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Blue-grass blade (Lexington, Ky.): n. Sunday, January 30, 1910.
Blue-grass blade (Lexington, Ky.): n. Sunday, January 30, 1910. Blue-grass blade (Lexington, Ky.). 400dpi TIFF G4 page images Blade Publishing Co., Lexington, Kentucky 1910 blu1910013001 These pages may be freely searched and displayed. Permission must be received for subsequent distribution in print or electronically. Blue-grass blade (Lexington, Ky.): n. Sunday, January 30, 1910. Blue-grass blade (Lexington, Ky.). Blade Publishing Co., Lexington, Kentucky 1910 $IMLS This electronic text file was created by Optical Character Recognitio n (OCR). No corrections have been made to the OCR-ed text and no editing has be en done to the content of the original document. Encoding has been done through an automated process using the recommendations for Level 1 of the TEI in Librar ies Guidelines. Digital page images are linked to the text file. It GRASS BLADEtt t VOLUMNE XVJLU I LEXINGTON KY SUNDAY JANUARY 30TH 1910 NUMBER io- jI L OBSERVATIONS ON THE RELIGION OF CHRISTIANITY c 4 jWhat I Believe fan Why LnO BelieItt f CHAS H SCHWARTZ fI By Chas H Schwartz Oi Will you do something for me Some night when it is dark and the J sky is full of stars will you stand with uncovered head and let the god 45D of your youth whisper to you in the sighing of the night wind I believe t of your early faith will be re etered I know you dont like to fieJrjof these things but I cant help willbchunestwitlr godJThe above is an extract from the letter of a friend of my childhood days For her benefit and others of my Christian friends and relatives who are good hearted and well mean ing persons I am writing this article I will endeavor to make my views on religion generally and Christianity in particular so plain that there will never more be any question in regard to my belief My religion is to love my fellow man to hate tyranny hypocracy pre variation and superstition To do nil the good I can here and now To help the unfortunate by word and deed and not shirk my share of the toil and grief that falls to the lot of mortal man I believe that nature is the mon mother of us all We know not whence we came nor whither we go We have no proof or assurance of a life beyond the grave We should do the best we can here and now the fu ture will care for itself Early in life I was a good Sunday school boy I was brought up in the nurture and admonition of a Camp bellite god In spite of this excellent t early training I began to doubt at the ago of fourteen when an im pious uncle placed in my hands a copy of the Age of Reason It was the first Freethought book I had ever seen and I became an ardent Infidel while reading it That book was the means through its conversion of myselfof making unbelievers of my parents and brothers with one exception Not one has even gone back into the fold in the twentyfive years that have pass ed since the Age of Reason first came into our home The uncle who thus led us to the fountain of truth a few years later passed into the great beyond having been mangled in a cotton gin in the sunny Southland If there be a here after he be none the worse off for his beliefs in this world for he was true to his friends and ideals and frank and unhypocritical in his un belief or infidelity If there be no hereafter ho is just as well off as any Christian however devout and pious he or she may have been- I do not know that ho ever harmed any one in this world though he did sometimes among the Undo guid by his persistence in hunting and fishing on the Sabbath and his funny stories adopted from the Bible He had a way of making folks laugh when he told the story of the flood Sodom and Gomorroh Joseph and 1 Old Mrs Potiphor Abram and Sarah his wife who was fair to look upon and AbemilekjKing of Gerer Folks didnt wear long faces jump up and down and howl for mercy when he talked religion All this impressed me wonderfully I wasnt long in discovering that Freethought wits a religion of good cheer and happiness of Liberty Truth and Love I saw that tho old brands of orthodoxy I had been from childhood had a tendency to narrow ones mind and to create envy dissension and strife The Campbellite said one must be II soused clean under in baptism the Dunkard souse em thrice face foremost the Methodist baptize em any old way so you get em into the church the Catholics insisted on sprinkling with holy water whatever that is at flue dollars an ounce and the priest takejthe money- I wasnt g discovering that every pious of Adam had a different r heaven and insisted that his road was the smoothest straightest best and in many in stances the true road to ever lasting 1U fhat the average priest any rel5gion flgtcher would lie and cheat swiJ1dl every onewho dare to dispute thoHtruU of his wonderful and elastic scheme salvation The more I read of Christianity the surer I was that these were the only tactics possible for the church was built upon the sands of superstition and falsehood and was doomed to fall despite the efforts of the priesthood to save the world for Chris- tI found that what was known to the civilized world as Christianity was simply a man made religion like allothersa special creation of man himself to hold in subjection his weaker brother man I have found that policy Christian ity is the favorite brand with all those who have an ax to grind as it were that most Christians are such for revenue only and not from sin cere and honest motive- I believe that no greater set of hypocrites liars and general Al grand rascals ever disgraced a Christian na tion than many of our public servants regardless of creed cult or craft For fifty years they have in true orthodox fashion legislated the wealth of the land into the hands of a favorite few and left the many miser able poor and unfortunate brethren to poverty sorrow and starvation that Dives might put fifty thousand dollar doors on million dollar churches in which to worship god who was born under mysterious circumstances in a sheep stable Little towns all over the land are supporting three or four ministers feeding them on theII fatted calf and yaller chicken clothing them in fine raiment and educating their im pudent progeny while the children of the poor are clothed in rags grow up in ignorance and die in poverty and is Christianity Such is the Christian conception ofa god that he wills all just as it is on earth to day I have no respect for such a god but I love my brother man Man is a reality but the god of Christianity is a myth an imposition an outrage and reflection on the intelligence of everyone who believes in such a mon sterSince Eve loved the gentlemanly serpent not wisely but too well the world has been cursed by too much god and since that time woman has been a slave to both god and man St Paul whoever he was the alleg ed founder of militant Christianity issued the edict Woman learn in silence and subjection from your hus bands Aye even god himself pro nounced his curse upon woman II And thy desire shall be unto thy husband and ho shall rule over thee This curse was pronounced upon Eve be cause she dared to investigate the science of Eugenics and could tell a man when she saw one It is but tural Eve should prefer the society of the intelligent and fearless Mr Satan to that of the ignorant and stupid landscape ganderer Old Man consolation is left woman Eve was the brains of the family Adam hadnt sense enough to come out of the rain In spite of the alleged in feriority of woman she has a decided advantage and monopoly of goodness over man I believe woman is gener ally good not because of her subjec tion to man but in spite of it Man can thank his sister woman for what little virtue and goodness there is in the great heworld The clergy have passed the choice saying of St Paul down the centuries and today we find woman listening in silence and subjection to hypocri tical skypilots while the world is plunging deeper and deeper into mis ery and pious rascality- I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children saith the Lord God unto woman I am accused of blasphemy for entertaining certain views in regard to the cause of all things or God if you please but what manner of man must he have been who makes his god curse woman in her noblest function that of moth erhoodI not believe God ever conversed with Eve or any one else on any sub ject whatever There is no such God I believe those stories were made and circulated by the priesthood to cause the ignorant masses to fear what they were taught to believe was a God The fear of the unknown was ever fostered by the priesthood of every nation as an effective means of gov erning the illiterate masses The Jews were the only people who were ever on speaking terms with God When the Roman Catholics made the acquaintance of the holy family Je hovah retired from active service and the pope has been managing for him ndmirabljrevor incet I have the principal writings of all the great religious teachers or foun ders of religions and find that all those before Christianity except the Jews were humane in their treatment of heretics or those who differed with them in belief It remained for the worshipers of one God one son and a ghost to butcher and burn ery one who did not subscribe to their creed or cult The Jews did it by express com mand of God himself see Numbers 31st chapter and the story of bloody Joshua The Christians did itand for a thousand years the world was at the mercy of the hordes of sanctified anarchists Mahomet founded a belief in one God and rivers of blood were shed in the propogation of it Even today hundreds of U Christian dogs are ing butchered in the name of Allah The Greek Catholics in Russia are also busily engaged in an attempt to annihilate the decendants of the pa trearchal fathers who gave them their graft and god The Mormons began it and the fact that the many branches of Chris tian belief objected to having their chattels secretly murdered alone put a quietus to the Danites of the Sier ras John Alexander Dowie would have slain the multitudes in Chicago and New York had he dared The ship of Zion has sailed through seas of blood since the day Cain slew his brother Able with a rotton carrot Gold has been the god of the priest hood since the time when Moses and Aron with true Jewish instinct cor nered that metal by having it all cast into one chunk and then confiscating it to their own satisfaction and profit Luthers reformation was the ginning of the end of Christianity and as Col Ingersoll said When the last cathedral is a ruin and the last priest is a corpse then will the world be free Man created God in his mans own image The god of every nation is an exact counterpart of his creators Hence god is no better than man nor is mankind any better than its god History proves conclusively to ery student whether believer or un believer that the creed of Christianity was edited from the creeds of anI tiquity and U that all the reason we have Christianity today is because a dissolute and licentious Pagan Em peror fell in love with a Christian woman and early perceived in Chris tianity a splendid means of govern J big mankind with safety ease and mense profit to the state as it taught its devotees to kiss the hand that tote them And now gentle reader dont con damn me as incurable until you have read the teachings of Buddha Brahma Confucius Zoroaster and others- t e beautiful Agnostic philosophy of oyr own Col Ingersoll Then read the Bible Genesis 38 Exodus 31 the bokof Joshua story of Lot and his daughters story of David and Bath sheba second Samuel chapter 11 al so second Samuel chapter 13 615 and Solomon and his infamous glory The questionable story of Jesus and Isaiah 3612 one of the most loathsome paragraphs in print in the En glish language Then will you go out some night in the moonlight beneath the stars bare your head before the God of our youth and ask him how any woman cdn acknowledge or reverence the in pleasewbonVoral degeneracy Then after reading the above citations decide fort yourselves which is the purer sweeter nobler and more unselfish the creed of the Christian or the Infidels belief LibertyTruthI have less respect for the creed of the Christian than for those of the pagans and ancients Christianity placeofhave a mind of their own It places credulityandGod curse the goddess of Wisdom and t rough her all mankind for having learned good from evil The beautiful mythologies of the Greek and Roman and the philosophies of Confucius and Zoroaster and the teachings of Buddha and Brahma appeal to me for they are human and natural while the religion of Christi anity is unnatural superstition taught to mislead the masses and when in authority Christianity was ever human and horrible Now may the Goddess of Wisdom Tight your way and lead you from the lsuperstitionAto dtothe ibotrof thethrorieofrthe triune gods of FreethoughtLiberty- Truth and Love- Carbondale Colorado Continued from last column REASON and Christianitysynonymous terms and this fact gives reason to re joice for the long dark and gloomy past which was due to the ignorance fostered and preserved by the priesthood has gone and the light of reason is rapidly making this world a decent place in which to live Mans highest faculty is now reveal ing its power as never before and those who use it find no attraction inside a church that deals with imagi nary hells and heavens but oil such go direct to Nature and study her and her laws so as to know bow to life and to get the most out of this life which as far as known is the onl one we are liable to see So let us for an imaginary hereafter as all not neglect and despise this world priests would have us do but so livens to get all the pleasure and happi ness there is coming to us which if you have been a close observer is jusl about what Mr Priest has always done for he knows the good things of this life and generally gets them When the masses know enough to live ns the priest does not as he tells them to they will be so anxious them selves to live on the fat of the land and have good comfortable homes they will have no time or inclination to longer support those parasites in ease and luxury and that one thing alone would destroy priestcraft and forIonly way to do it Ore of these sky plots has rorrntly revealed the fact that the supply of Protestant preachers has fallen off nineteen andone half per cent in the United States in the last twelve years If this is not good news then I do not know it when I see t1Icl it is continual cause for rejoicing so the fact is passed along that others may feel its cheerful influence But there is still need for Freethought pipers to push the world along so let us stand by them and do our beat to keep as many agoing as possible for we cannot have too many Is your name on the Blade muster roll t Now is the accepted time to arise hump yourself and do something to keep the Blades head up JJ r REASON i FOR GREAT REJOICINGi Has the Freethinker When He LooksIat Christianitys Slow By Channing Severance When the Freethinker looks at the religious question from the stand point of general progress he has good reason to rejoice for although priests and preachers are still about as num erous as fleas on a dog they do not come quite so near running the world as they used to The power of thought since it found expression in free speech has been rapidly dispelling the errors of the past as seen in slavery to religious superstition and humanity has ac cended higher and faster in the in tellectual scale in the last forty years than at any one time since the dawn of history- It is true restraining influences are yet strong and priests and preachers hate progress as bad as ever but with the power broken they once exercised the world moves rapidly on and science philosophy and reason light the way Religious paralysis of the mind is much less common than it used to be and nearly everybody is reading and consequently thinking jn this country at leash and if the printing press continues toroll out and throw broadcast such tremendous quantities of literature embodying ideas of every kind and character the ml movement of the world is bound to continue and show increase in speed We have been tied to the dead past long enough and modern invention are so numerous and so wonderful the future with its marvelous possi bilities is causing untold numbers to turn around and look forward for a change Reading the Bible to find out what some old fossil said and thought about God and a place to mi grate to after death is not a popular pastime with the rising genera tion and Christ and him crucified is a story so stale it is producing intel lectual nausea in people who are really mentally awake Live people want live ideas and action is prefer red to living with the dead mentally two thousand years ago when Jesus rode an ass into Jerusalem and had no more idea of steam railroads tric railways automobiles and airships as a means of rapid transit than he had of the shape of the earth and its relation to the rest of the uni verse He was satisfied with his mount for the ass was as spedy as the times in which he lived and for people who passed their time thinking and talking about death and the next world the ass surely was rood enough But he isnt now neither are the ways customs and thoughts than then prevailed for this age of the world We want something else and we are going to keep on wanting the new and novel al though we are now as far ahead of those troglodyte ancestors who prob ably with fear and ignorance produced a religion which in varied forms periodIhis own thinking and does not the past through the eyes of a priest knows we have nothing to learn from those times and those people that is ofany practical benefit and the two thousand years we have been tied to them by the power of the priesthood and the force of sickly sentiment has so demonstrated over and over again They lived their lives at that time and no doubt did the best they could under prevailing conditions but why future generations should be forever tied to them and their stupid views of life and its problems is something no sane or sensible man can find out The preachers profess to think those were ideal times and conditions when Jesus was tramping around the country and talking nonsense to numskulls who comprised the majority of the residents in the socalled holy land many of them not knowing their right hand from their left but if the world were to take the backward steps nec essary to return to those dull and darks days when mental forces were slow and lifeless and all the modern inventions and discoveries that con tribute to humanitys welfare and comfort were sleeping in undeveloped brains they would dislike the change as well as the rest of us for they have become accustomed to their present environments and from choice would prefer an automobile to the longcared and poky ass of Bible times When men walked and talked with God as the records assert Jor don was indeed a rocky road to trav el and this world was of very little account compared with the next one which was seen so clearly with the j eye of faith that their principle pur pose in life was to make sure of getting into it Those times will do to talk about when playinw on sentiment and emotion for the past has a great attraction for people who think they are spiritual minded and that was a spiritual age but no one with sense enough to see the superiority of the present wants to go back to primitive times when human beings lived like cattle and groped in darkness and ignorance that to us now would be appalling But why are we so far ahead of those people today t Sim ply because we have devoted time and attention to this world and got rid ofreligious restrictions that made ra tional thinking displeasing to the iriests God The of tpeopleprogress and rise in the scale of life than the ass of antiquity who is right where he was in every respect when Balaam beat him on the back and his mission in life was to be a beast of f burden The ass is typical of human beings whose brains are paralyzed f with religion for intellectually they are coequal and the masters of both see they are well supplied with bur dens that they may fulfill their mis sions as God intended Every time I see an assthey call them burros in the western mining campsso loaded down that only their ears are visible I always think ofreligious slaves and workers doing the will of the priest and the same respect is felt for one as the other But as previously remarked these human asses are not as numerous as formerly and the priest is losing his grip surely and steadily as education which is now a crime mostly in Spain and Russia reaches the masses and their thinkers begin to work It is a great thing to think for it is the basis of all power and every privilege that mortal man monopolizes and that is why the priest wants to do it all for the dear people and ever hastsince he first assumed the right and claimed that God gave it to him and his species Let us never forget the remark those enemies of Freethought and free speech made when the printing press was inventedthere was no such thing you know when their pow er was omnipotentwe must de stroy it or it will destroy us In this case they came pretty near being able to read the future for the printing press has put them on the run and they are now fighting for istence instead of domineering the whole world of Christendom as they once did In every direction we be hold the decay of priesteraft and Continued in column 4 JBLUE GRASS BLADEII FOUNDED By CHARLES CHILTON MOORE And edited by him until his death February JAMES E HUGHES Proprietor 126128 Uorth Limestone Street Lexington Kentucky- P Box SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mall postpaid 100 pr yr In advance Five new yearly subscribers at one remittance cents each Foreign subscriptions postpaid tt60 per year ADVERTISING RATES One Inch single column Insertion cents one month or four Insertions 3100 six months 500 one year 800 Quarter column Insertion 200 one month 400 six months 2000 one year 3000 Half column whole column or larger advertisements at special rates on ap plication ALL SUBSCRIPTIONS to the Blade will be discontinued at the expiration of the term for which the subscription has been paid up In advance The address slip on tie paper will show subscribers the date of expiration o subscription Back numbers or numbers omitted will be sent If asked for upon renewal in case of discontinuance SHOULD ANY SUBSCRIBER change his or her address advise this office giving both old and new ddress as desired THE OFFICE of publication of the Blade Is at 126128 North Limestone Street Lexington Kentucky to which all Free thinkers will be given a hearty wel come THE BLADE is entered at the Fostoffloe at Lexington Kentucky as second des mailing matter ADDRESS ALL COMMUNICATIONS TO JAMES E HUGHES Box Lexlng on Kentucky DR WILSON ON THE SICK LIST Cincinnati 0 Jan 221910 Dear JimThis is the first I have sat up for three days Have been down with a bad case of Tonsilitis I am so weak and nervous I can hard ly writeI two reports of Paine meetings Be sure and get them in this week if possible if not next I should have sent them in sooner- I also enclose two dollars for two books Your wife sent me four I paid here for one and have ony one left but it is engaged and a man will call for it any time Send me down a bunch right away have several or ders in sight This is my limit sc goodnight Your friend- J B WILSON When one religion may have become universal and been accepted all y the nations of the earth and theo logy established upon a scientific ba- sisas now are chemistry mathema tics and other positive sciences then but not till then may it be in troduced into our public schools justice and equity to all the conglomerate constituency who are obliged t o contribute to their supportWett stein WANTED TO BE SHOWN The Sunday school teacher was ex patiating on Gods infinity of detail says an exchange and told the youthful class of doubters that even the hairs of their head were numbered The redheaded kid with his face full of freckles pulled a hair out of his head of the boy from Paradise Alley and saidII Teacher ask God the number of that one When in countries that are called civilized we see age going to the workhouse and youth to the gallows something must be wrong in the system of government Thomas Paine SillicusDo you believe there is honor among thieves f CynicusNo they are just as bad lord JOES LAST SERlIIONe By Joel M Lowry When Joe landed on Ellis Island his whole being vibrated with pent up energy and ambition Like the igions before him he had come to America the land of his drdeams to become great to win fame and riches He was willing to work willing to fight and conquer he knew that all things worth having are worth fighting for And the light of joy came into his eyes as he seated in a train that was carrying him westward with giant strides planned his triumphant conquest He will use his wealth to benefit his fellowmen he will He will endow churches send out missionaries to convert the heathen and save him from eternal damnation His name shal be on the lips of everyone as that of a good Christian Six years have passed since JO first set his foot on American soil He has fought struggled hard worker day and nightyet he is still poor still at the bottom of the ladder that leads to fame In his hard struggle for a mere existence he came face to face with hunger with misery he has rubbed elbows with poverty and de pravityseen the life of the under world in all its deplorable squalor And he came out stronger an wiser The terrible bitter struggl- of the inhabitants of the slums and the dives has taught him a lesson one which he would never forget Joe has learned to think He would no more accept the teachings of th shepherdsias they mouthed loudl and pet beliefs of ward and punishment He woul not as yet disprove and these beliefs the grip of tradition and dogma the ties of sentiment were too strong to be broken sudden ly Yet he was growing his radio- of viewpoint was widening and grad ually he felt the chains of bondage an American in ever way now Joe has never acquired thu characteristic ability of Americans tl- make friends And so he friendless and forlorn as he was often visited different churches in town ii order to as he himself expressed it II find out if the preachers have awake ened if they have ceased to be re actionary if they have learned something new One Sunday morning Joe decided to attend the services at the First Presbyterian an ultraaristocratic church that boasted of its preacher as being ihe highest salaried divine in town He had the reputation of a scholar and a thinker and was known afar as an eloquent orator The sermon was in full sway when Joe entered the spacious and beautiful edifice He felt painfully out ofI place as he scrutinized the beautiful painted windows and the mural decorations which he knew to be works of art worth a fortune so he tiptoed it to one of the empty pews in the rear and sat down Hardly had he done so when he heard the pastor an elderly gentle man of stern appearance and fault less speech give vent to the following condemnation thundered down upon the pious and virtuous flock with tb voice of ireliTo visit a place of shame is a sin a dark indelible blot upon the soul of man whosoever does so forfeits his immortal soul to SatanImmediately Joes whole thought mechanism was one mighty protest His mind was working fast feverishly fast producing facts upon facts proofs upon proofsupsetting all the pretty highsounding phraseology o f the man in the pulpit He knew who was to blame Ha has learned and gained his knowledge in the school of Life He knew the law of cause and effect Still his desire to be fair and just asserted itself and Joe said to himself Now old fellow you mustnt judge too harshly That preacher with his long carefulyplanned cation his long service in the pulpit and his contact with all kinds of people surely knows whereof he is speaking it is you who cannot com pacified the protestations of reason Joe became all attention again eagerly listening to the preach erss words The pastor having delivered him self of everything that seemed to weigh heavily on his mind became lovable kind the tone of his voice was that of a loving forgiving fath er trying to advise his wayward son and lead him back to the narrow paths of virtue and righteousness He described the happiness one can reach and reach onlyby becoming good Godfearing Christian and raising his arms exclaimed with an oratorical flourishII Look around you brethren and behold how happy and contented all those are who re3t safely in the embrace of Jesus how kind to their neighbors how charitable to the poor and crippled And again Joes brain was threatened with a revolution In a kaleido way every experience of his that gave the lie to the preachers statement rose before his eye pawing by swiftly one by one only to make room for more and more Hero he saw the Bishop of Olumtz riving poor old starving and freez ng peasant women to jail Their terrible offense they went into the woods belonging to His Eminence and gathered twigs and branches off his trees lying on the ground to keep the spark of life glimmering awhile longer in their tortured miserable he saw the Vicar of Blowitz ho of the unctious everpresent smile bent back and hooked fingers as huC was renting his land to the peasants He saw how through an underhand trick having bogus bidders bid high for the land the peasants had to have in order to live he got them to him a bloody rental So high wa the price they paid that they hardly had enough left to keep body and soul together He their shepherd their religious father to whose Vicar ate they belonged so hinted was he even by these ignorant peasants thin when he died no one would attend his funeral and the Holy Church hay to hire three old women to weep his funeral saw them all the socalled 1Christians stripped of their disguise the mask torn from their faces thei features betraying all the low emo tions that ransacked their miserable breasts Here was Lust Greed Hun ger for Gold Debauchery and Glut witywith thesve never so hideous before as they did now thrown upon a large single canvass dehghst eye even Joe was overwhelmed by Facts stern undeniable Facts yet he did camte Oh God he whispered per form a miracle Give me a proof of Thy pressure of Thy existence If Thou hast created me in Thy image why dist Thou not endow me with an indomitable belief in Thy exist ence Or didst Thou create me when in an angry mood Must I suffer for Thy error Joe controlled himself once more and suppressed the desire to walk out The atmosphere inside the church became foul and suffocating to Joe the whole structure too narrow to hold his awakening intellect he felt a desire a strong painful long ing to run run away from this place to Natures fresh meadows where the air was pure and unpolluted Still he waited waited for the miracle The preacher was ending his ser monoHe offered thanks for th t blessings God so graciously permit ted mankind to partake of and co cluded with this exhortation Every man or woman no matter what their station in life may be hould offer prayers of thanks to the Lord for their daily bread Asudden chancre came over Joe his brain was afire his heart beating- wild and fast his whole being state n of feverish activity Some thing some powerful agency within him was being crushed crushed for ever In this pitiable condition h was possessed by one predominant thought Out out of this place I He rushed out of the church an if pursued by Furies He wandered around aimlessly for hours and hours weary restless broken down It was late in the afternoon when he reached a park The cool balm y air of a waning Autumn day had n healing refreshing effect upon him YIinAs he layed there dreaming look ins at the stars above him the chino of his thoughts was gradually clenr ins giving way to one Hut commanded expression He the Master All powerful and All knowine permits a woman driven by despair to sell her bodv for the price of broodlIn1 sends her to sell for sinning H the Allmerciful asks her to than Him because He eives hef ample opportunity to sell herself for the price of her daily breadthe price of eternal damnation lOb horrors As the hours went by Joe felt a serene feeling of peace take posses sion of his whole being He felt the grip of tradition and dogma loosening growing weaker and weaker in stinctively he shook himself as if to throw the broken shackles far away from himself and raising his arms in ecstasy of joy exclaimed II Oh I am freefree at last Frcs from Fear Superstitionfree from degrading beliefs At the Altar of Freedom Love and Knowledge I renounce Faith forever and ever So he lay there dreaming deep into the night happy supremely happy and peacefula unit at last coming to its rightful heritage in the Universe And once you could hear him whisper There are many many many men winging the same struggle for emancipation from brain enslaving beliefs Is there no friend ly hand outstretched to them in token of brotherhood SPAINS NEW RELIGIOUS LAW The new religious law of Spain provides for state support of any member ofa religious order desiring to renounce the vows taken provides for the state to enter monasteries without ecclesiastical sanction pro vides that no order shall hold property in excess of the objects for which organized provides that no religious order shall receive any donations quests or legacies and if nny such orders engage in trade that they shale bo taxed the same as othsr businesses This from the benighted country of 3the inquisition certainly is rem rka bleAppeal to Reason THOMAS PAINE ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AT- CINCINNATI Prof Arthur Morrow Lewis of Chicago will deliver a lecture in G A R Hall Sixth between Vine and Race in Cincinnati on Monday Jan 31st 1010 at 8 oclock p m His subject will beIIThomas Religionr s cisco Ferrer the Educational Emanci pator of Spain A musical program will be render ed Admission Free 1The lecture will be under the aus of the Cincinnati Society of Truth Seekers WHAT IS THE FUTURE TO BE- LIKE 1 By C E Johnson What is the coming future What is the future to be like Will history epeat itself Will there be uplifting and ad vance and will science truth and reason mark the epochs in the ing history of the future generations or will the cniel ignorance and super stition of priestcraft devils and gods heavens and hells myths nn legends dragons and snakes miracles and fables dishonesty and cor ruption greed and lust leave their bloody finger prints upon the annals of time If this cruel injustice that has left its bloody imprints upon the sands of time is to go on and enact and re enact the bloody wars creel injustice and horrible tortures Iwould a thousand times this bloodstained old planet would drop into n crevice of the sun and never more would his tory record the horrible tales of crime that has been committed by this hy drn headed monster in the name God and Christianity The cruel murders of innocent chil niHnful moans of nnimnl nnble suffering the terrible and unjust deaths of men and women have left their charred and broken bones with the ouiverinp flesh of millions of lives lost in the awful outrages of cruel and unjust ChriRtianityIWill the p ople never awaken to realization of this horrible reality the cruel drama that has been enact ed on kmorant and superstitious fie inanity for thousands of years Freethought and Freethinkers should mount the platform of truth and reason and rive the A B C of the matter and the X Y Zof the situation that humanity has been in for aces past And try to teach that truth is the foundation of knowledge and reason the triumphant victor of prejudice If this was put in action with a nev erdyincr energy for the betterment of mankind civilization would mark a grand epoch in the history of the world Madill Okla The following is intended as a TIer ClnsIt BIBLE The Philosophical Bible Class Book Bible Myths and Their Par allels in Other Religions by Doane The Class Reader first reads the lesson for the day then the Quiz- Master begins the memory training of the class The reader silently fol lows tho Quiz in the text The Qtti Master after receiving nsatisfactory answer in substance reads the an swer in the quiz Ifn question has been put to three members of the class without a satisfactory answer the reader without request proceeds to read that portion of the text ered by the question The question is then again put to the class etc A J CLAUSEN Singing Cosmian Hymn Book Lesson for February 6thThe Birth day of Jesus ChritOhapter XXXIV to Page 36- 3QIs December 25th the birthday of Jesus ANot known QThe early Christian churches had no uniformity of observing the Nativity of Christ what different months did they use Alrny April and January QDo the Christian churches know anything about the year Christ was born ANoAAccording to Irenaus A D 100 Christ was born when ASome 20 years before the time assigned as his birth AWhat did the Rev Dr Gillette say concerning the time of Christs birth AThnt there are even greater doubts about the time than there is about the place AWhat did the Rev Gillette further state concerning the time and place of Christs birth AThnt we have no clue to either the day or the time of year or even the year itself in which Christ was born QRev Dr Geikfe in his Life of Christ tells us what concerning the time of Christs birth AThnt the whole subject is verv uncertain naming n number of writ ers who place the time in different months and different years OWhnt writer pretends to know nil about the year of Christs birth but not the month AAlbert Barnes AWhat does Albert Barnes fur ther claim concerning the number of months fixed by different learned men ns the month in which Christ was born AThat each month in the year has been claimed by different writers QCanon Farrar tells us what concerning the time of Christs birthAThat no data whatever exists to enable us to determine the time with even approximate accuracy 0 Bunsen attempts to show that Christ was born about fifteen year before the time assifnved and that hr lived to bo how old AFifty year- sOAnsnatre says the Jews placer his birth near a centurv sooner d the asinmjd epoch while others havi plnced it how many centuries R C- 1AThird century B C nWhot authority does Basnnnri use to sustain his clnim that Chris was born in the third century befor our epoch Tli Rook of Wisdom writ ton 250 B C Q If the wrilCeroftheOospe according to Luke is correct Jesu was born when AIn the year 10 A D sebius places Christs birth when DThe ecclesiastical historian Eu the time Cyrenius waIAAt governor of Syria about the year 10 A QWhat blunder did tho narrator of Luke make concerning Jewish history A Placing tho taxing of Cyren ius in the days of Herod QAt what time do we find the first traces of tho 25th of December being instituted as the Nativity of Christ Jesus A Tho first certain traces of it are found about the time of the Em peror Commodus A D 180102 QIn what century did the church generally agree upon the 25thof December ns the birthday of Christ AIn the fifth century BLUEWGRASSoBLADE otSUO PnDliSta Is Box Lexington Kv If you want to be of service to the cause you es pouse and at the same time help some of your friends you can have The Blade sent to ten of them a full year for Five Dollars TICKETSzTO THE SOUTHand SOUTHEAST ON SALE DAILY VIA QUEEN CRESCENT ROUTE GOOD RETURNING UNTIL MAY 31st 1910 For rail Particulars callas or write B C KING 1Ito T A101 BMalaBe lexicon Ky J xx + iBladeMail Bag 6 6 rHTerse and Pithy Comments from Various Readers on Sundry Subjects Likes Blade Much Better Mt Vernon OJames E Hughes I find the Blade much better since its death Its appearance after death proves that there is something in Spiritualism after all In my opinion it is much better in its present form Never return to the maga t zine form as it then resembled a Jesus journal or God paper although i one glance soon dispelled such an idea However I am sorry to see so much about Thomas Paine and his Age of Reason which is only a godbook Many Rationalists are worshipping this dead god worshiper Paine shat tered the Bible but pave us his god in exchange His religion if adopted would prove as degrading as Christi anity Hoping the Blade wont die again I am yours truly HAROLD BANNING Glad to Know the Grand Old Paper is Still Going Muncie IndFriend JimEn closed is post office money ordder for 150 to pay subscription for my friend Dr William Smith whose time for the Blade expired in August 1909 After rending the announce ment that the Blade would suspend publication after December 12 I was considerably surprised to learn that the announcement was premature but I am glad to know that the grand old paper which I have taken from its first issue many years ago will sur vive and carry out the wishes of its noble founder With warm wishes for you personally and sincerely hop ing that the Blade may long live and continue to do valiant service in the sacred warfare against superstition I J BOWLESam yours alwaysT Noble Work of Oharley Moore Not in Vain Madill Okla James E Hughes I am glad to see that the Blade is not dead and that the great and noble work of CHarley jfroori frnbtln vain Some time back I sent an article to the Blade in reply to Dennis Leahys article which was never published and also latter on sent r short piece of poetry for publication which never appeared and which I greatly reset ted the loss I am again sending a short article which you may or throw in the waste basketC E JOHNSON Got Happy When the Blade Come Soldiers Home Ouincy TIlsMr EditorSometime since I was in formed that von had pronoun ed the sentence of death on the Blade Well I dressed mysnf in sackcloth and ashes and set down on the snow un der a dead tree and cursed evervthinr in general and Hughes in particular Then imagine how sneaking I felt when I was raking my brain fa find more big cuss words our trood ladv mail deliver handed me the good old Bind with the kind face of old Both er Moore in the nothwest corner Then if I had believed in old Jphn vah T would have asked him to fnr eive me for being a damn fool in lieving without investigating Then I rempmbored it was heriditarv T hd been tnneht to believe first I felt like I did when T dropped the belief that an old hookednosed Jewish par penter died that might live forever- so I donned my soldiers uniform got happy and rejoiced and if anyone had told mo the world was coming to an end I would not believe it until I saw old Jehovah standing with one font upon the land and the other on the sea declaring that time should bo no more So this is my apology and dont stop the Blade that little check will come as it has for many years G B WYATT Milton W VaMy Dear Hughes Find check for 25 copies received this morning and for 25 copies of Bro Severances tribute to Thomas Paine It does me to see the memory of the grenteit thinker of his age coming into his own I must dis tribute at least 25 copies among the benightedI zealot tell nw this morning that Col R G Ingersoll died express ing to those around his death bed that he at the last moment realized that there is a God Can you give me the address of Mrs Ingersoll or any of the children If so I will write and ask them for the facts and let you publish them We must take bet ter care of his memory than was tak en of the memory of Thomas Paine in the early days after his death cJ Orthodoxy is beginning to show its fangs in the rural districts as to Col Ingersoll and is hiding them as to Thomas Paine Let the family speak and lets put it of record for the benefit of future generations He cooled hell but we must cool the people who seek to besmirch his memory Not long since I was driving thr gh this county with a gentleman from Rich mond Virginia He wanted to make a business killing and the first oppor tunity knowing that in the rural dis tricts it is almost always safe to jump on Infidels he landed on Col Ingersoll as having recanted on his death bed We got busy right away He soon convinced me that he had read nothing of the Colonels last hours I think he had been loaded up by some preacher and had not taken the pains to find out if the powder was good or not Long live the memory of him who said The world is my country to do good is my religion and of him who said Hands that help are bet ter far than lips that pray In the bundle of Bro Severances speech put a copy of an 16th Blade Mine of that dote didnt come Cant afford to miss one Success to the Blade and the cause it represents C R LEWIS Approves Our Editorial Vera S KEditor Blue Grass BlndeI greatly approve your claim and that of J D Shaw that tolerance is the object of Liberalism while iconoclasm is to be used as a weapon for selfprotection I do not believe in surrendering all to a vanquished foe it is too much like paying 200 000000 for the right to establish Christianity on a captured territory I also note that W C Cope denies our right to use words in their etymological sense and requires Free thinkers to accept the traditional and inconsistent sense which fire and thumbscrews have enforced only for a few centuries push I refer particularly to Divine In finite miracle God and such terms which of themselves have no mean examine a razor we look for an implement to shave with and we are not prejudiced in our choice on account of the fact that some tough citizens have carved each other with razors In examining a razor we find that its thin blade and thick back fits it for hard usage or deep cutting and only its keen edge is an inducement for such use by people lacking the skill or judgment to fash ion better or cheaper weapons When we examine the word God we find no authority for its use in the Bible and its introduction the work of transcribes The original word being Elohin which indicates the ancient term for II the forces of nature is wrongfully translated II the gods while the original word is displaced by the more modern word God prohibited even by the again we have the word Jehovah which in its various forms is defined in the text of the Bible to mean human reason ToII divine is to thinkII di vining rod is an instrument to dis cover unseen metals water etc 1 e to think for us and this is exactly what our preachers pretend to do who identify themselves as divines or spiritual advisers A close inspection of the character or nature of the human mind discloses the fact that time and space are annihilated in its use We can visit any planet mentally We can calculate its distance its periods what amount of food and fuel or time required to enable our body to visit the comet in its journey we can calculate the density or rarity of the ether and jhfls disclose the possibility of the physical journey We do not require a piece ofwood or iron to be in our brain to enable us to think of II woodor iron in fact the mind of mankind is both infinite and divine It is through perience we acquire Reason Reason and jt is only by subjugating selfish ness that reason attains a seat in the council chamber of our intelli gence The writers of the Bible un derstood this and because Reason came through experience they called it The Son of Man Depending also as our possession of Reason does on the cogitation of our experiences by this divine and infinite mind the authors called Rea P f 19091909 1 2 2 Blue Grass Blade Bound Volume i Containing Fiftytwo Copies of The Blade and all handsomely x ibound in Blue Buckram with gold letters 2 y 300 Reduced from last years price 300 1 xSubscribe NOW and get your name on the list in time I 1 A STILL BETTER OFFER 1 i For Five New Subscribers For Five New Subscribers i iWewill send ONE COPY of the Bound Volume i 3 FREE OF COST 4 To any person sending us five new subscribers in one club at the regular rates before Dec 31 1909 THE CLUB IS PREFERABLE GET UP ONE SECURE A COPY FREE 2 iBLUE GRASS BLADE Lexington Kr tN N N N N N N N N N N I N N N N N NON tt + Ie Ie ++ N N N N N LN N N N N N N N +++++++ son The Son of God born of im agination or Eve Why should Freethinkers surrender the advantages stolen from the ancients when theChristians murder ed Hypatia and destroyed the key to its text so far as they were able to do Why did they kill this woman anyway I have never seen a reason stilted in print so I will sug gest their reasons The original was written in hiero glyphics a term meaning secret or secret writing because objects or pic tures of objects were used as words leaving the mind to determine their significance Whatever an object in spired in ones mind became the meaning ofa picture of such object Because these ideas in ones mind were unknown to others it was called secret or sacred writing Therefore sacred writing relates to mentaloperations and was not then used as a vehicle for historical pur poses Being introduced into Egypt where there were no mountains pyra mids were built as terms for learn ing and thus the pyramids are the first monuments to education All mental operations being sacred writing mathematics science and arts were regarded as religious We will now define the word Religion With speech and writing the mind made great advances over that of speechless animals and along with this advancement greater difficulties in its preservation Certain habits ofconduct and habits of thought were observed to be injurious to the mental efficiency and whatever tends to preserve the mind and restore it to normal is to be regarded as Re ligionMathematics having proved its worth Hypatia being the great ex ponent of mathematics was therefore a recognized priestess of Religion and to exterminate this religion and substitute another formChristian ityshe was killed the votaries de stroyed and the library burned In experimenting with scrapheaps and waste radium was discovered so before we like the early Christians destroy what we cannot understand had better investigate a little see if we do not possess the very items named and which will never be stroyed or annihilated by simple rag chewing about the names or roaring about other peoples misuse of the names F S WEAVER NOTICE OP PAINE MEETING Why may we not suppose that the great Father of all is pleased with variety of devotion and that the greatest offense we can act is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable Thomas Paine The Second Annual Dinner of the Paine Banquet Association commem orating the 173rd anniversary of the birth of Thomas Paint will be held at Hanscoms 1217 Chestnut Street Philadelphia on Saturday January 29 1010 at 730 p m The Committee of Arrangements are Messrs J C Hannon J B El AIGMaster of CeremoniesMr Frank G Bowers Toastmaster Mr Sam uel M Jones Program Piano Solo Miss Rcso Lyons N N N N NOON N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N N NON N N N N N N N N N N N N 3 tyyySSt earshIight 2A A i A 20Page Liberal I I Monthly ii YtIPu lIshed by J D SHAW Waco Texas A A Price of Subscription 1 a Year 2 Y Y 1Single Copies 10 Cents 1iY Y Write for a sample copy which will be sent free y Y 1rThe Defender of the Divine u Mr Thomas Phillips Vocal DuetMr Mrs H M Swope Paine and Woman Mrs Elizabeth Harlow Goetz Violin SoloMaster Herman Weinberg Light Under a BusheLWm H Took Baritone SoloProf G Civoin Recitaiton Mr Frank Walker Agrarian Justiceu Mr James A Robinson Violin SoloMaster Herman Weinberg Contralto Solo Miss Rose Ersner Liberty of the Press u1liss Voltairine de Cleyre Tenor SolouuuMr H M Shope The Upper RoomRev J H Amies Piano Solo Miss Rose Lyons The Slandered Reformer Rev J Carey Phillips Benediction RevE M Frank PAINE BANQUET AT CLEVELAND OHIO The following invitation tastefully gotten up has been received at the Blade office 1737 A man of three nationsIDisowned by them nil The Freethought Society of Cleveland will hold a THOMAS PAINE BANQUET Forest City House Cleveland January 29 1010 7 p m ToastmasterG H Lyttle Life and Public Service of Thomas Paine J C Heald Great Men Isador Ladoff Polities of Thomas PnineHH Kline Paine Humanitys Friendu i A Culbertson Recitationuu1lrs P B Morlock Music Mrs A B Schram The Crisis Harry Berko- vitzRecitationuJ A Martin The Age of ReasonC J Bn- thRecitntion1frs M C Smith The Rights of lfanY H Wolf Ingersoll PnineT C Jefferies IAnd to do good is my religion world is my country J ITWO NOTED BOOKS THE Charles Chilton Moore When a young man the author had started out to walk through the Holy Lands on foot Reaching Paris he gave up the Journey and returned home He made the trip by rail and boat about three years before his death This book gives an account of what he saw and explodes numerous Christian myths It Is especially suitable for a present Cloth Bound Pages Postpaid 125 Address orders to BLUE GRASS BLADE Lexington Ky SEtDSBuckbees Full of Life Northern Pedigreed Seeds have a reputation o seed growing behind them It tf the Specialties BEANS Earliest Red Valentine lRefugeeExtra Early Stringless pod acImp Kidney Wax Davis New White Wax Clinics Rust Wax PEAS Extra Early Alaska jjoEarly Gradus Isjo Herefords Market Garden Buckbees Lightning Express jjoo Lettuce Tomato and a ol prlcesSendyour and quote Money1Vrite H W BUCKBEE SSlfackketSt Farm i5y lie zorr MD- iatNUloapnetamaaop IOJ t- ornOpu t siitwupv 9ano19 5ulg3sal8supjdoH TRIP TO by ROMEJDR1 The International thinkers was held In the City of Rome Italy September The author attended that Congress as the American delegate It Is an account of travel and personal experiences that has received an universal encomium from press and people In It religious dogmas and tales of priestly fiction are ruthlessly exposed while the general style Is without com parison In American literature of travel Cloth bound pages Illustrated Address orders to BLUE GRASS BLADE Lexington Ky makes BILLSyou thoughtful ldepartment OF LIFE that You find 1VENUEIwith Interest hat fN to say M IQN s uuuu u u uBILL OF LIFE It Is written by Mary Ives Todd the ablest writer of Liberal fiction since Grant Allen and Is a beautiful presentation of the essentially modern problem of the Woman In Business TILE WHBBL OP LIFEA monthly periodical It deals with ORIGINS the origin of Marriage of Ethics of Religion Brotherhood of the belief In Immortality It treats broadly of Love of Human Instincts and Ideals Ik takes the whole Wheel of Life treating all subjects In luchaolear plain and spicy way that the dust U shaken out and they become ai in teresting as a novel to even the casual reader Bend cents for a six months trial subscription or a quarter for a year CONFESSIONS OF lDRONEby Jeseph Medlll Patterson BROTHER OF THE RICH tent without extra charge with a months trial subscriptiontothe WHEEL OF LIFB Address lIFE PUB CO Desk At St Louis Mo 4 S I T MARRIAGE NOT WHAT IT OUGHT TO BE Some Thoughts for Those About to Take the Fatal Step By M Grier Kidder The average marriage is coupling two nincompoops in the name of Father Son and Holy Ghost the rude awakening of loves young dream i the morn of realitys ending the moonlight of romance orange blos soms covering a multitude of sins What God joins let no man sun der should be What Nature sunders let not God join Is fres love with sanity worse than selfevi dent daddy with lunacy Tainting body or mind better than tainting parentage Better a sound nigger than a sick white man Booker Wash ington than Emperor William no bodys son with sense han some bodys son with nonsense illegitimacy than idiocy At a wedding a physicians license should displace a marriage license an M D a D D Many a wedding benediction fathers a funeral sermon Begetting an incurable is as bad as murdering him causing misery no better than curing it The deformed or idiotic should be trilled at birth Bearing children to suffer is like cre ating sinners to damn Love is subtle miasmas eluding definition simpering sentiments ging the dictionary infatuations feeding fancy emotional insanitys graduating into matrimonial madness Loves approach may be gradual and calm its arrival sudden and tempest uous Like death it claims all sea sons states and ages Tennyson says its peculiar to youth and spring But an old duffer of seventythree eloped last Christmas with a giddy young thing of fiftyseven Turning jack ass isnt regulated by the almanac That marriage reminds me of two yJIpt iciieebergseollldiiiff The lover isn nuisance to all but the loved He exhausts stale sighs like an asthmatic tug boat Away from his other half hes as melancholy as a fragment of the Trinity on a foreign mission Too much love before marriage means too little after present pressures invit iig future reaction Batter friend thonIments Long engagements are like longwindedresolutions enthusiasm consumed with preparation Too much preparation like too much appe tizer does the appetite for what fol lows Be a miser of your zeal Economize your enthusiasm especial ly in love Long engagement means marriage as a variety Marriage as a variety means divorce as a variety If you cultivate monotony you must not expect it to generate variety Do not let your young man call every night If he be in your home too often as a lover hell be out of it too often as a husband Two calls a week preserve the equilibrium and keep nn edge on love You dont want to feel as if you are marrying one of your own family The engaged man is apt to think that heII fills a longfelt want that the engaged girl has forgotten everybody but him Animals are bred somehow people any how The stockbreeders brood mare treated better than his wife the mother of his children worse than the mother of his pedigreed dogs Who coerces his cow in the matter r t maternity The prenatal state of the mule is preferable to the prenatal state of his owner Should baby breeding be not as scientific as puppy breeding Bad environment triumphs over good heredity as often as bad heredity withstands good environ ment Where prohibition quenches ones thirst association kindles one hundred My good is inheritance my bad reversion My environments WittllCalvinismwas a Presbvterian Sunday at each end I was that Calvinistic combination the son of a gentleman a child of God and the favorite of the devil The composer of the Shorter Cate chism ought to have been hanged for disseminating obscene literature It took all my heredity to keep me from remaining a Presbyterian The Pres byterian church is an evangelical sweatbox Since my escape life feels like a refrigerator What is Freethought but the cold storage of reason The difference between Calvinism and Methodism is the diff erence between on asylum of insane gentlemen and a menagerie of crazy niggers You breed good colts from good sires and good dams That settles the heredity Being rich your chil dren settle the environment Result good stock Encouraged with colts you try babies Being intellectual you naturally marry a fool That settles the heredity Being rich your children are not trained That settles the environment Result poor stock Then you go around wondering Why God has punished you in your old age Doesnt heredity hold in man It holds in beast What have the number of legs to do with it Ldok at Royalty Kings and queens have bred in and in till the prince has become synonymous with pimp The best bred people were the early Americans Immigration has ruined us Drunkards luna tics and criminals have equal rights to marry Such are notoriously faithful in bequeathing their affiicL ions Being brutal they are nearer to nature The nearer to nature the more pronounced are natural traits Again crime insanity etc are in tensities so to speak The parent under an intense strain so stamps tho offspring Influencing inherited traits depends upon circumstances The criminal rarely reformed He lack the moral senses Teaching him morals who has no moral senses isI like teaching him Freethought who who has no senses Many an Intellectual brain lack the moral depart ment Few rascals are fools Good inherited traits are mote erad icated by bad environment than are bad inherited traits by good environment cause evil is more intense than Otherwise thered be no premium on goodness Only preachers and being good as easy as being bad Dont confound heredity with version Heredity your child re ceives from you reversion through you In heredity you are the front in reversion the funeral You may have an intellectual son Dont be alarmed Perhaps he went back to his g rent grand daddy for what his daddy lacks You are not necessarily the whole show So if your offspring doesnt look like you dont get mad and call marriage a failure Just so he doesnt look like your preacher thank God and take courage Draper I think says the prenatal state is uninfluenced by externals BIrthmarks disposition etjTTSSim to contradict him Jacob colored theI unborn cattle A Catholic woman bears Christs wounds in her side and hands Every Good Friday the wounds open and discharged the deeming claret A crucifix had been her mothers constant companion SoI you see when your reproduce you may expect a monkey by reversion a lunatic by inheritance or a caricature by association Such facts are known to stock breeders The English exper imented many years to get a deer- hound Thirty years of crossing and recrossing gave a mongrel another ten the deer hound Suppose youI had bred folks for years to get a Freethinker and after all this trouble and expense had nothing to show but a Socialist Reversion is the marvel of biology We often see a blonde in a family of brunettes This is especially noticeable among our colored families What is commoner than baboon types among the Catholic Irish This sounds ns flattering to posterity as disrespectful to ancestors But its true Reversion shows more clearly in the because it has been less effectedwith the artificiality of en imnpiont What is a baby but a hairless monkey During gestation eachIoccurs arrival is said to have a soul and to be eligible for hell When the child as I take it is born before evolving from prehistoric phase it resembles some remote ancestor The her mathrodite for instance Darwin says our most distant ancestors were double sexed Think of being uncer tain whether you are a lady or a gen tleman Gestation is simply quick evolution from the tadpole through different animals to teen What ev Mans Origin and Destiny By Dr A Hausman Alameda California This is the Greatest Book of modern tim s on the theory of Evolution applied to Sociology will shortly be issued in book form by tho Blue Gras Blade making a book of nearly 500 pages The author has dedicated it to Prof Ernst Haeckel and tl o great Jena philosopher has accepted the dedication 2OO 200iSubscribe Now and Save Money All charges of postage will be prepaid upon advance subscriptions The first chapters are now in the press and publication in book form will immediately follow its serial publication in the blade columns s11 scribe Now Subscribe Now JAMES E HUGHES Lexington Ky N N N N N HN N N N + + 1 + olution effects in millions of years gestation effects in nine months If that doesnt prove Darwinism what the devil does it prove Reversion shows in the male manae They were functional Otherwise we shouldnt have them Like most other orna ments they are ornamental because they were useful Once more what means the cicartrice at the spinal base in every young infant That cicartrice was the preAdamite exit for the ancestral trial The rudimen tary were functional But disuse is the mother of uselessness To keep anything make it pay for its keep Or it will shrink into a present mem ory of past usefulness Dont marry an old acquaintance if you do every matrimonial row will recallsome antematrimonial fault Tho marriage service should be the burial service of the dead past Dont let recollection resurrect family ske- lsseceetonsThe immortality of dents is the death of love Dont bunk on your wifes forgetfulness Never mistake the suspended anima tion of a womans memory for its death There never was a domestic squabble in which the wife didnt spring something on her husband which hed either thought she hadnt known or would have sworn shy had forgotten All this comes of marry ing your first love You neednt advertise for a wife Advertised wives advertised husbands But keep cool Go way from home Look round Above all go where thj women will have no chance to compare notes and say Why he told me the same thing Find your wife nt na great a distance as possible Then keep her mother where you found her daughter The motherinlaw joke may be stale But a stale motherinlaw Is no joke Why should folks joke bout about an epedemis Some afflictions are too sacred for facetiousness motherinlaw in the house is like a Socialist at a Freethought meeting the uninvited doing all the talking the storm center of the domestic ty phon the vortex of conjugal sqpalls- a chronic reminder that two wasVcom pany three is a crowd The m ther inlaw is the only thing that with stands evolution Causes that affect even the Westminster Confession of Faith do pass her by as doth the idle wind which he regards rot As she was in Juvenals time the is now As she was in the beginning- she is and ever will be world without end Yesterday today and forever Of course there are exceptions to all rules But in some rules the exceptions are powerful scarce So when your wife says Wouldnt it nice to have Ma pay us a months visit say No Month in moth rin law chronology means eternity in soninlaw vernacular When the old laddy is moored bowandstern in your home its too late to kick The efficacy of prayer is limited the age of miracles past Marriage should be the guarantee of the home the sheet anchor of com mon decency But legal haphazard conjunction is no better than tree communion Promiscuous breeding visits the sins of the parents on both children and community Many amar riage certificate is a letter of marque to generate lunatics a carte blanche to glut the penitentiary Religion cant sanctify camp meetings Now who sees a Methodist church without thinking of a camp meeting is the source of prudery prudery the source of ignorance What kind of a daughter do you expec from a moth er whose legs have atrophied into limbs Should a gal knowledge be inverse to her mod esty Hasnt she the right to know her body that any other engineer has to know his engine Is discussing body worse than discussing mind In nocence has too long been the proof of innocence We seem to think it takes a dunce to be decent The aver age young woman needs nothing else so much as an introduction to herself Of course preachers oppose such in formation But those who breed Gods by crossing virgins with ghosts are poor authorities on ordinary precrea tion As Im in this tenement Ill study it It may bo superfluous hereafter It seems to be one of Kidders essentials here Im losing no sleep over my soul Ive bequeathed that Jehovah and Old Nick share and share alike I want np contest over my eitateWeinheritcanpewin the Presbyterian church some years ago Uptodate there has been no discord over that pew How sweet it is for brethren in unity to dwel- hear Mormon mothers and chil dren are healthier than ours Mr Young left forty Mrs Youngs and seventy odd Youngsters one child and a fraction by each wife Im reckoning of course from official re turns Isnt one child and a fraction by one wife more humane than ten children by one wife The majority of wives are terribly abused At least making one woman stock a village doesnt impress as marked considera tion A woman marries graduates in arithmetical progression and wonders why she is a physical and nervous wreck How would you like to boar a child every two years for twenty years then go to hell for doubting the Immaculate Conception Two chil dren are sufficient for any woman Fewer means a spoilt child more a spoilt mother Children like teeth cause trouble before they come after they come after they go Mrs Blank of our physical culture class said I have nine children But a baby is welcome whenever God sends it Thats what husbands call domes ticity preachers and pious old maids resignation It strikes me that that sister needs mental culture more than physical culture When woman ceases to be a fool she will cease to be a multiplication table Few Californians have large families We dont stay married long enough Marriage is more or less of a monotony this side of Rockies Ten per cent of us are divorced fifteen going to be seventyfive want to be I believe in divorce I believe in anything that can be twisted into a proclamation of emancipation vorce may be more sacred than mar riage undoing better than doing se cession preferable to union Divorce is relief in reserve tho bow of promise brightening the cloud of misery the newest gift of liberty to the old est form of slavery Agree before marriage to turn each other loose on demand Marriage should be two souls with but a single thought two hearts that beat as one When one soul begins to extend its mental scope or one heart varies the rhythm of its intercostal tattoo QUIT Divorce is rare in the South While the South ern wife has no more grounds for it than has the Northern wife she seems to have more The Northern husband can hide his tricks but the husband cant disguise his SouthernI ion To test male morality dark background My sister dont look for a vestial in pants If he be half way decent take him and call him a bargain If ho keep so freeze to him and call him a miracle Love in a cottage is life in a poorhouse Dont marry for the hon or of being your husbands cook Dont let Cupid hitch up for the glory of starving to death in cahoot Dont blush for your celibacy Queen Eliza beth was an old maid Dont vacate your virgin thorn for some fourth rate conservatory A rose distilled may not be attar of rose But what ever you be dont be a bride of Christ The heavenly harem is over stocked Some time I think Christ delays his second coming because there are so many Mrs Jesuses wait ing for him Dont worry about the oil till the bridegroom comes Wait till he shows up before you make a fuss over the kerosine Again mar riage may not be the unexpected If warsecorns io fWSstfbe an old muid and write a book on What I know about childrenIt may not be a very ponderous volume but the greatest comfort next to being there is convincing others what Wed have done if wed been there Finally dearly beloved I would that you re main as I am if you see no better chance than I see We hear muchoforbearance forbearance to bung happiness must be mutual Chronic humoring by one begets chronic humoring by the other Tyranny is born of slavery Few of us can stand eternal pampering Look at the preachers Unabridged pa tience breeds abridged patience ab ject submission absolute arrogance Doesnt a soft Answer turn away wrath It may first month But we commonly receive what we allow in this world two idiots love on sight They marry Flowers Wed ing presents Congratulations Sur pliced choir singsO perfect Love Within six months they are raising perfect hell men they first meet they are on theiriood behavior Nov elty like distance enchants Then come experience Every fault is mag nified through disappointment tual selfishness ensues And if there be any cussednesS unborn of selfish ness Id like to hear it Would you look for a desirable brood from such a combination Id as soon look for prize cetters from a pair of mad dogs or for a new Messiah in an old maids retreat Love like any ether disease can be caught on sight You neednt be introduced to a stranger to con tract his smallpox Such love however is a poor preparation for married life Be not only mutually forbearing but mutually truthfulness to learn too much Few facts in married life are extracted by cross examination Paul sayslIf a wife would know anything let her ask her husband Tho trouble is if he if he knew anything worth knowing hell tell her without her asking But if he knew anything woth knowing that she doesnt know would know and ought to know hes mighty apt to lie about it If the wife would know anything let her ask some other woman But never try to secure au thentic data by pumping the old man Should Protestants and Catholics intermarry In my judgment No Noll crosses for men matrimonial or religious No hybrids physical or spiritual I never saw a mule that wasnt meaner than a jackass a mu latto that wasnt meaner than a nig ger Protestants should marry any but Catholics Catholics none but- Catholics Religion is to the Protes unto you there is more joy in Catho lics whole existence Some mixed marriages are happy The majority are compromises for peace sake As one whose beloved relative turned Methodist I feel that I am an author corruptingto oppose such marriages But I say unto you theres more joy in Catholicism over one Protestant whtt begets one Catholic than over ninetynine Catholics who need no begetting If you be Protestant would you like to see your wife wreathing the Popes chromo with immortelles If you be Catholic would your appetite for breakfast be stimulated by your eyes photographlike the Sacrament on an empty stom achIs a clerical husband the proper caper nit marrY n never been contradicted Inspiration is only saying what you please and calling contradiction blasphemy A preacher is a grown np spoilt child The man who is deified byet ir mens wives naturally expects delft cation from his own wife If he be x loaded with public precept hell have little room for domestic example Theory may scamp nuilijev 7Ke sign hoard pointing cat tho road doesnt share the fanoTof the1 journey A man glorified by hoe who dont know him for plell ing what he doesnt know is neither truly practicalnor practically true Marry a preacher Id rather be the Virgin Mary intrigue with tile Presbyterian Jehovah and advertise te litter in the Irish World If bent on a theological alliance marry the devil Perhaps Im prejudiced But I see improvement in neither Trinity nor clergy Old Nick on the contrary seems to me to have improved since is the prosaic born of the poetical To be happy realize in each other the ideal that foolished you I know nothing of this affinity busi ness But I believe in every gander there is a subtle fitness for some goose I know many happy couples o many more who say they are still more who remain in matrimony from deference to public opinion I know of several folks who remain in the penitentiary from a similar cause Dont make married life too practical Invite sentiment to visit you occasionally Im glad marriage is being modified to fit the times Ev ery year the old fashioned sacramen tal thralldom is losing sanctity Before long a preacher will have no more power to join than to separate to get folks into trouble than to get them out Contractors will be sub ject to quarantine before contracting A woman will understand that while Mother is the holiest name in any language old maid is not blasphe my She will learn that propagating a regiment of children grovelling be fore man and worshipping the clergy are not womans whole mission Then and not till then shall we spend less time studying animals and devote more care to man ASTONISHING A little girl was trying to count the trees from the window of a train She exclaimed in wonder How fast legWomans