The independent. [volume] (Elizabeth City, N.C.) 1908-1936, 1927-02-11
MAN HAS ABOLISHED
FEAR OF THE DEVIL
And That Is Why Old Time Religion Is Losing
Its Grip Upon The Imagine and Conf
dence of an Enlightened World,
Says Saunders

Says >
The unique achievement of
man III the twentieth century
is the abolition of fcar-fcar OF
the supernatural" declared w.
o. Saunders. addressing the
KiwaniS Club at WilliamSton.
n. e.. "Wednesday. And with
the abolition of fear continu-
cd the speaker. "man has cary
cd out for himself the task of
formulating 4 new religion.
Every great world religion to-
day was founded upon human ignor-
ance and human fear. Man WAS
a slave to fear for thousands upon
thousands of years. While the
Jews were still semi-barbarianS
living in desert. great cities had
been built upon the banks of the
Nile. Civilization WAS old i'm Egypt
before the Egyptians put the He
hrewS to work and taught them To
make brick. Civilization WAS old in
Babylon. And tO the East were
Persia. India and China with civili-
ZatiOn more ancient still. In Persia
indeed the civilizations of East and
West had met nearly 1000 years
ago and established II civilization
that is the wonder even of the
modern world
"Every one of these ancient civil
ZationS had its state religion and
every religion was religion of
fear. Primitive man waS afraid;
afraid of the thunder. afraid of the
night. afraid of death-afraid even
of himself The universe was peo-
pied with good and evil spirits.
with ghosts and SOblinS and devils
AMI gods. And everywhere the
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''PricStcraft thrivrd ami great re-
licinuS cults were established.
Temples excellin@ i'll ma>SlvcncSS
aud grandeur the greatest church
architecture Of our own resource
ful times arose in Egypt. in Bah
ylom. in India. i'm Greece and III
Rome. Fear stricken men relied
upon ihe priests ana lh'lr iai'l-
ful ""dS 10 keep on evil spirits ann
invoke the aid ot the good SplrltS'
thr "odS. ines" ancient filS!"hH
served man very well me! hlad"
life cndurablr; they took much ol
the fear out "f life: they gave
Ignorant and helpless man SOME
thin"--if only Il rctd-t0 lean upon.
The Hebrews. first under the
influences of the E"vpiianS for whom
they shaved. again under the influ-
cnce Of the Babyionians and at last
under the <uzerainty If the Per-
SLAMS developed new religion com
biming the best of the more ancient
ones. They took the moh"thelS'ic
idea from the Egyptians, thclr laNS
from Babylon and the mcSSlahic
idea from Persia. Hut the new re-
li"ion which 1hcy gave Ihe WORTH
WAS Il religion of fear.
"rhcn came Jesus with decided
Improvement upon Judaism. Jesus
humanizcd god. Jesus belonged to
no church, established no church.
baptized no one. wrote no DOCKS.
From what we can gather from his
acts ana preachihSS he nlane S'l-
cere ami noble ciiort I" XIV, "'"',
pam oI hie ilS'cd" vi P'"" VI
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