The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1914-06-09
A Letter From Mr.. Rives.

erance comes of religious monopoly
by any sect, whether it call itself
Protestant, Catholic, Christian, Bud
hism, Shintoism, or whatever name.
1t has the monopoly, or where the
minority must bow, and take the
crumbs, and for either professionalism
to take the ignorance of SuperstitiOuS
Catholicism, or Catholicism to take
the ignorance of Professionalism, and
tell it as the essence of the whole
propaganda of that faith is to make
the truth lie. The history of the in
QUESTION in the Spanish Netherlands
and the history of dominant Protest
antism in Scotland-and the perse-
cutions of Mary on the one hand and
the reprisals of Elizabeth on the
other prove this. | was shown
copy of the Menace, an Anti-Catholic
sheet, yesterday. where the atrocities
of ignorant priests in Mexico were
told with the vividness of actual sight
and in every Protestant church is told
the evils of concubinage in Cuba, and
the lack of legal marriage among the
poor on account of the fees demanded
by the clergy, that they might bless
their nuptials, when every student
of the Spanish common law knows
that neither the Intervention of a
clergyman or a civil officer is neces-
sary to contract marriage, but that
if two unmarried persons Of marri-
ageable age of opposite sex, acknowl-
edge themselves as husband and wife
in public that constitutes marriage.
This is the common law marriage OF
New York, coming from the Dutch,
who got it from the Netherlands, of
Florida, and all of our states which
originally belonged to Spain, or
which were settled originally by peo-
pie owning allegiance to any OF the
Netherland confederacy. Now we in
Georgia are going to choose govern
or, elect representatives and senator's,
and the Protestant churches in the
state, joining with thei~ brethren of
the Catholic, are wanting, and have
been wanting for years, to elect a SEN
ate and house, with a governor IA
yoring the amendment to our cOnsti-
tuition eXempting endowment funds,
gifts and legacies left to ellie
institutions and educa-
tional foundations from taxation;
yet no man has been asked
for his views on this question that
spells monopoly of such institutions,
and gradual freezing out of all pri-
vate endeavOr where churches OF any
faith want to obtain property, for ii
any building for any purpose is erect
ed beside another building for the
same purpose the one owned by the
party be he church or individual, eX-
empt from taxation, can by lowering
it's rents so that the taxes will rep
resent the profit, drive the one not
so exempt to sell at its own figure. /
This gave the Friars the monopoly
of land in the Philippines, is the
cause of the agrarian troubles in
Mexico, and has caused and will
cause trouble in any country, where |
the people, blinded by their desire to
promote education, allows this mo- |
nopOly of what should be, primarily, |
a state function-the fitting its flu |
ture citizens by education for their |
duties as citizens, by this exemption |
Of church endOwments to the church |
of any one or all denominations. And |
| would not minify, but would rather !
magnify, the church's duty to con- |
serve the morals of the people as in |
dividuals, and as the state, but the |
church's activities should be limited |
to it's peculiar tenets, as to teaching, |
and to intoxicating in the homes the |
religion of the Christ, and from its +,
pulpits warning men and states of |
the damnation that comes from for |
of God, and their duty to :
Him who rules all things, and with |
out whom not a sparrow falls. For |
it cannot be said too strongly out OF |
the family religion of a people grows !
its greatness, and from the lack of |
this saving religion of the family I
states date their fall. History re-
peats this story in every age. France, !
growing strong at the top with its
mobiles forgetting God, its priesthood |
living from their exemptions of taxa
ton with the mobiles in idleness, and /
vice had to have the
bloody Robespiere, and the reign of |
terror; yea, the enforcement of a |
woman of the streets as their god be- |
fore saneness returned. The demand |
was never greater for an unhampered |
pulpit by men called, and endowed OF |
God, to warn men of evil, but they |
must be like the Christ, content to
let Caesar attend to Caesars affairs,
while from their pulpits they hold the |
Herods and Pilates, who rule to their
accountability to God for their acts; |
and, mark you we'll but for the cor
ruption of the church by its Annas,
md its Caiphas. Christ had never suf-
Tered at the hands of either HerOd or
Plate, and so long as the church Oc-
3upies the space, and the path laid |
out for it by the Master in His life.
and teachings, so long will it accom-
Dlish that for which He was sent, the |
of earth from evil, so that
The time may come when He shall see
he travail of His soul, and shall be |
satisfied that the redemption is ac-
when every man shall sit !
under his vine and fig tree, and none !
shalt modest or make them afraid.
ANDREW P. RIVES.