The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-09-11

dDle gOOQ numOr. 1ley are Wiling 10
admit, to please you, that there may be
such being as God, but they always
leave you vanquished by the most benign
and suave proposition that if there is, so
great power will take care OF everything
wisely; and, anyhow, Gypsies is too
trihin' fur anybody's mindin'. let alone
sech mighty folksP l remember of one
instance among many where in positive
desperation in an attempt to give group
OF friendly Gypsies some faint idea OF God
as we conceive Him, and, indeed, OF dis
corning if there was the faintest idea in
any one of their minds of God Of their
own mental creation, lost my patience
and cried out in vexation, ooh, you vaga-
bonds! Such people deserve no God"
That's jess hit That's jess HIT" sew
eral replied instantly, and with exasperat-
ing complacence. Illus allus knowed
that. faint like for hus sech things be-"
And whether the rascals said il with race
knowledge of hopeless outlawry, with
Respondent consciousness of impossibility
of knowing what we regard as of the SUI
premest importance 10 know. or to close
an argument concerning matter no hui
man has vet made clear or acceptable TO
the Romany, TO me there was pathetic
finality in their remuneration could never
wholly dispel.
1t is not fair 10 say these folk are bias
phemous in their stern and unrelenting
refusal to accept what you and | know no
other possibility than to embrace. Instead
10 would be nearer right 10 set them down
as the one race on earth absolutely i'm
capable OF initiative formulation OF the
idea itself OF n God. IL is common to hear
the teachers and leaders say that no peo-
pie exist who have not inherently an i'm
stinctive reverence for some form OF prim-
al creative power or some sort OF a SUI
preme being. But here is one which as
sert 10 be absolutely incapable OF even the
the most trilling submission TO deity.
| Certainly no one who has the most meager
knowledge OF Gypsies will deny their In
telligence. No other human beings live
who are naturally 30 gifted with all-sufci-
ent intellect. But so lar as / am able to
Judge, they do not know how 10 think
God and the idea OF n Savior, and the
plan of redemption rs revealed and
taught, are positively 80 startling n
| burlesque on reason and evidence by
things by Thorn known, seen and expert
enced. that no person can secure and re-.
tain their confidence and respect who will
persist In presenting such ideas and
propositions 90 them. As | have shown
In n preceding article there is no such
thing rs GYPSY beliefin future state. As
life with them IL considered no better
than accident, death is tho end. will not
say that they resist the idea of future exc
istcnco. They have no belief about the
matter whatever, and their resentment
comes when you insist upon their having
any. II there is such state, we'll and
good. II not, still we'll and good. They
| do not know anything beyond the facts
that physical hurt or disease and old ago
| bring death. Death neceseitates putting
/ the remains OF the dead away In tho
/ ground. When tho earth covers them
| they zee no further Their concerns, ma.
| terial and ethical, are invariably with the
/ living ON these lines they are n lumin-
/ Gus, but l0wly, order OF agnOstics. They
/ seldom speak Of the dead. In the 200 or
/ 300 Gypsy ballads / have collected,
there is not line, sentence or
/ thought expressing faith in, or even
! hope for, reunion with the dead, even
in a Gypsy lovers widest rawlings for
his lost other-heart idol. The nearest APP
| proach 20 such n sentiment is expressed
not toward humans but OF animals, and
conspicuously OF the horse. have wit
messed Gypsy grief more poignant at the
loss OF loved horse than | ever saw ex-
| pressed over the death of father, mother,
|
sions the loss of one OF these priced ami
mails begets an awe and silence in Gypsy
camp most strange and inexphcabe Re-
! peatedly have / seen the entire members
OF band gather round an expiring ami
NAL with barred heads, woebegone faces
and heart-rending groans inteTspersed
| with most piteous expressions from Gypsy
men at their utter helplessness to save !;
and this TO degree that have often sur
missed il pointed TO a belief, especially as
the trappings of loved horse are always
buried at its death, in some condition of
future existence where the rider would
again vault his spirited steed. But all eff
forts to find and fix such a faith have
been unavailing.
There are few who can believe any good
possible among so faithless and hopeless a
people. But there is good among them,
and of kind the Christian world might
better develop with very great consistency
and profit. While Gypsles are without
faith, or even law, as we know it, no peo-
pie live who more vigorously follow, in
/ fact and to the ultimate of spirit, the
highest and purest code of physical and
moral observance. They universally re-
we're the marriage relation. i say univer-
sally, and use that word unqualtiedly.
There is not an exception. The religious
faculty as we develop it, and sometimes
distort it, being wholly lacking in these
nomads. another seems TO have taken its
place. That is virtue worship. All this
begins back of the sucking babe at its
mothers breast II is bred and in
bred in prenatal assimilated loyalty.
The tent-home government and sur
VIGILANCE are such that Gypsy children
grow unconscIously and irrevocably into
hereditarily virtuous lives and loves. Be-
lieve it or not, Gypsy men and youths re-
gard virtue of as noble perfection in men
as in sweetheart or wife; and some idea OF
the awful sacredness of that primal re.
quirement in woman may be had when
the fact is stated that any GYPSY maiden
found, on marriage, to have been un-
chaste is visited with the most horrible
fate that can by any possibility come 10
her in this life-utter and endless expa-
triatIon; and more than once the lives oil
such have been sacrificed with the calm
and unvarying approval of parents and
friends; while such a thing as disloyalty
of husband to wife, or wife TO husband
after marriage, has yet to be recorded oil
Gypsy on the European or American con.
tinent. EDGAR l.. WAKESIAN.
a Sudden Cure.
Hamburger Kalender.l
young apprentice one day, at breakfast
suddenly exclaimed-"I am going blind Ach
am blindW