The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1899-1900, 1899-05-31
Another sullor claiming the band Of

make on earth. He slew the czar of
Russia, keeps many king practically
imprisoned, killed Abraham Lincoln,
would put to death every king and pres
ident on earth; and, if he had the power,
would climb up until he could drive
the God of Heaven from His throne and
take it himself, the universal butcher.
In France it is called communism; in
the United States it is called anarchism;
in Russia it is called nihilism, but that
last is the most graphic and descriptive
term. 1t means complete and eternal
smash-up. 1t would make the holding
of property crime, and it would drive
dagger through your heart and put
a torch to your dwelling and turn over
this whole land into the possession OF
theft and lust and rapine and murder.
Where does this monster live? In all
the towns and cities of this land. 1t Of
fers its hand to this fair republic. 1t
proposes to tear to pieces the ballot
box, the legislative hall, the congress
sional assembly. 1t would take this
land and divide it up, or, rather, di-
vide it down. 1t would give as much to
the idler as to the worker, to the bad
as to the good. Nihilism! This pam
ther, having prowled across other
lands, has set its paw on our soil, and it
is only waiting for the time in which
to spring upon its prey. ltwas nihilism
that burned the railroad property at
Pittsburgh during the great riots; it
was nihilism that slew black people
in our northern cities during the war;
il was nihilism that mauled to death the
Chinese immigrants years ago; it is nj
hilism that glares out of the windows
of the drunkeries upon sober people
as they go by. All, its power has never
yet been tested. pray God its power
may never be fully tested. 1t would, il
it had the power, leave every church,
chapel, cathedral, schoolhouse and col
lege in ashes.
Let me say it is the worst enemy of
the laboring classes in any country.
The honest cry for reform lifted by OPP
pressed laboring men is drowned out
by the vociferation for anarchy. The
criminals and the vagabonds who range
through our cities talking about their
rights, when their first right is the pen
itentiary-if they could be hushed up,
and the downtrodden laboring men of
this country could be heard, there
would be more bread for hungry chill
dren. In this land riot and bloodshed'
never gained any wages for the people
or gathered up any prosperity. In this
land the best weapon is not the club,
not the shillalah, not firearms, but the
ballot. Let not our oppressed laboring
men be beguiled to coming under the
bloody banner of nihilism. 1t will make
your taxes heavier, your wages
smaller, your table scantier, your chill
dren hungrier, your suffering greater.
Yet this nihilism, with feet red of
slaughter, comes forth and offers its
hand for this republic, Shall the banIts
be proclaimed? If so, where shall the
marriage altar be, and who will be the
officiating priest, and what will be the
music? That altar will have to be
white with bleached skulls, the officiat-
ing priest must be dripping assassin,
the music must be the smothered groan
of multitudinous victims, the garlands
must be twisted of night shade, the
fruits must be the apples of Sodom, the
wine must be the blood of st. Bartholo:
news massacre. No! 1t is not TO nj
hilism, the sanguinary monster, that
this land is to be married.
Another suitor for the hand of this
nation is infidelity. When the midnight
ruffians despoiled the grave of A. T.,
Stewart in st. Marks churchyard ev-
erybody was shocked; but infidelity
proposes something worse than that
the robbing of all the graves of Chris
tendon in the hope of resurrection.
1t proposes to chisel out from the tomb
stones of your Christian dead the words
ASLEEP in Jesus" and substitute the
words "0bliteration annihilation."
1nfidelity proposes to take the letter
from the worlds Father, inviting the
! nations to virtue and happiness, and
tear it up into fragments so small that
you cannot read a word of it. 1t pro-
poses to take the consolation from the
broken-hearted and the soothing pillow
from the dying. Infidelity proposes to
swear in the president of the United
States, and the supreme court, and the
governors of states, and the witnesses
in the courtroom with their right hand
on Paine's age of Reason" or Vol
taire's PHILOSOPHY of History" 1t pro-
poses to take away from this country
the book that makes the difference be-
tween the United States and the king
dom of Dahomey, between American
civilization and Bornesian cannibalism.
If intidelity could destroy the Scrip
lures it would in 200 years turn the
! civilized nations back to semibarbar-
ism, and then from semibarbarism into
midnight savagery, until the morals of
menagerie of tigers, rattlesnakes and
chimpanzees would be better than the
morals of the shipwrecked human race.
The only impulse in the right direc-
ton that this world has ever had has
come from the Bible. 1t was the moth
er of Roman law and of healthful juris-
prudence. That book has been the
mother of all reforms and all charities
mother of English magma charta and
American Declaration of independence.
benjamin Franklin, holding that holy
book in his hand, stood before an inf
del club in Paris and read to them out
of the prophecies of Habakkuk, and the
infidels, not knowing what book it was,
declared it was the best poetry they
had ever heard. That book brought
George Washington down on his knees
in the snow at Valley Forge, and led
the dying Prince Albert to ask some
one to sing "Rock of Ages"
tell you that the worst attempted
crime of the century is the attempt to
destroy this book. Yet infidelity, loath-