Lucifer, the Light-Bearer from Valley Falls, Kansas • 3

FLASHES. Be sure and read Joseph Henry's article, beginning in this issue of Luctfeb. We have no need of a priest in any of the affairs of earth, least of all in the hour of death. No self-respecting minister will officiate, a a minister, at the obsequies of a man whom he knows has lived without faith in the rm tinman creeds. England and Russia are threatening to engage in a war with each other.

For what? Why, there is a piece of land in Asia which neither of them has any right to, and they con not agree where to cut the spoils in two. And so they propose to murder a few thousands of each other's serfs to determine the matter. "Great excitement throughout England," we are told, anent the probable butchery. And as Australia has sent a contingent to help slaughter theArabs and dispossess them of their homes, it is likely that those poor fools on the other side of the globe will also help the "mother country" out of this last scraper by rigging out some of their sons and brothers in the toggery of soldiers and dispatching them across the seas to die in the Asian wilderness, all for glory, and so many shillings per month. ESSAY.

OX DKATn AXD FLKIl- ALS. Iart III. The ZXettix-rt for the Desul.Whmt It How It 1m fete-curl la our Iay. Rerun tat ion, Defkmation, lVofauatioxiM, tc. I desire to call attention to the liberated mind of one who is brave enough to be buried consistently with his unbelief and his general agnostic views of life and the conditions existing after death." I.

Brown. "What better are we for finding fault with Christianity and its institutions if we live the same lives and die the same deaths and do the same deeds that are the results of their false and inhuman doctrines. J. H. Cook.

Of the numerous reforms that have become indispensible on account of the Evolution of thought and. Morals in mankind, those about Death and Funerals are the most needed. One of the greatest logicians and lovers of justice the world has ever produced, says that death is the criterion of the value of Moral Education of society, and Secular Funerals the Emblem of the Social Ben-ovation. Unfortunately, a great many Liberals do not think so, if we may judge by their apathy or indifference concerning this subject. But while the great mass of Liberals tfro thus apathetic and indifferent, a few earnest, devoted men And women have placed themselves in cntinelle perdue, have taken the post of danger.

Ed. and have dared to fire the first shots. This advance guard, increasing in number every opened the campaign against the enemy of Liberty of Conscience. Several have fallen, giving their lives to the sacred cause; others have resolved to do the same, and these will be replaced by bravehearted recruits. Among these pioneers, women -arc coming to the front women, who arouse themselves when men are down, and when morals and civilization are in danger.

Besides Elmina, the true friend of humanity, at least one othef woman has revolted at seeing the wrong done by the popular system or method of honoring the dead. The name of this woman is "Lorena," a contributor to the Liberal, of Liberal, Mo. In an article, entitled, ''Monuments," published in that has opened discussion with Elmina on the subject just named, and wishing to take part in this discussion I sent a short communication to the editor, who returned it to mo, saying, that owing to accumulated copy and owing to the fact that so much has already been said on the subject, "he is "obliged to return this." If the Liberal editor refers to the rench press he is right, but if, as is probable, ho means the English press he is surely mistaken. I fiud but little in the Liberal American papers to increase my collection of Facts and Ideas referring to Death and Burial or Funerals. Other English-American papers, so far as I know, are equally silent on the subject of Secular Funerals.

Their obituary notices consist of exaggerated biographical sketches of the dead and of a showy description of the decorations, an enumeration of the carriages, etc Thoso time-serving editors do not bother themselves about and Secular Funerals. They know that thoso living as scoundrels generally die as saints, and that the greatest thieves and robbers have the grandest tombs. The comments upon my work are not of the kind to lead me to think that so much has been said on this subject. The Agnostic, of Dallas, Texas, says, "This is an important subject which Freethinkers have been disposed to neglect or overlook." A score of other notices are to the same effect. The "accumulation of copy" was sufficient for Bro.

Beplogle's apology without adding that which exposes him to the imputation of asserting what ho ought to have known was not true. Anyhow, he will admit probably that if so much has been said very little has been done. new" such is the title of announcement of the formation of nn anti-Christian, Ilational Burial Society in Boston, made in the old Invcs-iigator last summer. To be continued. Xlie Junior Who for the past two weeks has been helmng forward the business of the ofiice, will start on Monday, the 6th insL, for his summer tour through Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Dakota, and perhaps Wisconsin and Illinois.

Our Liberal friends in these states who may wish courses of lectures will please correspond with him through this office. Special attention given to Picnics and Grove meetings. He will carry a good assortment of the best and litest Free thought and Reform nblfcatiovas. Keep him busy, good riends. H.

change, but I am ready to change in anything when I see a reason for it. But I shall never make free love "a scape-goat," for my own sins and weaknesses, or the fickleiness of my own mind. Bro. Overton, you are welcome to question rue in or out of court; and when you have done that you will get more than you bargained for and be a wiser man than you are now. Just keep both sides of my free love account and I am ready to settle with you or any other man or woman.

You are so organized that you must blow hot or cold, vibrate through a long arc, rise and fall, but free-! dom will not stop to ask your leave, nor fall with you, any more than any other form or force that is in and of itself free. 1 You can cdl me a bourbon or what you please, that won't hurt me, but I know there are many who will be highly pleas-ed at the death blows you have given to free love. Free love did not kill Noyes or any one else, and you ought to I know better than to say so. Well, Brother, let the machine run, but I want you to understand you cannot and shall not represent me. Free love is one of the Foundation Principles, and I am still there.

"All these things must needs be, but the end is not yet." J. H. Cook. Columbus, Kas. Tli Ethics or the Christian IXelf-ligion.

Dr. Oswald In "Secret of the East." Has Christianity made us more moral? A chorus of stall-fed obscurantists will denounce the impiety of the very question; but the time is past when the shadow of the cross could veil a multitude of sins against truth, and with the help of God we will lift some of these veils. A fruitful source of ethical delusions is the autodagmatic fallacy, or the tendency of every sect to judge the merits of its founder by the standard of his own dogmas. The votaries of barbarous creeds award the highest prize of virtue to deeds of relentless ferocity. They mistake pity for weakness, and its suppression for an act of praiseworthy heroism.

The followers of Confucius inculcate the punctilious observance of ceremonies; and, tried by that standard, the Chinese moralist was undoubtedly the most perfect man. The worship of sorrow has bo perverted our moral ideals that for long centuries joyleesness and self-affliction ranked among the highest virtues A jaundiced, whining abstainer from physical enjoyments was the Puritan paragon of perfection. The municipal codes of many American cities still contain provisions for the supression of public amusements on the only day on which a large plurality of our working-men find their only leisure for recreation. The old Egyptians turned their funerals into holidays. VVe celebrate our holidays like funerals.

Sublunary life, according to a still prevalent theory, is a state of probation for testing a man's power of self-denial. God is supposed to delight in the self-abasement and mortification of bis creatures. A 'man of sorrows" is our ideal of moral perfection. Tbt cross, an instrument of torture, is the symbol of otir creed. That creed has made our daily life so joyless that the mere prospect of a change must, attractions of a future existence.

We have been taught to treat the body as an enemy of the soul; and, if bodily health is an obstacle to true saintliness, we have evidently progressed in the path of salvation. Under the influence of a sixteen hundred years' reign of degeneration of the Sonth-European races has reached that degree where terrestrial existence ceases to be a blessing, and where the undue love of life is not apt to prevent the appreciation of spiritual comforts. We have been taught that faith i. mental prostitution is a prime condition of eternal welfare, and in many countries that virtue has been so earnestly cultivated that, if spiritual poverty is bliss, the kingdom of heaven cannot be far off. After the measure of such standards, the Gospel of Pessimism has certainly regenerated the human race.

But the virtue of a merchant should not be weighed on his own balance. The merits of a creed cannot be proved by its conformity to its own precepts. The standards we should apply are the laws of nature, the revelations of science, and the lessons of history. Such tests would teach us that the love of gloom is a mental disease; that, a state of nature, every normal function is connected with a pleasurable sensation; that happiness, therefore, is the normal condition of every living creature; that to enjoy is to obey; and that he who deprives himself or his child of any innocent pleasure commits a crime against nature. They would teach us that physical vigor is a prime condition of moral health, and that he who neglects the health-laws of nature sins against his soul a rell as against his body.

They would teach us that light is the harbinger of happiness, that the sun of science has ripened more blessings in a single year than the moonshine of mysticism in eighteen centuries, that the suppression of free inquiry has never benefited any country, and that faith without reason is not a virtue, but a vice. They would teach us that the love of earth was the gospel of all progressive nations, that the love of life lends wings to every valiant enterprise, that the love of joy is the parent of every healthy instinct, while the worship of sorrow boa never produced anything but monsters tad chimeras. They would teach us that pessimism is a blasphemy against the Author of life, against the Power whose all-sustaining hands furnish the weapons of its very assailants, an insane, impious, and, suicidal rebellion against our All-mother Nature, a foe to hap piness, and the antithesis of all true religion The doctrines of the Galilean Buddhist have burdened the record of human misery with thousands of devastating wars. Have they ever added one millet-seed to the sum of human happiness Did the apostle of Nazareth ever speak one word in favor of industry rational education, the cause ot health, the love and study of nature, of physical and intellectual culture? Not one. Has he promoted our progress in the paths of science and freedom? Not one step.

The phantasms of his sickly anti-naturalism have made the world neither better nor wiser. His doctrine in all its tendencies is wholly unearthly, and therefore wholly un available for any secular purpose. In what respect, then, has the race been benefited by a creed that has perverted, their ethical instincts and systematicallop-posed the development of their physical and intellectual faculties? "In the Duty of Disinterestedness," we are told, "Christianity has revealed a higher type of virtue." A. new type would be more coriect, if the study of the Buddhistic Scriptures had no revealed the true author of that doctrine. But we should not forget that the self-denial of the New Testament is not the disinterestedness of liberality, not the unselfishness of friendship or patriotism, but the self-abtiegaticm of pessimism, the indifference to the weal or woe of life which inspires the Buddhistic renunciation of worldly possessions.

On the shores of the Mediterranean, that disinter-estedtiess has sadly reduced the interests of real estate, and made mundane life extremely uninteresting. A joy-loving cultivator of the smallest farm, who improves his land and his trees and surrounds himself with a troop of happy children, benefits the world more than a whole convent full of disinter-rested Buddhists with their ascetic crochet and puling pessimism. Would that every cowardly ''business man," who in his heart hates the old creed, but dares not openly avow his belief and who will do nothing: for human liberty, could be induced to read and realise these truths from the pen of Dr. Felix Oswald: W. For a large number of our contempo-; rarios the day of deliverance has already arrived; but no one deserves his liberty who does not contribute his share to the emancipation of his fellow men.

The bigotry of a besotted fanatic is hard- ly more contemptible than the cautious selfishness of the man who silently en-I joys the sweet air of freedom while thousands of his brethren sicken in the dungeons of agnostic and apathetic creed of science must become a positive religion. The energy which we owe to the fear of disease should bo inspired by the love of health. Before the end of this century the protest against the enemies of nature should consummate its triumph in a gospel of earthly happiness. Religion must cease to bo a synouymo of hypocrisy. Secret of the East.

A. C. Stowe, Paola, sends us descriptive circular of his Combination Folding and Extension Ladder, patented by him October 21, 1884. It is a first-class article. State and county rights for sale.

Address as above. Red Cedar and Timber Tree Seedlings Large Stock, Lowest Prices, Transplanted Red Cedars, (sure to grow. Hardy Catnlpn, Russian Mulberry, Cottonwood, Sycamore, Yellow Willow, White ash, Elm, Boa Elder, Maple, Dogwood, Red Bud, Sweet-Gum, Tulip Tree, Strawberry and Raspberry Apple Scions and Grafts, the famous "old Iron Clad" Strawberry the hardiest and best 8trawberry yet produced. Write for Price List, Address, Bailey Hakfobd. Makanda, Jackson Co.

I1L On I. C. R. R. AXARCIIISTIC BOOKS.

So many of the readers of Lucifer avow a desire to know what "you Anarchists are driving at," and also make so many inquiries regarding Mutual Banking, that I am constrained to place before them this partial list of work a bearing on these subjects. What Is Property? By P. J. Proudhon. Translated by Benj.

R. Tucker $3.50 True Civilization. By Josiah 50 Mutual Banking. By William B. Greene.

7 25 YouraorMine ByE.H. Hey wood 15 Natural Law; or, the Science of Justice. By Ly Bander Spooner. 12 A Politician in Sight of Haven. By Auberon Herbert.

11 An Anarchist on Anarchy. By EUseeBeclus. With a sketch of tho Criminal record of the Author. By KVaughan 11 God and the State. By Michael Bakounine.

15 Oo-Operation: Self -Employment. By E.C. Walker 10 i Co-Operation. By C. T.

Fowler 10 The Reorganization of Business 10 One each of the last two pamphlets 15 The Fallacies in "Progress and Povert v.w By Wm. Hanson. 1.00 Single copy ot Liberty 5 Three copies 10 Single copy LeRevolte. 5 Die Zukunft 5 One copy each of Liberty, Le Revolts and Die Zukunft 10 A Nihilist, By 11 AYindieation of Natural Society. By FdlmTmrt Burke.

To be issued soon. Address, E. C. WALKER. Box 62, Valley Falls, Kas.

Fob Lucifeb. My Crltie. Yes, Dear Lucifeb, Free Love is dead. Foundation Principled No. 9, killed it Lois Waisbrooker, "Orient," "a spirit" and O.

M. Overton did(?) the work and a man "qalling himself Professor Cook," alias EL Cook," "friend Cook," one of free love's champions was slain and now there will be "peace on earth and good will to" women. First let me say a few words to Lois. You say I am "excused forever," as you imply you will publish no more of my articles, although you publicly invited me to do so. I sent you an article, in which I gave you my candid and conscientious views upon sexual relations and, I think, and so do some others, some good reasons therefor.

You made no attempt to answer those arguments, but said it was only "a man's views," and I "utterly failed to comprehend" you, and threw something at me, from a private letter to a friend. I sent you a reply, and quoted "cast pearls," from which you, misconstruing me, construe yourself into a "swine," when, really, I only meant thereby, that you did not notice, reply to or appreciate my arguments. This is the reason you will not publish my last article, and yet you allude to and quote from it enough to suit your own feelings and purposes. I am eorry I quoted the bible, or gave you a chance to misconstrue me. If your refusal to publish my articles is a "otm-dation principle" and your liberality and humanity, then I am disappointed.

But you are "insulted!" If it be that I have insulted you, which I did not mean, to do, I beg your pardon. I think that if all you have said and quoted against me was weighed, the scales would be, at least, about level. But you "pity" me so, it is enough to make a crocodile weep. You quote a "spirit" great authority for you and allude to "Orient" going for me so than you go for me? This "Orient" is too cowardly to write her real name. Now Lois, the only way you can "pity" me is to publish and answer my articles, and then all your readers can be their own judges.

If I insult you give me "fits," but don't quote my private letters nor refuse to publish an article and then quote from it. And here let me say, I am not ashamed of my free love life and career. I have been just and manly and honest; I have never bought, flattered, magnetized or coerced a woman. My loves have all come to me, unbought, unsought, spontaneous, free, the details of which are in MS. for any one to read who can appreciate them.

Over your quotation from "the spirit" you say: "That is just what I want," and you say, "the Spirit is no varietist" Here let mo say to you that I have heard in the last thirty-seven years scores of communications from spirits who were varietists, so you can prove anything from spirits, "The spirit" takes the attraction of the sun for the earth to refute my varietisnwha! ha! "that is just what I want." Did "the spirit" forget, or did it not know, that the sun at the same time it attracts the earth, attracts also Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and hundreds of moons, asteroids and comets? If here is not variety and constancy and continual change in degree of attraction, then where will you find it? I have often wondered how any rnind, in or out of the body, who understood the plan and forces and relations of the solar system, could be anything but a free lover and a varietist, too. "The spirit" says "when man develops so as to conform to nature's unchangability," why did "the spirit" not say nature's variety, too? Ah, "spirit," I am afraid you took with you to Summer Land the same prejudices, the same, poor memory and illogical mind, you had in the body. Do you know that tne Sun is the great, living, standing demonstration and illustration of free love yarietism, filling his loves, worlds, votaries with heat, light, and all the forces? But you say the sun's attraction for the earth is constant. But it varies much in degree. In a state of society where there is liberty there would be all the consistency needed, in our present state of ignorance, animality and restriction it is impossible.

'0 blissful state where souls together dream: Where love is liberty and liberty is law!" Come again, "spirit," with your boomerang arguments against variety. "Poor fellows I they have never found a woman strong enough to hold them." Well; Lois have you found a man strong enough to hold you? Do you want to? The sun has found no one world strong enough to hold him! The conditions and relations of individuals do not make or destroy laws and principle. You believe that development tends to eternal mateship. I have proved to the contrary, or at least you or no one else has refuted my logic or given any reason from nature or science, for your belief. But with heart and head fall I must stop.

And now comes my old friend, C. M. Overton, to overturn and damn and curse free love and me, too; but I won't be damned nor dammed by him. He essays Don Quixote, fighting windmills. He sets up a man of straw, calls it free love, and then he proceeds to demolish it like "a bull in a china shop.

I would like to know if there is any other free love but that advocated by Nichols, Warren and Jefferson. Yet he has improvised a kind that is full of tyranny and regardless of individual rights. You better get a patent, Bro. Overton, for your kind of free love and sell out to the Church and State, and you would have money in your pocket. You say Prof.

Cook said "he never would change." I might have said I never expected to It is frequently charged that we are not making Lucifeb what the complainants supposed that it would be when they subscribed for it. Inasmuch as most of them had a eopy before them when they gave or sent in their charge is a somewhat peculiar one. What did they expect? They were assured that it was a Freethoutht paper for which they were asked to subscribe. Has it proved to be a Church paper? Has it denied a single tenet of the Freethought faith? Has it lent aid and comfort to any cause which antagonizes that fundamental principle of Private Judgment which has been the heart and soul of every Protestant and Freethought movement that has agitated the world since the time when the murky darkness of the Middle Ages caught the first faint gleam from the ascending Morning Star of Doubt? For, as Buckle says, "Until doubt began, progress was impossible." First, then, Lucifeb teaches the Self -sovereignty of man, and in teaching this, it, of necessity, preaches the gospel of doubt in so far as are concerned the claims of any man or of any set of men to rule over their fellows. Wherein, then, is Luctfeb justly amenable to censure on the ground of failure to be, in purpose, spirit and fact, a Freethought journal? Who will answer? W.

Errata. In our issue of March 27, in the article higned' "Rasp," on the first page, third line from the bottom of next to last paragraph, the word "circumstances" should read consequences. Of all the vices we have inherited from our imperfect ancestry, there is none which is more repellant to every tender and refined sentiment and feeling than is cruelty. A survival from the time when, as a beast of prey, man knew no such thing as mercy in his treatment of any living organism, it persists in our time in spite of all the influences of our so-called civilization, and is manifested in ways as divergent in outward seeming as the heedless and needless torture of insects and beasts and the wholesale destruction of life and infliction of suffering in war, through all the intermediate gradations of fox hunting, pigeon shooting, tenement house of hogs, starvation of laborers, imprisonment of patriots, emasculation of animals without the administration of anesthetics, vivisection, etc Cruelty is a sign of weakness, and is in every way unworthy of men and women. W.

A rrular Funeral. A few davs since Mr. E. Burris of Valley Falls, a patron of the Light-Bearer, died, after a lingering illness which he bore with philosophic equanimity and resignation. In compliance with his direction that no clergyman should officiate at his G.

W. McCammon, by invitation of the family of deceased, pronounced a brief eulogy over the remains. So far as we know this is the first secular funeral ever seen in Valley Falls. Mr. B.

was a good and true man, so far as we have ever heard, in all the relations of citizen, husband, father and friend, and died respected and regretted by all who knew him. II. Never yield to dkpalr..