Widnes Examiner. — 1896-01-04 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

TALE OF A TUE.  Sir,—A recent writer in the " Nineteenth Century " engaged in the discussion on the alleged Agnosticism of the undergraduates, spoke of the freshmen coming to college as " prejudiced in favour" of the popular religion. And this is so. Children are steeped to the lips in religious prejudices, and all reasoning on such subjects is forbidden as a danger to " the faith." And the natural result ensues. Hence we see acute business men— men who have succeeded in business solely by means of the logical employment of" reason " in that business— suddenly suffer a complete change, and become the victims of unreasoning belief, when the subject of religion comes on the carpet. Such men. so to speak, seem to keep a vacant plot at the back of their mental business premises—a sort of lumber-yard in which to pile the most incongruous and incompatible religious notions. Here, among the rejectamenta of saner minds, he can revel in vague indefinates, and indulge, unchecked by his business hour reason, in the dear delight of thinking that 2 and 2 may sometimes make five, if the exigencies of reconciliation demand it. An excellent illustration of the ill effects of this prejudicial training is afforded by " Amos White." in last issue. This gentleman—if it be a male indeed, the hysterical style almost forbids the thought—has been so thoroughly steeped in these prejudices.as to be incapable of re asoning himself free from them.. He 'brings his back-yard to the front with a vengeance. I have not the advantage of knowing our " Amos" and therefore, for aught I know, his front may be all back. As a substitute for reasoning he has off by heart two sets of names. One set— Voltaire, Hume, and Paine—he keeps for indiscriminate vilification, the other set for equally indiscriminate adulation. If our friend would, for one brief hour,leave off his hysterical and exclamatory style, and come down to the consideration of facts, he might learn something to his advantage. Instance: If the scales of prejudice could fall from his eyes he might learn that no such person as "Jesus Christ " ever lived upon this earth! Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew, and most certainly would not have answered to the Greek appellation. Christ—Kristos—the Anointed was a posthumous title which Jesus never, in all probability, ever heard as applied to himself. It is the outcome of Greek mysticism and genius for fabline. Now, Amos the candid, is like most other Christians. He has evolved from his "inner consciousness" a theory of Christianity which is as like the real article as law is to equity. Calvinism is the most logical and Biblical form of sectarian Christianity. The murderer of Servetas reduced Christianity to a focus, and accentuated its horrible dogmas. Modern refinement rejects Calvinism as too atrocious for entertainment. And, when such as Amos White "rush in where wise men fear to tread," ani assume the role ot defenders of the faith, it is their own dearly beloved misconception of it, the creature of their own brain whose cause they so valiantly defend, and not the dour and immoral reality that condemns " unbaptized babes a span long to eternal torment." Finally, as to his " matter for thought" where do "the precepts of the new Testament teach men to abolish slavery ?" Nowhere in the Bible, from title page to Colophon, is the abolition of slavery advocated, or spoken of as an evil to be got rid of, instead of which we have the tramp's maxim,"take no thoughtifor the morrow."—Yours,