Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1911-05-18

charlatan, lacking in moral courage,
ignorant, untruthfuly Not at all.
They protested against my appoint
ment because the fact that | am So
cialist prevents these churches from
getting the support of people who have
money and whose use of that money is
determined by their prejudices and not
by any sense whatever of a sacred
cause by which alone it would be con-
secrated. A denomination which calls
itself liberal or claims to be made up
of free churches in which such thing
can happen is an organized hypocrisy,
and it is idle for anyone to think that
it can or does serve the cause of real
religion"
Mr.. Brown sums up and concludes
his statement in the following trench
ant and decisive language:
Il do not forget that 1 have many
good friends in this city, and 1 am
grateful for their friendship. But I
know we'll that the conditions do not
yet exist here which will permit any
thing that may justly be called a free
church. This society is not religious
body, in my judgement, 1t has never
fulfilled the conditions that make a
body of people religious. A religious
body would be body of people held
together solely by the sense of such
purpose to be served as subordinates
all other things to it alone. There is
mt Unitarian church anywhere that
answers that description. Our church
es prate of freedom and talk of indi-
viduality, but they are false alarms
Their boasted freedom is an illusion,
and the only individuality they care
about is a counterfeit, false and mis-
leading. Their members cannot hon
estly make their own those noble words
of Lowell:
" He's true to God who's true toMan
Wherever wrong is done
To the weakest to the humblest,
meath the all behOlding sun.
That wrong is done to us, and they
are slaves most base
Whose love of right is for emselves,
and not for all the race.
'These churches are made up of
lot of insulated atoms, disconnected
with the beating life of the struggling
world, and with no reason for being.
We are insane if we think that such
ma organization can accomplish any
thing vital for or in the world. 1t
can do nothing but advertise it's own
hypocrisy and sterility, and that is ex-
actly what it is effectively doing ev-
erywhere.
my friends, I can't waste what
years of my life l may have left by
staying in that kind of an organiza-
tion. l must find way of making a
better use of my life. Do you say that
this step means privation, tragedy,
loss, perhaps the breaking of old ties,
even the wrecking of my life" Let
me answer: "The man who is deter
red from doing his duty by fear of any
of these things has absolutely nothing
to give the world his life is worth
less, mere piece of rotten wood. The
world has been pretending for over
eighteen centuries to worship a man
who faced and experienced all these
things, and you tell me I will wreck
my life if l go out of the church. Do
you know what would do to my life
if, accepting the conditions which this
hypocrisy and cowardice
which we call church imposes, 1
should stay in it. : By so trying to
save my life 1 would lose it. I think
too much of my life for that. l can
permit the artificial and false stand
ards which dead church and a deca-
dent state would impose on me to de-
termine my conduct. Life is too sa-
cred for that. l owe something to
the future-every awakened soul does
| owe debt to the souls that your
is now wrecking. 1 owe a
sacred obligation, because of what l
know, to innumerable souls in prison
in the prisons of blighted lives, in
the prisons of ignorance and falsehood
and superstition. My own integrity
depends upon it. I cannot look any
one love in the face unless / prove
myself true to the best that is in me.
cannot again accept the limitations
5hese churches impose Only in free
1om can the soul grow. Only in fidel-
ty to itself can it be a blessing to an
other.
"Religion for me is not in the
will be in the church.
am leaving the church in obedience
% the summons of religion and life. l
hall do what in me lies to serve the
,ause of enlightenment, of industrial
md social and spiritual emancipa-
iion.''
A. J. BRANNAN,
Tracy City, Tenn.