The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1910-07-17
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/: The CURSE OF MISDIRECT- :;
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lA SOtFtI tOuetA loIlh Ol Tue uOtIs
OF my house to meet me, when l re-
turn in peace from the children OF
Ammon shall surely be the Lords,
and ! Will offer it up for burnt offer
Ing So Jephthah passed over unto
the children of Ammon TO fight
against them; and the Lord delivered
them into his hands And
Jephthah came TO Mizpeh unto his
house. and. behold. his daughter came
OUT 10 meet him with timbrels and
with dances. and she was his only
child; and beside her he had neither
son nor daughter. And it came TO
pass. when he saw her, that he rent
his clothes. and said, Alas my daugh-
ter, thou hast brought me very low,
and thau are one OF them that trouble
me; for | have opened my mouth unto
the Lord, and | can not 20 back And
she said unto him, My father, if thou
hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord,
do 70 NE according to that which hath
proceeded out of thy mouth foras-
much as the Lord hath taken ven
geance for thee of thine enemies, even
of the children of Ammon. And she
said unto her father, Let this thing
be done for me; let me alone for two
months, that | may go up and down
upon the mountains and bewail my
yirginity, | and my fellows. And he
said, Go. And he sent her away for
two months; aud she went with her
companions, and bewailed her virgin
/ iiy upon the mountains. And ii came
/ to pass at the end of two months,
| that she returned unto her father.
who did with her according to his
vow which he had vowed Judges
11:3O-39."
This is one of the cruelest. most
brutal incidents recorded in Bible his
tory and was doubtless preserved by
the Jewish scribes who fixed the
canon 10 convey several important
truths, one of which was to warn fu.
/ iure generations to what excess IS
religious fanaticism may be carried
/ through misguided zeal. 1t is this
phase of the story to which particular
attention will be directed today. The
incident is rarely referred to in the
religious writings and discussion
OF our own times, and lest We for
| get the lesson is here reproduced.
Fanaticism, the parent of intol-
erance, has been the curse o! civi!iza-
ton as far back as we have any
record of humanity's doings. and it
has usually found expression in its
| NEST violent form through excess of
/ religious zeal nourished by the dis
ordered imaginings OF a servile brain
/ The story OF the sacrifice of this young
virgin, whose aspiration was that OF
every Jewish maiden of the period, is
revolving to even the so-called heat h.
en- of our own times. but tragedies just
as cruel and just as ineXcusable have
been enacted all down through the
Christian eras. and from the same
motive-a blind devotion to some
imagined obligation to Deity. Forget
ting that the God of the Bible, whom
they profess to serve, "desirest not
sacrifice, and delightest not in burnt
offerings" but that with Him, ITO do
justice is more acceptable than sac-
lifice," religious zealots have made
the ages hideous with the groaninss
of their prosecuted victims.
Had it not been for fanatic zeal the
Nazarene Philosophers dream OF the
conquest of good over evil, when He
shall have put down all rule ana a4l
authority and power" and destroyed
even death itself, the last enemy to,
be overcome, might have already
been realized
This is a universe in which the
operati II of physical forces, set in
mo,ion for a definite purpose to be-
carried out without shadow of tu,n-
ing are controlled by order and not
disorder These forces all move to-
ward humanity's perfection, and work
ing in harmony with them. only good
can come to the race-the Unseen |
Hand guides il along the line of etern. |.
al progress, and the Everlasting Arm
upholds it in the slippery places. The
course is ever onward and upward. /.
But fanatic zeal refuses to work in |
harmony with the law of eternal prog
ress-it tears loose from the Guiding /
Hand and comes under the power of /
evil. the strength of which. whatever
its genesis, is increased and perpetua-l !
ted over humanity by such misguided
resistance TO the Divine plan for up
lift. Force" of this kind, which, IN