News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-03-01

IueSe ARE not lager
soils arguments unanswerable? What
are you going to do about it?"-hav-
ing been submitted to a college presi-
dent by several of his Students, he re-
piled as follows: $50 you are out
half a dollar apiece, are you? No, no,
L a not answer him. Bows [ recall
the incident in my eager and impetu-
Gus youth OF wasting a pound and a
half of bird-shot on a small owl. L
followed him from tree to tree, and
shot away as mnch as a hat-full of
feathers, and when he died of fatigue
[ found that his body was about as
large as a robbins and I could put it
to no earthly use. He vas a decep-
tive target. If I understand the gen.
tleman from Peoria, he wishes to lib
crate youth from the incubus and thral-
dom OF superstition. That devastat-
ing influence of the country clergy
mar on $500 per annum and a dona-
ton is what worries Robert, and he
proposes to cure it and eradicates it
for the trifing pittapce of $3.50 per
lecture. For fifty cents he proposed
to liberate your mind from that in1u-
ence which was filtered into it from
the trembling lips of your mother, and
free you from the chains of supersti-
ton loaded upon your soul by the
rough but loving hand of your father.
OF course he worries about you more
than those old fogies did-for fifty
cents. You look around you in the
city here, and you discover several
millions of dollars invested in hospitals,
seminaries, asylums, forced On the
suffering community by this same
mythical, miraculous and superstiti-
Gus incubus of religion. You ask the
gentleman from Peoria where his little
public institutions are, founded by his
peculiar teachings, and he says, in a
absent-minded manner, Fifty cents at
the door, Boys, you see sometimes,
a poor mans little funeral procession,
with a democratic wagon and a little
coffin in it, SO small you could carry it
under your arm. A poor couple walk
behind it with breaking hearts. Their
baby is in the little coffin it is their all.
Their hearts are broken. Oh, if they
only had Rob here TO tell them about
liberty and myths and miracles-for
fifty cents-how it would cheer them
up. But you say. There are so many
infidels.' Boys, you are mistaken.
An infidel is an abnormal growth, and
nature feels funny once in a while and
creates a freak-e. g., the living skel-
eton, the fat women, the two headed
girl. So there is abont n infdel to
a million sane men. The most these
inidels noisy fellows are amateur in
idels. They talk Ingersoll in fair
weather and pray themselves hoarse
every time it thunders. A we'll de-
veloped case of cholera morbus will
knock their infidelity out of them and
leave them in a cold sweat like a china
dog in an ice-house. 1 know them.
The most of them are like the boy who
run away from home and comes back
to stay with his father nights. Then
again, boys, take a look around you
when you invest another fifty cents in
liberty and compare the crowd with
the kind of people you find in almost
any church. Is it the odor of sanctity
you smell? Hardly, boys, hardly.
But you can eat peanuts there and
choke on the shells, while you applaud
the funny joke about the heaven where
you know in your hearts your dear
mother is, or hear the humble Nazarene
ridiculed who, you think, and always
will think, gave a nome to your weary
old father when he left the earth.
Yes, boys, his arguments are unan-
swerable, and l think the reasons will
come along, and the churches will con-
tinue to bloom, and all nature will
most exasperatingly and calmly per-
form her functions if Robert is not
answered.-Yeu+kt~wr EAea-the first
steamer crossed the Atlantic a great
philosopher was delivering a most On
elusive argument to prove that by no
possibility could a steam vessel cross
the ocean, and that provoking steam
er came snorting and sizzling and
splurging right into the harbor. Boys,
so will Gods foolish children 60 right
on praying and preaching and dying
and going TO heaven in spite of argu-
ment."-ChriStGn Thought.