West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1889-11-14
Dead Issues.
Written FOR the ARoUs by
A. W. FREDERICK. A.. NJ.

a man known as a crank. His name
is Cosine. He predicts the weather
and practices the faith cure. One
of his children died. He could not
surrender 1t TO dust. He loved the
dead issue of his own loins. After
afortnights' sleep in the damp cold
ground he went and exhumed the
mortal frame Of his child. He +
tied in prayer to call back the angelic
spirit. but his grip on the celestial was
not strong enough to wrest a soul
from the bosom of God. His neigh.
bors appraised him ofthe fact that his
offspring was dead and in bad odor
with the living; that he himself was
dead TO decency and humanity. and
that they would embalm him i'm a
winding sheet of tar and feathers;
that he must desist from hugging
and parading his defunct issue be-
fore their eyes. And straightway
he desisted. This seems a very sim
pie story. We view his fanatical
deeds with charity. We try to for
set his shortcomings, but in trying
to forget them we think of other
parties-religious sects-which are
huggiug their dear dead issues. The
dead issue Of slavery still divides the
churches north and south. Chris
tian fellowship is not accorded one
to the other, because, forsooth, II
Christian said slavery was divine,
and the other pronounced IL diabol-
zeal. The dead issue stinks between
the churches, while the political
parties more discerning acknowl-
edge 1t dead and gone TO the devil
How . man who swears to the
tencts of a church that slavery is
Gods, conscientiously take an oath
of Office under tho L. S. govern
mcnt? lie swears to support u con-
stitution which outlaws slavery and
involuntary scrvtude. Can a good
Christian and good citizen swear
not to practice what he swears Is
righteous and orthodox? Why does
the Christian church lag away be-
hind the practical wisdom of the
times? Why stultify itself by disre-
gardingthe moral sense of mankind?
VIII the church always hug to It's
heart the dead issue of the past?
Is it un-chrlstian to acknowledge a
blunder?-to say we were wrong.
Is it the part Of charity for the
church north TO compel the church
south to confess it's crime against
human rights and human liberty.
The dead issue of human bondage
vas buried by the bayonet-thc
cause Of difference in opinion has
been removed. The cause Of hu-
man rights triumphed by the arbi-
trament OF war, and the dead wrong
would no longer be a stencil in the
nostrils Of common sense, if the
pco pie Of God, ~so-callcd did not re-
fuse to give it a decent Christian
burial. suggest to the church
north and the church south that they
mutually retract their utterances
on slavery that they nolonger stand
as stumbling blocks in the way of
the complete determination Of the
American people that religion
should rise to the high-water mark
Of a peerless and unprejudiced pa
triotIsm. Get out Of the way Of the
progress Of the goth century. 0
fossil folly Wrestling over the dead
past Let the church sell out her
rolling-stock to the memory Of the
dark ages, or else turn its headlights
to CLEAN along the forward tracks
of a more enlightend progress.
The church north, in view of its
world-applauded triumph, can af-
ford to drop its dead controversy
in the tomb Of eternal silence the
church south cannot afford to do
otherwise. VIII the church Of the
coming century run on the broad
gauge Of Christian charity, liberty
and enlightenment or or tram ways
Of narrowness, prejudice and self
aggrandizing arrogance?
Letcher, Cal, Oct. 27, 1899.