Blue-grass blade., 1908-07-19
BLUE GRASS BLADE
Resume of the Agencies That Have Brought
Error in the Minds of Men.
(By DR.. T. ]. Bowles.)

(By DR.. T. j. Bowles)
If any one of the many thousand readers
of the Blade will take a stroll along the
principal streets of the cities of the United
States, and read the signs as he passes
along, ne will be shocked on discovering
many signs like the following: Palmistry-
Fortune Telling-Life Readings-Wanted
Glasses in Notwithstanding at Distance
-Obscession Treated Here; and many
millions of American citizens are firm be-
levers in these idiotic superstitions. and are
annually paying out vast sums of money to
perpetuate these diabolical Institutions
transmitted to us from the dark ages of the
distant past. ~
In a social soil where such deDasing and
degrading superstitions car flourish, is it
any wonder that the insane asylums of the
= United States are filled to their utmost ca
pacity? In a social atmosphere where the
superstitions of the savage aud barbarous
last can grow and flourish, is 1t any wonder
that jails and alms-houses and penitentiaries
are still full and overflowingf
All these phantoms of the brain and all
these hideous superstitions had a natural
origin in the remote and distant past, when
the whole human family were totally ig-
nOrant of natural law, and the great work
now devolving on enlightened men and edu-
Gated women is to teach the rising genera
ton that the laws Of Nature. are eternal,
immutable and unbreakabis, and that
nothing is or ever was or ever can be
supernatural.
This work is now being done with accel-
Grated speed; a few more Humboldts-a
rev more Darwins-a few more Paines-a
few moro Drapers-a few more Haeckels-a
few more Ingersolls, and a few more
Charlesworths, and all the ghosts and all
the devils and all the superstitcns will be
forever banished from our beautiful earth.
There are only three agencies that have
any influence in controlling the conduct of
men; one of these is fear of invisible
beings, one Is fear of visible beings and
the third is love for humanity; these three
forces regulate and control the conduct of
the Whole human race, and the first two fur
nish nearly all the criminals In the world
More than ninety-fve per cent of the in
mates of all the jais, penitentiaries and
asylums in the whole world are believers
in Holy Books, divine revelations, personal
GODS, getting religion, crucfied saviors,
obsession, holy days, or some other super
stition equally idiotic and absurd
IN Australia, it is said, they nave a pc
culiar tree called the cannibal tree: Its
leaves reach out like great arms until they
touch the ground, and on the Top of the
tree is a cup filled with mysterious kind
of honey; on stated occasions the tribes of
savages surround this tree and worship it
by shouting and dancing and then one of
their number is selected as a victim; he
tastes the mysterious honey in the cup and
Is soon overcome by strange intOxicatiOn;
the great arms OF the tree then encircle him
ir their powerful arms, and he is crushed
TO death. while his companions look on and
shout for JOY"
The great tree of superstition with its
multitudinOus and poisonous branches is
still crushing the life out OF many millions