The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1881-05-26


hand to this fair Republic. and says he
will have her, If not by fair means then
by foul. He says he will break up the
ballot box, and the legislative hall, and
the Congressional Assembly. He will
take this land and divide it up, or rather
divide it down. The idler shall have as
much as the worker, and the good equal
ly as much as the bad. NihiliRml This
panther, after prowling across all nations
has get its paw on our soil, and the time
is not far distant when it will make a
spring for its prey. It burnt the
railroad roperty in Pittsburgh in
the great riot And it killed black
people in our Northern cities during the
war. 1t mauled to death Chinese last
week in New York. 1t glares out of the
drunkeries at sober people going by. 1t
would leave every church, chapel, cathe-
dral, school and college of the United
States in ashes. Nihilism 1t is to-day
the worst foe of the poor laboring man
in all the country. 1t browns out his
honest cry for reform with VoCiferation
for anger and blood. If the vagabonds
and criminals ranging through these cit.
les crying for their rights, when their
first right is the Penitentiary, could be
hlshed up, the oppressed and down.
trodden Iaborer would have more bread
for his household. Riot and violence
have never won larger wages or more
prosperity. The best weapon in this
country is not the briCk-bat or the shil-
lalah, but the ballot. Let not the poor
come under the banner of Nihilism. He
will make your taxes higher, your wages
smaller, your table sCaDtier, your chill.
dren hungrier, your suffering greater,
Still, Nihiism, with feet wet with car.
mage, comes forth and offers his hand as
suitor of this Republic. If it were taken
where would the marriage be, and who
the officiating priests, and what the mu.
sic? The altar must be white altar OF
bleaChed skulls. The officiating priest a
dripping assassin. The music the smoth.
cred groan of multitudinous victims.
The ling made from the chain of eternal
captivity. The garland twisted out of
nightshade. The viands apples of Sodom.
The wine the blood of st. BartholomeW's
massacre. Nay, nay, nay 1t is not to
Nlllllbul, llO bhbkullOOuD bDhJ
this fair land shall be married. Let God
and angels and fifty millions of people
forbid the bans
Another suitor for this national bride
is infdelity. When midnight ruffians
despoiled the grave of A. T. Stewart in
st. Luke's ChurChyard all the people
were shocked with horror. But infideli-
ty proposes to do something worse than
that, namely, the robbing of all the
graves of Christendom of the hope of
resurrection. 1t would chsel out from
the tombstone Of your Christian dead
the words, "Asleep in Jesus" and cut
for substitute the words "Dismember-
ment and obliterstioD." 1t would take
a letter of the worlds Father, inviting
all nations to virtue and happiness, and
tear it up in pieces 80 small that not a
word of it could be read. 1t would leave
every broken heart without consolation,
and every dying man without soothing
pillow. 1t would swear in the President
United States and the Supreme Court
and the Governors of the States and the
witnesses of the Courtroom, their right
hand on Paine's "Age of Reason" or
Voltaire's PHILOSOPHY of History" 1t
would take from this country that book
which has made the difference between
this land and the Kingdom of Dahomey;
between American civilization and Bor
nesian cannibalism. If infdelity could
succeed in the destruction of the Scrip.
lures in two hundred years all the civil
lied nations would be turned back into
semi ,barbarism into midnight savagery,
where the morals of menagerie of IT,
gers, rattlesnakes and Chimpanzees
would be better than those of the ship
wrecked human race. The only impulse
in the right direction that the world has
ever received has been the Bible. 1t
was the mother of Roman law and all
healthful jurisprudence, the mother of
all great charities, the mother of Eng
lish Magma Charta and American Decla-
ration of Independence. Benjamin
Franklin stood with it in his hand read.
ing Habakuk to the Infdel Club in
Paris. and, not knowing what it was, they
pronounced it the finest poetry they had
ever heard. 1t brought down George
Washington on his knees in the snow at
Valley Forge,and made the dying Prince
of Wales to ask some one to sing for him
Rock of Ages" The worst attempted
crime of the century is to destroy that
book; and yet Infdelity, the loathsome,
stenChful, leprOus, rotten and pestiferous
monster, puts out his hand iChorous
with death, asking for this nation. He
would take possession not only of the
parts of this country fully occupied; but |
he two-thirds of this continent not yet |
fully settled. He puts out his hand |
through seductive magazine, lyCeum leC-
ture, and parlor Caricature of religion.
He says "Give me all the land east of
the Mississippi, with its church keys
and it's Christian printing presses; then
give me Dakota, give me Montana, give |
me Wyoming, give me Arizona, give me
Alaska, give me everything west Of the |
that l may hold it by right |
lf possession before the Gospel shall get |
Iully intrenChed there" He presses his |
claim with an ardor and determination
appalling. What say your Shall the
bans be procaimed2 "NoW say the
home missionaries of the West-a band |
OF martyrs amid malaTlas and tatlgues
and starvation-"not if we can help; by
all the privations we and our children |
have suffered, we forbid the bans" NO."
say the genuine patriots, "our institu-
lions were bought at too great price
and have been defended at too dear
sacrifice to be thus cheaply surren.
1ered" NO" says the God of Plymouth
Rock and of Independence Hall and
Bunker Hill and Gettysburg, II did not
start this nation for such farce" No
No 1t is not to infdelity this land is
to be married,
There is another suitor for this land.
The verse following nay text announces
Him: "As the bridegroom rejoiceth over
the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over
thee." To win the world, Christ stops
at no humiliOtion of simile. He com
pares his grace to spittle opening blind
eyes and Himself to hen gathering her
chickens, and here to a suitor begging
hand in marriage. He deserves this bride