Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-06-06
Are ws Llvlng IN pagan rlmes.

Editor Gazette.
DEAR SIR read with great pleasure
your just and merited rebuke of the
reckless and ignorant pulpit perform
| ance of the Rev. w. B. Allen of Long
view anent the burning of the Spring
Palace. An injustice, however, is mad
vertently done the preachers of the Fiji
tenth century. Aliens ideas of God
and Providence belong not to the Fiji
teenth century, nor indeed to any other
century of the Christian era, but rather
to those barbario times and communities
which antedate the dawn of the Christian
dispensation. When Paul, after his
famous shipwreck, was warming himself
at fire on the Island of Malta, a viper
came out of the heat and fastened itself
on his hand. ''When the barbarians
saw the venemous beast hang on
his hand they said among themselves,
''No doubt this man is q murderer,
whom though he hath escaped the sea yet
justice suffereth not to live. That
such ideas as Aliens have been pro-
claimed by ignorant preachers in all the
centuries of the Christian era is doubtless
true, but as the quotation which stands
at the head of your editorial shows, they
find no foundation in any words spoken
by our Blessed Redeemer. On the con-
trary, some of his most scathing rebukes
were administered to those who only
thought what Allen has had the insolence
to proclaim. Men can endure the rain
showers and floods which sweep away
their homes, they can endure the flames
which destroy the fairest creations of
their genius, they can endure the de-
fective Astabula bridge which carried to
his death 'sweet singer of Israeli
they can even forgive the bad engineer
ing which made 10000 new graves in
Conemaugh valley, but they ought not
to endure the mad rawlings of q
reckless pulpit orator who substitutes his
ignorance or fanaticism for the oraoles
of God. Long ago the poet Cowper COM
planned of the church for
''Laying hands on graceless SOULS
That could not teach, and would not learn"
If the poet were with US to-day he
might repeat his lament. AS many as
1000 years ago Abraham declared that
the Judge of all the earth must do right
''Wilt Thou also destroy the righte-
Gus with the wicked? That be far from
Thee Lord to do after this manner-Shall
not the Judge of all the earth do
right?' Yet with all the light and
progress of 1000 years Mr.. Allen says
that the burning of the Palace resem-
bled the angry expression of an Iusulted
Providence. - So we must conclude
that this Palace, which was made for the
purpose of exhibiting the products of
Gods earth, and while full of His
children, admiring His handiwork, was
destroyed by this God. His own hand, as
it were, kindling the fatal spark-at the
risk of killing or manning hundreds
of his innocent creatures. Even Abra-
ham, the princely old patriarch of 1000
years ago, believed better things about
God than this. AS for the comparison of
the flames of the burning Palace TO the
vivid handwriting on the wall at the
drunken feast of the pagan Belshazzar,
1t is quite in keeping with the rest of Mr.
Aliens differences on the subject. 1
confess that it makes one, however
hopeful, almost despair of the future of
the simple, rational and beautiful re-
llgion of Christ to meet with such
dreadful caricature coming not from
some loud-mouthed, ignorant convert of
the gutter, but from the lips of man
ordained and authorized by church to
speak in Christ's name. How long, o
Lord! How long? W. MITCHELL.