Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1899-06-03
married
Another snitor claiming the hand Of
this republic is nihilism.
Y,hc Ncnucc og NIhilism.

heaven and no hell except what lie can
make on earth He slew the car of
Russia, keeps many a king practically
imprisoned, killed Abraham Lincoln.
would put to death every king and
president 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 COM
munism; 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 mp. 1t
wonld make the holding of property II
crime. and it would drive a dagger
through your heart and put torch to
to Your dwelling and turn over this
whole land into the possession of theft
and lust and rapine and murder.
Where does this moster live? In all
the towns and cities of this land. 1t
offers its hand to this fair republic. 1t
proposes to tear to pieces the ballot
box the legislative hall. the congress
sionhl assembly. 1t would take this
land and divide it up, or rather divide
it down. II wonld give as much to the
ider as to the worker, to the bad as to
the good. Nhlisml This panther, hay
ing prowled across other lands. has set
its paw on our soil. and it is only wait
ing for the time III which to spring
upon its prey. 1t WAS nihilism that
burned the railroad property at Pitts
burg during the great riots; it was nj
hilism that slew black people in our
northern cities during the war; it was
nihilism that mnnled to death the Chi
ncse immigrants years ago; it is nihil-
ism that glares out of the windows OF
the drt nkeries 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, If
it had the power, leave every church,
chanel. cathedral, schoolhouse and col
lege III ashes.
Let me say it is the worst enemy of
the laboring classes in any country.
The honest cry for reform lifted by op-
pressed laboring men is drowned out by
the vociferation for anarchy. The
criminals and the vaeabonds who range
through our cities talking about their
rights, when their first right is the
penitentiary-if they could be hushed
up and the downtrodden laboring men
of this country could be heard there
wonld 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 he beguiled to coming under the
bloody banner of nihilism. 1t will make
your taxes heavier. your wages smaller,
Your table scantier, your children hun
crier, your suffering greater. Yet this
nihilism. with feet red of slaughter,
comes forth and offers its hand for this
republic Shall the banns 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 officiating priest
must be dripping assassin, the music
must be the smothered groan of multi
tudinous victims, the garlands must be
twisted of nightshade, the fruits must
be apples Of Sodom, the wine must be
the blood CT St. Bartholomew S massacre
Mol 1t is not to nihilism, the sanguin-
ary monster. that this land is to be
married.
Danger From Infdclity.
Another sutton for the hand of this
nation is infdelity When the midnight
ruffians despoiled the grave OF A. L
Stewart In st. Mark $ churchyard,
everybody was shocked. but infdelity
proposes something worse than that
the robbing of all the graves of Chris
tendon of the hope of resurrection
1t proposes to chisel out from the tomb
stones of your Christian dead the
words, "Asleep In Jesus and substi-
tute the words. "Obliteration-annihi-
lation. Infdelity proposes to take the
letter from the world S Father. inviting
the nations to virtue and happiness and
tear it up into fragments 50 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 Inhdelity proposes to
swear in the president of the United
States and the supreme court and the
governors of states and the witnesses III
the courtroom with their right hand on
Paine's Age of Reason or Voltaire s
PHILOSOPHY of History. 1t proposes
| to take away from this country the book
that makes the difference between the
United States and the kingdom of Da-
honey, between American civilization
and Bornesian cannibalism. If infideli-
ty could destroy the Scriptures, it
would in goo years turn the civilized
nations back to semibarbarism, and
then from scmibarbarisin into midnight
savagery until the morals of mcnaS-
erie of tigers, rattlesnakes and Chin
panzees would be better than the morals
of the shipwecked human race.
The only impulse in the right direc-
ton that this world has ever had has
come from the Bible. 1t was the mother
of Roman law and of healthful iuris-
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 in
fdel club in Paris and read to them out
of the prophecies of Habakkuk, and
the infdels, not knowing what book 1t
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 tc
sing Crock of Ages.
1 tell you that the worst attempted
crime of the century is the attempt tc
destroy this book. Yet infdelity. loath
some, stenchful, lerrous. pestiferous
rotten monster, stretches out its hand
icborous with the second death, to take
| 4Lo L,,5 of +I,;c ren11n1ic IT stretche!