Blue-grass blade., 1891-12-12
Democratic Political and Re-
ligiSus StGltdity. and Blood
and Murder, in George
town.

There is lot of old religion
hypocrites still living, I am sorry
to say, who used to say to M
that they would not mind m,
having my peculiar religious no
tions" if | would only Keep them t.
myself.
| sometimes answered by the
contempt of silence, and some.
times replied that / would have
no objection to their religion il
they would Keep 1t to themselves, ant
not be fauuting it in my face or
every street corner, and from every
hired pulpit and press.
After while / got tired Of
talking theology as gra'uity, and
concluded to try to turn a penny
once in a while by writing some
of it.
Then as soon as | didn't want
to talk it, they changed their
minds and liked to get me started
on that subj jet.
When a fellow writes a news
paper every week. and keeps up
his end of big correspondence,
and looks over sixty newspapers,
and keeps himself up in the cur
rent literature of magazines and
books, he don't hanker much after
talking with the average man, as
an intellectual recreation.
The other day | was sitting in
the ladies' room of the Queen &
Crescent station at Lexington,
absorbelin Democratic editorial,
when very bright and handsome
Georgetown doctor walked up to
me and said. "What is your opin-
ion of the existence of a Deity?"
His idea seemed to be that | could
answer that question about as
easily as could give my opinion
of the Chilian racket; whereas to
do even such justice to the sub
ject as even | am capable of doing,
l should want an opera house or a
ehu-=h fell Of people, and several
lectures of an hour and half each
in which to tell.
But of course | told him in the
best style that the eacironmais's-
that means the same as we used
to do when we said circam Stances
would allow, though of course,
fragmentary and incongruvial.
When l was safely delivered of
the theological banfling, and was
"doing as well as could be expected
under the circumstancey'-that is
environments, L remembered Mr..
Blaine's great idea of reciproc ty,
and asked the Doctor what was
his opinion of theology in general
and in the concrete. | know a
good many dictionary words, and
whenever | can use one that |
don't know the meaning of, /
always notice that it impresses the
other fellow.
The Doctor informed me that
until recently he had been skepti-
cal i'm his views, but that recently
he had been converted to Christi
anity purely by the evidence in
the case, and that now he was
a member of the CampbeIlite
church-that's what he called it
and a Sunday-school teacher.
| asked him what he had read.
He said he had read the New
Testament through, and was now
starting the Old Testament.
Prohibition is the tOuchstone of
all religion with me, and L asked
him how he stood on the Prohibi-
ton question.
Then followed lot of that cor
ruscating gerrymandering that IA
pretty shrewd fellow always runs
into, when he is trying to fool you
without telling an old fashioned
lie.
/ had told him that / thought
st. John would be our next can
didate for President, and | had
thought that to a mind deeply i'm
bued with the religious sentiment
there would be something speci-
ally attractive in a name 50 emil
nently apostolic.
But as soon as | mentioned til,
name St. Johu, he told ME, with
a chi0alric shudder, that he would
not vote for any man who had
whipped his rife.
For few moments it SO flat
tened me out that our great
champion OF woman and Prohibi
ton had been fogging his wife
that just collapsed, and began t'
look for something else to read il
my newspaper.
Then | thought l would tr!
him once more, just tor luck, an'
| asked him where he got iha
piece of information about ST
John thrashing Mrs. St. john
she is saint.
He was not exactly prepared t
give the source of his information
but he insisted that it was gener
ally admitted by the friends, NAL