The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-08-28


patroits pleading with the voters to
stand by them and save the country.
State and national issues will be
raised and excitement is likely to run
high. And in the counties the OLD
officers will be willing to continue to
lay themselves, upon the altar for an
other term while the field will be
full of new men who will patriotical
ly plead that the old officers who
have been laying upon the altar of
sacrifice so long should be relieved
and they be put in their places. Old
sCincinatus who kept on blowing until
the people called him from the pillow
handles to serve them, has but few,
if any, descendants. Most of our
patriots, like Barkis, are willing; so
willing they can't afford to wait for
q call. 1t is so sad to think that so
many, who are willing, can't be
sacrificed for the lack of affairs. But,
] am very sure the country will be
saved whether the old officers hold
over or new ones get in.
As l don't expect to be in the strug-
gle 1 will for the sake of the here
after, make the suggestion to all the
aspiring patriots that they can't do a
better thing than to let well enough
alone. A great deal of mischief has
been done by trying to improve upon
very good platforms, policies and
laws.
And I would like to say to the
voters, beware of reformers-those
slick-tongued gentlemen who have
spent the last two years, or longer, in
concocting and Matching out some
catch-penny tricks to begulle the UNI
wary. AS a general rule the so-cailed
reformer is a fraud. for how plaus-
no cchaT91a n
form, if you will dissect it youIf be
apt to find that it is intended to
benefit the reformer more than the
dear people" for whose sake he pre-
tends to be working. Our memories
are not too short to call to mind an
incident which will more than con-
firm the above statement in the
"huckleberry boy's> trick that made
him Senator secured. him a fortune,
and finally landed him in the bosom
of that party he started out to fight
when he became a reformer; and,
who is now so high up he don't know
and scarcely remembers the crowd OF
dupes that pulled him out of the mud
and hoisted him to fame and for
tune.
AS a. final remark, let me say to
everybody: Keep cool. Differ as you
may, don't get mad and quarrel over
politics. The election will soon have
passed and then come the corn shuck-
ings. and We'll need each others help
in other ways, SO we must keep friend
~ and neighborly let the election go
as it may. HThe least said, the easiest
mended," should be our motto.
Away back in the dark days of the
last century-before Christian charity
among religious denomination was as
we'll developed and practiced as it
likely will be before the millennium
comes, there was, / am sorry to say, a
great deal of intolerance and no little
unkind speaking on the part of some
men who stood in the pulpit to
preach a gospel of peace and brother
ly love. L have listened for two
hours to men who sWeated and foam
ed at the mouth, abusing other de-
nominations and trying to make sport
of their doctrines and creeds, while
they would not say a word about tn
love of God to men, as manifested IL
the gift of his Son, nor utter q Sylla
BILE that tended to make the world
better. Denominations stood a Ions
way apart and eyed each other as il
foes indeed, instead of recognizin :
common brotherhood, striving to adj
vance the Fathers cause, and help
ing each other through q difficult
journey.
The reader may think it incredible,
yet, what 1 am about to relate is true.
A preacher to satisfy his followers
that he and they We're right, and al
others We're wrong spent about an
hour dissecting a turkey as follows:
Yes, my brethren. you see that fine
turkey gobbler strutting arounds and
you think from the way he struts he's
got twenty pounds of good meat on
him; but my brethren when you cut
his head, feet and wings off and pull
out his tail, you'll begin to think tina t
twenty FOUNDER VIII hardly turn the
scales at the ten pound notch, if he
goes over nine and a half. But my
brethren, you amt done with that
turkey yet. You take your knife and
rip him open and take out his ''in-
nards," which amt fit for nothing
but to be cast out and then take out
the liver and the gizzard which are
only fit for dogs to eat. and you'll
find, my beloved brethren that your
twenty pound gobbler is getting
mighty light. Cook that turkey and
bring him on the table and every
body wants a piece of the breast, be-
cause that's the choice part of the
turkey. and nobody feels like he's eat
turkey if he didn't get a piece of the
breast"
$50 it is, my beloved brethren, as It
were with the thing you call Relig-
ion. The wicked people OF InlS WOflu
make out like there's one great big
church that is made up of many de-
nominations. and. that they are all
good alike. That big church, like that
big gobbler, looks mighty fine and
struts around and gobbles; but my
brethren there's mighty little about
that big gobbler church that's any ac-
count The Catholics think they are
the head they snort and gobble; the
Episcopalians come next, and they are
the neck: the Methodists claim to
be the backbone and the wings; the
PresbyterianS are the upper legs
the Missionary Baptists are the drum
sticks and the feet; and the other
denominations, too tedious to mem
ton. are the feathers, the entralls,
and the bones. But, my brethren, the
church., the true church, the only
true church is the breast of the tur-
kew that God made for the elect to
feed upon and you can't be fooled
NV brethren, for the Lord will not
allow his saints to be deceived.
IT would sound strange, indeed, TO
an audience of this day and time to
hear such preaching as that; yet
sixty years ago it was nothing I'M