St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1899-07-01

of property a crime, and it would drive
dagger through your heart and put
y 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. It would take this
land and divide it up, or, rather, di-
vide it down. 1t would give ms much to
the idler as to the worker, to the bad
as to the good. Nihilism! This pam
Their, 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. Jtwas nihilism
that burned the railroad property at
Pittsburgh during the great riots; it
was nihilism that slew black people
in orE northern cities during the war;
it 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. if
it had the power, leave every church,
chapel, cathedral, schoolhouse and col
lege in ashes.
Let me say it is the worst enem. : OF
the laboring classes in any count. v.
The honest cry for reform lifted by cp-
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 banrfs
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 he the blood of St. Bartholo-
news massacre. No! 1t is not to nj
hilism, the sanguih~ry monster, that
this land is to be married.
Another sutton for the hand of this
nation is infidelity. When the midnight
ruffians despoiled the grave of A. 7.
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 a resurrection.
1t proposes to chisel out from the tomb
stones Of your Christian dead the words
asleep in Jesus" and substitute the
words "Obliteration humiliation"
1nfidelity proposes to take the letter
from the worlds Father, inviting the
nations to virtue ard 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" It 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
and Bornesian cannibalism.
If infidelity could destroy the Scrip
lures it would in 200 years turn the
nations back to semibarbar-
ism, and then from standardization into
midnight savagery, until the morals of
a menagerie of tigers, rattlesnakes and
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 heaithful 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 |
nfidels. 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 |
rhine of the century is the attempt to |
destroy this book. Yet infidelity, loath-
some. stenchful. leprous, pestiferous,
often monster. stretches out its hand.
GLORIOUS with the second death, to take
he hand Of this republic. 1t stretches
I out through seductive magazines,
md through lyceum lectures, and
through caricatures Of religion. 1t asks
or all that part of the continent al
'eady fully settled and the two-thirds
lot yet occupied. 1t says: "Give me
III east of the Mississippi, with the
1eys of the church and with the Chris
ian printing presses. Then give me
Wyoming, give me Alaska, give me
give me Colorado, give me all
he states west of the Mississippi and 1 |
viii take those places and keep them by
light of possession long before the Cos
'ei can be fully intrenched.
And this sutton presses his case APP
,allingly. Shall the banns of that mar
'iage be proclaimed? mol" say the
,ome missionaries of the west, a mar
VI band of whom the world is not
worthy, toiling amid fatipues and ma