition Of the author and signers
of the declaration of American In
dependence, it must yet be more
painful to the gas lights and wide
spread lightning bugs of science in
this, until recently, land of chris
tian darkness, TO reflect that George
Washington, the leader of tho
American army, the Moses oi
American freedom, whose tomb, at
Mount Vernon, is the shrine OF
patriotic devotion, was not only a
christian, but a praying christian
and often, when he found himself
cncompassed with difficulties, both
within and without his camp, would
betakc himself TO tho brush, and
pray himself into a good strategic,
fighting frame of mind 1t is ad'
mtted thaf Washington was a good
man, sppas think great man, but
lad he len . cIose. and believing
student of Voltaire, Hume and Tom
rAine. 10 might have been almost
a. xrsat, ifnot as useful a man, in
his day and generation, as Bob In
eessef the, bag-cheeked, pot-bellied
wind bag Of modern infideiity. II
WASHINGTON had even known, thai