167. A Fountain of Greenbacks

There used to be mechanics that tried to make perpetual motion by combinations of wheels, shifting weights, and rolling b.a.l.l.s; but somehow the machine would never quite run. A perpetual fountain of greenbacks, of wealth without labor, is just as foolish as a fountain of eternal youth. The idea that you can produce money without labor is just as foolish as the idea of perpetual motion. They are old follies under new names.

168. What the Greenback says!

Shall we pay our debts? We had to borrow some money to pay for shot and sh.e.l.l to shoot Democrats with. We found that we could get along with a few less Democrats, but not with any less country, and so we borrowed the money, and the question now is, will we pay it? And which party is the most apt to pay it, the Republican party, that made the debt--the party that swore it was const.i.tutional, or the party that said it was unconst.i.tutional? Whenever a Democrat sees a greenback, the greenback says to the Democrat, "I am one of the fellows that whipped you."

Whenever a Republican sees a greenback, the greenback says to him, "You and I put down the rebellion and saved the country."

169. Honest Methods

So many presidents of savings banks, even those belonging to the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, run off with the funds; so many railroad and insurance companies are in the hands of receivers; there is so much bankruptcy on every hand, that all capital is held in the nervous clutch of fear. Slowly, but surely, we are coming back to honest methods in business. Confidence will return, and then enterprise will unlock the safe and money will again circulate as of yore; the dollars will leave their hitting places, and every one will be seeking investment.

170. Silver demonetized by Fraud!

For my part I do not ask any interference on the part of the government except to undo the wrong it has done. I do not ask that money be made out of nothing. I do not ask for the prosperity born of paper. But I do ask for the remonetization of silver. Silver was demonetized by fraud.

It was an imposition upon every solvent man; a fraud upon every honest debtor in the United States. It a.s.sa.s.sinated labor. It was done in the interest of avarice and greed, and should be undone by honest men.

RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS

171. The Crime of Crimes!

Redden your hands with human blood; blast by slander the fair fame of the innocent; strangle the smiling child upon its mother's knees; deceive, ruin and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and your case is not hopeless. For all this, and for all these you may be forgiven. For all this, and for all these, that bankrupt court established by the gospel, will give you a discharge; but deny the existence of these divine ghosts, of these G.o.ds, and the sweet and tearful face of Mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. Heaven's golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless wanderings in the lurid gloom of h.e.l.l--an immortal vagrant--an eternal outcast--a deathless convict.

172. Faith--A Mixture of Insanity and Ignorance

The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous.

It is the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance; called "faith."

173. What the Saints Could Cure!

The church in the days of Voltaire contended that its servants were the only legitimate physicians. The priests cured in the name of the church, and in the name of G.o.d--by exorcism, relics, water, salt and oil. St.

Valentine cured epilepsy, St. Gervasius was good for rheumatism, St.

Michael de Sanatis for cancer, St. Judas for coughs, St. Ovidius for deafness, St. Sebastian for poisonous bites. St. Apollonia for toothache, St. Clara for rheum in the eye, St. Hubert for hydrophobia.

Devils were driven out with wax tapers, with incence (sp.), with holy water, by p.r.o.nouncing prayers. The church, as late as the middle of the twelfth century, prohibited good Catholics from having anything to do with physicians.

174. The Sleep of Persecutors

All the persecutors sleep in peace, and the ashes of those who burned their brothers in the name of Christ rest in consecrated ground. Whole libraries could not contain even the names of the wretches who have filled the world with violence and death in defense of book and creed, and yet they all died the death of the righteous, and no priest or| minister describes the agony and fear, the remorse and horror with which their guilty souls were filled in the last moments of their lives. These men had never doubted; they accepted the creed; they were not infidels; they had not denied the divinity of Christ; they had been baptized; they had partaken of the last supper; they had respected priests; they admitted that the Holy Ghost had "proceeded;" and these things put pillows beneath their dying heads and covered them with the drapery of peace.

175. Crime Rampant and G.o.d Silent!

There is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand of murder has been paralyzed--no truthful account in all the literature of the world of the innocent shielded by G.o.d. Thousands of crimes are being committed every day--men are this moment lying in wait for their human prey; wives are whipped and crushed, driven to insanity and death; little children begging for mercy, lifting imploringly tear-filled eyes to the brutal faces of fathers and mothers; sweet girls are deceived, lured, and outraged; but G.o.d has no time to prevent these things--no time to defend the good and to protect the pure. He is too busy numbering hairs and watching sparrows.

176. How Criminals Die Serenely!

All kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death with reasonable serenity. As a rule, there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any discredit on his profession. The murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest on either side, smilingly exhorts the mult.i.tude to meet him in heaven. The man who has succeeded in making his home a h.e.l.l meets death without a quiver, provided he has never expressed any doubt as to the divinity of Christ or the eternal "procession" of the holy ghost. The king who has waged cruel and useless war, who has filled countries with widows and fatherless children, with the maimed and diseased, and who has succeeded in offering to the Moloch of ambition the best and bravest of his subjects, dies like a saint.

177. The first Corpse and the first Cathedral

Now and then, in the history of this world, a man of genius, of sense, of intellectual honesty has appeared. These men have denounced the superst.i.tions of their day. They pitied the mult.i.tude. To see priests devour the substance of the people filled them with indignation. These men were honest enough to tell their thoughts. Then they were denounced, condemned, executed. Some of them escaped the fury of the people who loved their enemies, and died naturally in their beds. It would not be for the church to admit that they died peacefully. That would show that religion was not actually necessary in the last moment. Religion got much of its power from the terror of death. Superst.i.tion is the child of ignorance and fear. The first grave was the first cathedral. The first corpse was the first priest. It would not do to have the common people understand that a man could deny the Bible, refuse to look at the cross, contend that Christ was only a man, and yet die as calmly as Calvin did after he had murdered Servetus, or as King David, after advising one son to kill another.

178. The Sixteenth Century

In the sixteenth century every science was regarded as an outcast and an enemy, and the church influenced the world, which was under its power, to believe anything, and the ignorant mob was always too ready, brutalized by the church, to hang, kill or crucify at their bidding.

Such was the result of a few centuries of Christianity.

179. An Orthodox Gentleman

By Orthodox I mean a gentleman who is petrified in his mind, whooping around intellectually, simply to save the funeral expenses of his soul.