Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1892-04-07
What is Truth?"

been denounced as a scoffer of Truth,
as q denier OF the existence of any
Truth, because he asked this question,
and then ..went out again unto the
Jews to plead for the life of another.
PLATE has ever since that day been
denounced because his mind was in
that state of incertitude, of uncertainty,
universally prevalent in that day over
the then known world, which made
possible the acceptance and growth of
the Religion of those who have since
made war on his memory.
Thousands of years before his day
mankind, in seeking emblems and rep
resentatives Of the qualities which they
worshipped, departing from the primal
nature worship, had made unto them
selves craven images, as object lessons
typifying those attributes, and in time
worshipped the image instead of that
it typifed: new attributes were added,
new powers claimed by the priest and
conceded by the votary. Auguries, pre-
dictions, were drawn from the entrails
of slaughtered animals, from the flight
of birds, from the picking of corn by
chickens, from the winds, from thun-
der, from lightning. Emissaries from
states, from cities, from individuals,
travelled from the far parts of the
earth to consult the whispered voice Or
thunder tones of the oracles of Jupiter
Ammon in the African desert. or of
Apollo at Delphi, in the vale of
Pleistus.
But, basing their learning upon the
heights reached by their Egyptian
predecessors, the Greek sages arose and
taught the mind of human kind to rise
and expand, and as Tearing spread the
sceptics, the doubters of the Olympian
Gods, grew in numbers. 1t is true the
Imperator before he risked battle pre-
tended favorable auguries, not that he
had faith, but for effect upon the igno-
rant soldier upon whose spear point
depended the victory. 1t is true, tenn
pies to Jove, to Mars. to Diana, to
Venus, to Isis, to Osiris, continued to
be dedicated and Polytheism continued
the religion Of the state. 1t is true
that Poutifex Maximus remained
high officer of government, and that
the priest continued to wear his gorge
Gus vestments, to Officiate at festivals,
to draw large sums from the public
pocket.
But the nothingness of the system,
the untruthfulness of its teachings, the
immortality Of its doctrines, had been
fathomed by the enlightened. They
had broken from their old moorings,
and had not yet found another anchor
age for their faith.
One of the greatest of their orators
and statesmen had recorded that in his
day Polytheism was scoffed at by the
learned, was tolerated, even encourag-
ed by the ruling classes, by reason of
the power it gave them over the SUB
ject. and only believed by those who
were sunk in ignorance.
The Stole and the Epicurean might,
and did, lay down his dogma of life
and death, but it was a Religion and
not speculative philosophy that was
wanted.
Might not seeker after truth. whose
early convictions were unsettled. who
had rejected as untrue the religion of
state, who felt that the philosophy,
which taught all the truth he knew,
might teach untruth, who might have
been disguised at the hypocrisy of the
society by which he was surrounded,
and the immortality permeating every
walk of life in the Roman world, prop
erly ask, What is truth?"
Why might not PLATE ask What is
Truth??" when it is being asked by ev-
cry sentient being now living9 Why
not, when every expounder of every
Religion, whether Jew or Christian,
Buddhist or Brahmin, Mohammedan or
Confucian, is endeavoring to answer?
May we not ask it when we see Re-
ligion warning against Religion, faith
against faith and sect against sect?
When even Protestant has burned
Protestant at the stake, for his souls
sake, and the victim has given up his
life for what he thought truth?
The Mohammedans, more numerous
than Christians, three times a day
turning toward Mecca, lift up their
voices to their god in alteration. and
live according to the truths they find
in their Koran. s.What is Truth:9n Is
it that he shall be damned because he
knows not the Messiah?
Before the Pyramids were piled up
it was taught, and is now largely be-
lieved, that the human body of one day
was only one of an endless succession of
habitations for the soul; that each life
was a step forward or backward, toward
or away, from final perfection and abb
sorption in the God-head. And Cir
II