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11 WE AIM TO OUT DOWN ERROR AND ESTA BLISH TRUTH
OLUME XV NUMBER 47 LEXINGTON KY MARCH 1907PUBLISHED WEEKLY 150 A YEAR IN ADVANCE
I J SATAN
v GETS MORE RESPECT
Than Jehovah Which Is Regarded As
Blasphemy by the Orthodox Com
ment On the Death of a
Famous Italian Poet
AUTHOR OF GREAT
GREATHYMN
HYMN TO SATAN
BY G W FOOTK in London Free
thinker
Carducci t e great Italian poet and
Freethinker who has just been buried
at Bologna amidst the grief of a whole
0s
nation made himself famous forty years
ago by liis Hymn to Satan The very
title of this poem is enough to upset
tho godly To treat Satan with re
spect and even admiration is shucking
to address him as if he were intellectu
ally and morally superior to Jehuvah is
I blasphemy This is how it strikes the
orthodox Christian Hilt in thi3us in
tio many other matters the orthodox
Christian is wrong
Satan is the great vague impressive
j figure of the Bible When the sons of
God present themselves before the
Lord in the first chapter of Job Satan
comes also amongst them and the Lord
addresses him in terms of the highest
courtesy They bow to each other like
n couple of old Castilian nobles And
when the compliments arc over the
Lord boasts of his servant Job as a fine
and noblefellow but Satan throws cold
water on the heat of the Lords exulta
tion by asking the dramatic and search
ing question Dofh Job fear God for
nought tIt This was n fresh view of the
1r slit thcLr lls t htip44 IIt hJlm j1 I
Iightx before so to resolved to put Job
to time test
Satan is hero the challenger He
asks the Deity himself if ho is perfectly
s sure of what he is talking about And
is it not curious that while one ac
count represents Satan as tempting him
to take the census which was certainly
a step in civilization Over against the
Lord with his omnipotence and his cock
sure omniscience stands Satan with the
probe of his perpetual interrogation An
cient custom is confronted with the
spirit of novelty solid conservatism
with the quick spirit of revolt Is it
so r Should it ho sot Shill it bo so t
Such is tho eternal gradation of ques
tioning which is the vital essence of all
progress
progressIt
It was this spirit of revolt that Car
ducci addressed III the Hymn to Satan
In our own smaller way we touched the
same point many years ago in an
Imaginary Conversation we wrote be
tween Satan and Michael After remind
ing Michael of his unsuccessful effort to
send a breath of freedom through the
courts of heaven Satan continues tin 1
that old piece of ours in the following
manner
1 animate all who fight against ser
vitude and somnolence The heroes and I
martyrs of liberty and progress 1335 I
in every ago have drank of the strength I
of my spirit I inspire the revolter the
scorner the sceptic the satirist I still I
distribute the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge I am the soul of the world i
The fire of my inspiration may con
seine but it gives unspeakable rapture
I am the Prometheus of the universe j
and keep It from stagnating under the
icy hand of power Milton Goethe and l
Byron mado mo tho hero of their great i
est poems and felt my power in despite I
of themselves Burns spoke of mo with j
n tenderness he never displayed towards I
God Wits and humorists own my sway I
I moved tho minds of Aristophanes and I
Lucian of Erasmus and Ilabclais and 1
through the pen of Voltaire I shattered I
tho mental slaveryof Europe rnlll I
tho lightning of the human mind I j
level thrones and altars and annihilate I
blinding customs With the goad of n i
restless aspiration 1 urge men on until
they outgrow faith and fear until the
Slave stands erect before tho Tyrant
and defies his curse
The statement that Satan is tho hero
of Miltons OoethoV and Byrons great
est poems is perfectly true Lot us
look at the facts of tho case for a mo
mentMiltons
Miltons genius dilates to its greatest
capacity whenever Satan appears upon
the scene God tho Father in Paradise
Lost is a pompous old fogo and God
LI
the Son is n prosy prig list Satan is
ac
always magnificent tlLat a grand pic
ture Milton draws of the fallen arch
angel with his splendid presence his
sleepless intellect his indomitable pride
se
and his invincible courage Some of
Cromwells characteristics crept into tIle
portrait Tho great Homicide sat as one
of tho models for the great Rebel and
the result gives the poem its finest I
majesty And when Satan is humiliat
ed as in the hissing imkc episode tvs
feel shocked and pained ns at the spec
mete of fallen greatness trampled into
the dust This also is very noteworthy
God tho Father never shivers at tho
thought of his creatures damnation lit
js ojjy cgnccred f I vindicate his own
character but Satan as he watches the
innocent couple in happiness in the gar
den feels compunction at making them
pawns in tho game between himself and
the lord of heaven and deplores the
necessity of having tojfdo what else
though damned he would abhor
Goethe puts uearl hut the intellect
and all the best ot the morality of
Faust into the mouth of Mephistoplielcs
Satan thus become for tho great Ger
man poet tho spokeshuin of all sorts ot
daring ideas and profound reflections
Mephistopheles is the real soul of
Faust Faust himself und Marguerite
are but the foils for that subtle and au
dacious spirit Scnlimcntalism lies
made too much of them For after all
there is great force in Lambs question
as to Marguerites value and his re
mark that Marlow gave his Faust no
less a star of beauty and romance than
Helen of Greece
I
And docs not Satan dominate in
llyrons superb Vision of Judgment Y
Sotithey George III Michael himself
these urn nil nothing to the tremendous
figure of tie lord of hell All tho re
bellious force of Byrons own nature
wen lo the cojtjsitloii of that grand
design And where lib gazed a gloom
pervaded space Magnificent yes and
truel For tho rfbels spirit must first
flilt cast jvglotfli over the sparkling
inanities of false ant Foolish life
Sabbathless Sati nt as Charles Lamb
quaintly called himAjs tho idealof en
ergy and activity He is also the ideal
of intelligence His worst enemy never
called him n fool liven tho clergy ad
salt that ho represents what they call
the pride of intellect And thus it is
that they call every sceptic who looks
as if he meant business n child of the
DsviL To believe what they preach
and do what they say and pay what
they demand is to he a child of God
Jehovah on the other hand only rep
resents irresponsible power All the
bloody wars all the deliberate wicked
ness all the abominable cruelty in tho
Bible arc the work of his hands or the
execution of his orders or the perpetra
tits of his friends The Bible calls the
Devil tho father of lies but even this is
a wretched slander for when the Lord
wanted a lying spirit to go forth and
fill the mouths of the prophets so that
Ahab might bo ledon to his doom at
RamothGilead there was no need to
send to hell for a clever practitioner
the Lord found an excellent volunteer ntI
his very elbow in heaven
Why should not men if they must
worship somebody worship Satan for a
change Wo never heard of anything
really to the discredit of this person I
age lie never taught men to love their
enemies and hate all who differed from
them he never Incited men to cut each t
others throats for it difference of opin
ion he Lever instigaled religious wars
he never aided iuthe oppression and
spoliation of the people he never coun
tenanced slavery and the degradation ofI
women he never promised to damn
eoplo through nil eternity for exercis
ing their wits and trusting to their com
mon sense Tho name of God has I
fenced about all crime with holiness
ns Shelley said but no such charge was
ever brought against Satan lies clean
er sweeter more moral niur in every
way more eligible as nn object of wor
ship than his great rival But tho prin
cipal advantage it appears to us is
that he allows people to think nay
urges them to think In this respect ho
is an improvement on all tho gods wo
ever heard of So three cheers for
Satan
SutunDEBATE
DEBATE IN PAMPHLET FORM
Just out debate on tho Bible and Evo
lution between A A Snow and U
G Wllkerson 100 pages GJOOO
words Price 15 cents Arknnsaw
Traveler New Hope Ark
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< i
4 fl
SACRED BOSH OF
THE HOLY BIBLE I
A New Revelation as to How God Created the
World and Why He is Not a Gambler
The Creation of Space and
the Greatest Thing
God Did
How He Hade the World On the Square
and How it Got Round
REVOLUTIONARY EARTH BROUGHT
BROUGHTREVOLUTIONARY
REVOLUTIONARY MEN
BY JAMES ARMSTRONG
In the beginning Coil created the
heavens und earth
It was lucky for God that he began
when he started and just as luckyno
doubt that hu quit when he got through
hi making the world notwithstanding
Jehovah was all powerful he had to be
gin at the beginning the same as I have
done in the present writing And yet it
is hard lo understand why lIe could not
have begun in the middle or started in
ut both ends and played they against
the middle lie didnt do this per
haps because ho was not a gambler
sdidnt believe in taking a chance and so
ho commenced at the beginning and
stopped at the end of his labors
It is hardly correct however to say
that God did not believe In taking n
chance for there were no chances to
take before he began at thin beginning
tojunka UiUWj yjjuaCjpd jUd not even
take time to make the unverse for he
made time too and pretty fast time at
that when you consider the work he
turned out in six days I This is of
course a joke How the deuce or
rather the ace for there is but one
God could God have worked fast or
slow for that matter Certainly it
would be blasphemous to speak of God
as being fast although he wasnt a I
bit slow with the wife of Joseph 1
Sod simply worked and evidently work
ed himself as he was the only One
there was to work and that he suc
needed in stringing himself pretty
well wo may easily believe from that
hurt of the Scriptures which tells about
bits drowning the world when he saw hey
had made a mistake 1
How in the world could God make a
mistake He didnt make it in the
world He made it out of the world
You sec when God made the world lie
started in on tho outside and worked
from the surface to the center He had
ti > do this because the earth did not
have any insides until God made them
Of course he made the outside too for
God made everything The fine theo
logical point here is that he began on
the outside and when he finished the
outside he got on the inside of the out
side and made the inside in where it be
longs
I have an original idea of how God
created the outside of things You see
God is everywhere Before creation he
filled the whole of space and when he
began to create the first thing he did
was to make space So he pushed over
a trifle just enough to make room for
the solar system spueeed himself upIS
it were and thus made space Although
I wasnt there I am theologically cer
aims he did this for if God filled the
whole of space which lie had to in order I
to keep up his reputation as an infinite
God then the only thing he could have
done to make room for the world was to
pull himself together And so after all
Ho began to work on the inside slant
it was impossible for him to squeeze
himself together from the outside
In the beginning God shrunk is the
way I think tho Itible should begin He
shrunk to make space for the world
but he didnt shrink to make the
world Perhaps he should have shrunK
God knows Having made space foil
then made the heavens and earth Ho
made land ho made fire ho made air
ho made h too Ohl Yes He was a
star creator Hut the greatest thing
God did perhaps was the creation of
day and night at tho same time Seeing
however that they would not get along
well together he mado the sun whose
business it was to keep them apart
JM 1
It is nut recorded whether the sun
was made in the east or in the west in
the morning or in the evening ll
to 11 Id out have been made in the morn
lug because it must have been dark
when He started to work and it could
not have been made in the evening be
cause it must have been just about day
light when He finished Thus we can
only say that He made the sun when he
made it and as soon as lIe turned it
loose it began to chase itself around time
earth a thing it continued to do until
about the sixteenth century of the
present era when running jnto the tele
scope of a Dago astronomer it stood
still This is no josh for it would
be so impious to Joshua little bit ever
about so sacredn matter Ill standing
atilly Uiuwever it may be said without
ncril ge that the sun sctttho moon a
bad ftxampk as it has been standing
stilljin the Kentucky and Tennessee
jiatujliiL jfQiJuauygiueaxtin9 >
As wriginally turned out the cargo
was fourcornered flat and stationary
There is nothing surprising in this
howeer when you consider thin perfect
inonuply God hndIIIi a worldmaker
The aimmng thing about it all is that
everything He made was nut cornered
The sun doubtless was made round be
cause it couldnt stand still on the
square and the earth was made
square because the Lord knew that it
would some day have to get around tho
sun and being an honest God he did not
want the earth to do anything crooked
In spite of all this the earth is consid
1
erably indebted to astronomy for trim
ming its corners and thus making 1I
good revolver out of it so it might
stand somu show with the shooting i
stars and other celestial revolutionists
It is a remarkable fact that after the
1
earth became a revolutionist its inhabi
touts also l > egan to get revolutionary t
This was most likely a simple case of i
eiuse and effect something that Je
liiivah and his worshippers never did
take any stock in and so when science I
began to make its way in the world the
same crowd who believed in making
something out of nothing tried to put on I
GAL TWp ULAUK s
the reverse English or maybe it was
Latin and make nothing out of some
tiling And I have never understood
why the scheme wouldnt work unless
it is due to the fact that God and
Christians are not schemers but work
ers workers of miracles and oollgre
gations And thus when Galileo said
the earth still moved not because it did
not have the relltfol warring Chris
tiaras would gladly have kept up thoI
runt why the church moved with it
amid it has been hustling ever since to
keep from being evicted
NO BLUE LAWS
FOR OKLAHOMA
I
Retina Doctrine Promulgated by a Daily
Newspaper Publisher In the Ner
State Or the Sunday Ls T
Q PltJOJ i
The Daily Oklahoma in the issue of
February I l last commenting on the
prospective enactments of the newly
created Legislature of that State has
the following to say editorially
EXIT TilE BLUE LAWS
The Ifluo laws of tho Puritans
which had their Inception in the com
I pact signed on board tho Mayflower in
1020 and which were injected into the
code by the founders of the colony are
to be practically wiped from thin statute
hooks of Massachusetts and tho people
of tho old Bay state may play golf
I base ball or other games on Sunday
curd do many similar things which the
present laws forbid
This action of the Legislature will
permit tho delivery of perishable goods
and theatrical baggage
This action also settles n long this
pute between the navy and tho preach
ers of 1rovincetown The sailors of the
North Atlantic fleet with their own
money bought a piece of land near
1rovincetown and fitted i upns an
athletic field giving it the name of Boh
Kvtins field They have never been per
mitted to use it however owing to the
objection of the preachers of Province
town who insisted upon thin strict en
forcement of the law Tho controversy
became so bitter that tho navy depart
ment threatened to establish nnothci
Sunday rendezvous for the fleet hold
ing that it was absolutely necessary to
provide recreation for the sailors of the
JleetTho
the changing sentiment of Xew Sng
land which has always been held up as
a shining example by advocates of ro
strictivo Sunday and sumptuary laws
will be noted with interest by both
friends nod opponents of the idea that
the minor portion of n community or a
commonwealth shall determine the
privileges of the whole
NOVEL PROPOSITION
TO CHRISTIANS
Author of Endless Prayer Chain Asked
To Furnish a Guarantee and the
Writer Will Have a Copyright
BY N L CLARKE
I
jIIQeIIduetl a ewlkih r rndlt umpray
er was sent to me The copy attacued
explains itself
You will note the signature I hero is
nothing said about what will Happen it
tho chain is oroxcn
Vou please note that the prayer Val
sent out by Bishop awrcnce but neilli
cr he nor the writer who sent it to nit
gives n persona guarantee that such will
be the case and asserts that it is said
that catch will uXlelwnce great joy ou
the ninth day
uw I want the Bishop to either put
up his personal guarantee that such is
the ease before 1 go to such trouble tr
the writer who sent it to me If they
dui t and 1 do make up my mind 10
try it and I dun t receive the promised
joy i am going to say that he lied and
if it was the writer that promised the
joy and 1 dont receive it 1 am going to
say that the promise was based on su
perstition and should not be practiced
only to a view to improve the writer
in writing and to increase the revenue
of the lost office
1 think it a good scheme for fourths
class post offices and 1 think since writ
ing the above I shall try the experiment
with my patrons as 1lun postmaster
and if it works well I shall rejoice as
such is promised in the endless prayer
chain I
chainanti
I anti going to withhold my thanks to
the Bishop for the idea until I try the
exporimcnet and if it works well I am
going to take out a copyright and sell
it to all fourthclass postmasters
Please allow mo to give the readers i
of the Blade a little bit of informa
tion ana history of myself in order to I
show the relationship that exist be
tureen Jesus and myself I think we are
close kin and I would be glad for some
rcauer of the Blade that is an expert inI
tracing relationship to tell me what
kin we are
His stepfather was a Jew and so was I
mine his was n carpenter and mine
was a merchant his took charge of him
at birth mine took mo lit five years
old his father died and so did mine
Jesus was n Socialist and so am I
to loved wine and so do I he stole n
mule und I am thinking i will have to
do the same he was crucified and I
dui t know what in the devil will be
come of me
Any information on the above will
be thankfully received by me
NOTICE
A few more of those books left
1ainert Ago of Reason and Facts worth
knowing Both books for fifteen cents
in ltlllllllII than the wholesale
price For missionary work
Address A U BKXNKTT
UENNETTNorwalk
Norwalk Conn
I
10
HUT I
LETTER TO BISHOPS 0
1
Written by F F Passmore When the
Methodist Conference Was Held M
In Denver Some Years Ago
i
REPRODUCED BY
I
PERSONAL REQUEST
The following caustic letter was first
published in the columns of the Seed
Sower at Indianapolis upon the occa
situ ofa conference of the Bishops of
the Methodist church at Denver Colo
Our readers will find much of interest
in it und it is now reproduced in the
lllade upon request of a personal friend
and subscriber
subscriberlASSMOiIES
1ASSMORKS OPEN LETTER
The Great Denver 1reacher Writes a
Hot Letter to the Bishops of the
Methodist Church
On Some of tho Great Questions of Day
Dear Ulsholsl write you some of
the great questions that are facing us
as the professed ministers of the Lord
Jesus Christ I crave your attention
while I point out what an unfaithful
nnistry has done in the past and is
doing today to Uphold wrong oppress
ion ignorance immorality and crime
and to lead the people away from Christ
rather than to Jiim
You see or rtlkould see that the crim
f
inal classes are ruling this nation and
the church and that in the midst of w
inUll tt
and starvation and that a wave S
UlacK wave ot immorality and general oIo
rulliIs rolling across this nation
We have no Sabbath the worst men
are promoted to ollice the poor are op
pressed womanhood is outraged drunk 1
enness gambling horse racing political
corruption suicides lynching and
burning men alive after mutilation are
some of the things that we see in this
country that claims to be a Christian
nation a nation that has IS Methodist
bishops 10000 Methodist preachers
and some millions of Methodist mem
bens a nut Inm that one third of her
population claims to be Christian For
te v shame
I think it time to call a halt and see
where the trouble lies anil who are re
sponsible for the condition of things
as we see them today
Dr Hamilton said at our Boulder
conference a year ago that a hireling
ministry prolonged the age of slavery
lie could have said that a hireling min
istsywas the cause of slavery
I have been looking about to see
where our bishops and great ministers
stand in regard to right and wrong and
1 am sorry to say that in most cases I
find them on the side of money and
corruption and against the Lord Jesusi
Christ and his cause
It IaliI that Republicans compelled
women on Market street in this city 1
Deliver to go to the polls and vote the j
Republican ticket at tho late election
The M K Church had a candidate urn
Webb on that ticket for sheriff Chan
cellor McDowell and Bro brooks of I
Colden stood up in preachers meeting
and advocated the election of Uro Webb
for whom the fallen women it is salllI
were forced to vote Fur very shame j
Christian Ministers indeed
When our bishops and leading minis
ters arc in a league with saloons brew
eries Sabbath desecrators oppressors ofV
the poor despoilers of womans virtue
gamblers harlots and the nation de
stroying Republican party it is time for i
some one to speak out and interpose an
objection against the church being made I
an agent of evil in the cause of sin and
darkness As no one just now seems in
clined to the task by Gods help I ad I
dress myself to the duty
The Christianity of Christ is tho hope
of the world Christian men have al
ways been the salt of the earth the light i
of the world but the ministry as n
class opposed the progress of man and
1clnss
with the church as an organization have
through the ages keen on the side of
wrong against tho right on the side of
the oppressor against the oppressed tho
slaveholder against tho slave It was
f
Continued on Page Four
e
it
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