The Thinker from McPherson, Kansas • 3

IIEA11T DISEASE CURED BY THE THINKER. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY THE THINKER PUBLISHING CO. Subscription Price, One Dollar Dr. C. W.

STOWE, Editor. 'O. OLNEY. Associate Editor. tntorcd at McrhciHOiiaa second cIukh matter some fifteen hundred years, at the time he drowned the irld, )d considered that snakes were a success, so he had some taken into the ark and preserved for future use.

If Noah had been like some men, when he saw a thousand snakes crawling up the gangplank, he would have suggested to the Lord that as he had a few lady passengers on board who might get a little nervous, it might be well for him to furnish a few barrels of. snake-bite medicine, to be used for medical purposes only. It is possible, however, that Noah, the same as did Moses, made a brass snake and hung it upon a pole, so that in case of being bit, all they had to do was to take a look at the brazen serpent and live. A brass snake as a snake-bite cure was even better than whiskey. Moses says.

'And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any a part, and appear good, to the majority of their neighbors and associates; but it is so little real satisfaction to seem what you are not, that I cannot fancy you of this class. There must, therefore, be something in all this that I do not understand, and as you seem willing to continue the correspondence, I wish to know further of your opinions and your reasons for holding them. I trust and hope also that I may be a means of yet converting you to the true faith, to the belief in Almighty God and HisT only-begotten son, Christ Jesus our Savior and Redeemer. I do not see that you can have one single point upon which to hang an argument against, the exis-tance of a God, where everything proclaims Him and His power, wisdom, and goodness Respectfully and kindly vour friend, Sissen Holmes. To this letter Mary responded as follows: Willow Dale, Oct.

4, 18 My Anxious Friend: I feel a No two can think alike in all things, because they and tl surroundings are not alike, and tr ey cannot consequently see things from the same We 'are what we "are made to be, by our organization, education, and environments. Had you been born a Catholic, you would doubtless have believed in the infal-libillity of thi Pope; if born a fire-worshiper, you would have been like them in belief. But being; horn a christian, you believe in Christ. Every new religion is built uponits predecessors, and incorporates within itself so much of the old one as is necessary to make 'it popular and No careful reader of the 0I4 Jewish Bible can fail to, see that, from Moses on to- Christ, all who strove to teach or preach always humbled themselves to make concessions to the presiding deities and prevailing religions the day in which they taught. They kept sacred the holy days that- had been SO' kept, used the same emblems and gods and statues, only giving to them new names and 1 Now, I do not ask you to believe all this uponmy bare assertion, but please read your Bible in the light of this revelation, and see if it does not tell you this and more too.

As to the myth you christians call God, I ask where and what is it What is there for a God to do or enjoy FOR HE.inX TROUBLES. Wm. d. Oaptonilbj', tho woll-knwn into manufacturer of Huilulo, rhlltulolphta, I'itu-burgh, Newark, and Atlanta, iiaya: Office or Osooonn Imphoved Safes, li 8. Uroail Street, Atlnuta.

Octobor 17. Dr. Hain't Medical AumxjiaUon: Drah Ooctohi. The three bottle of "Tit. Ruah's Kc'KUlntor" I ordured woro rocolved by oxproxs lant week.

I have taken nearly two bot-tlo and am thoroughly hhUhIIiuI with tho reiiult. For over two yearn 1 liave Imun troubled with iharppainat my heart. My physician, upon examination pronounced It pnlarKenient of the heart, and was unable to give uio any relief. Tin trouble crew worse until I hail become convinced that I could not be cured. While In Now York city, last week, I railed upon one of the niott prominent physician there, who charged me 'if for an examination and then recommend- edyour "Kejrulator." Knowing you to ba a regular Medical Answiutlon, and "not a patent medicine echemo," I ordered the three bottles.

1 have not been troubled since I commenced taking it, but shall continue and take the en-tiro three bottles so as to obtain a permanent cure. You have my sincere thanks. 1 am, Ueutlemcn, Very respcctrullv, 1 ft Has nerer failed to give relief. It has been used -successfully for years in subduing the most 1 stubborn cases of heart difficulties, A positive cure for Enlargement, Palpitation, Fluttering; aud Fatty of tbe heart. Price $1 .00 per bottle 1 six for Sold bv druggists, ot-' sent direct by Dii.

RUSH'S MEDIC Alt ASSO CIATION, Knnda, N. U. 8. A. 1-18-ly i CHRISTIAN POLITENESS; And the Effects of Christianity j.This work contains a Mass of literary quotations and historical facts from -the works of eminent christian authors.

It is a. vigorous defence of Freedom fj. of Speech on all questions. The rights of the individual are maintained Malice, slander and falsehood exposed. Containing quotations from books costing ((Mn' j)f "Christian Indecency1 and By liberty's disciple, is a trenchant, timely exposure of time-serving religionists and timid heretics, who are either accomplices'with or' indifferent to the savage persecution now aiming to limit Freedom of Speech, press and the mails.

Price 2 cents.The Word, Aug. 1 8th, 1883. I THE ENIGMA OF MERCY. Amn! Ilallolujahl 1'oreTcri The Lord in bis righteousness reign The chosen are saved, and the many, Are lost, as his goodness orilalns, The almighty Boss won the battlo, 1 i Old Baton's put under His fret. And smoke clouds from anguish arising, Fill heaven with aroma sweet.

There stands a big bellows in heaven, Right back of Jehovah's throne, With air-pipes strong from Its nozzle, Way down to the flory Zone, 1 And sometimes an angel gets lazyj I. 1 And rusts for the want of use) Hia bright wings flopping and twisted, His harp-strings twanging and loose Then Michaol says, 'Here, you loafer, Just pump this 'ore bellows a spell. Ana warm np your poor old mother sniveling down there la hell." 4 There are those In tbia heavaniv 1 With friends in the torment below, But the cords that had bound them' whei mortal' Are loosed, and tho burden of woe That Sympathy feels for another Rests never upon them again, for conscience is freed from (he kindness That made them do good unto men. A sweet little angel All rosy and smiling and bright, With joy written over his forehead, In the glow of eternity 'a light, Comes up from the beautiful river With etcasy sweet and nnshammed, i To send down a blast on a sister Who went to a dance, and was damned. A father and mother Come up in ineffable Joy, To force down a whiff of Justice For the flames round a dear little boy Who langhed by mistake, when the deacon Broke down with a cough In his prayer Anddicd.with Td go down to hell and.ddBpatr? i ''All washed In the blood, and made whiter Than snow," and with purity crownod.

A murderer swung from the gallows Comes joyefully walking round, And creak goes the mighty engine. And downward the rich stream is driven To blow up the coals that are roasting The wife that ho killed, unforgiven. A line old angelical deacon r' Who once distilled whiskey on earth, And sold it around to his neighbors For thrice what it really was worth Taken hold of the handle, and turns It On one who from godliness fell, 1 By drinking his orthodox whiskey, i Pa-torn in an orthodox hell. 0, beautiful rest for the weary! 0 Joy that shall be to all men! beautiful place of i That saveB about one out of ten i 8weet melsage of lovf, from tho ages I Bweet story, that ever is new! "Believe; or be damned to lbolleve? I'll be damned if I do! Truth Seeker. Fmke (For the TuiNKEit.) i' THE EL SCHOOL TEACHER BY ELMINA D.

SLENKER. Chapter n. On reading this letter from Miss Jones, Sissen at once sat down and wrote her the following v' Washington, "Sept. .26, 18 Miss Mary Jones: My dear friend, for so my heart still calls you, notwithstanding you claim to be Oh! how can I write the word in con nection with you an Infidel cannot realize or believe it. There must be.

a hcrrible mistake some-rliere. Had I not known you so Xfy, and become so well convinced of your candor and truthfulness, I should think you had said all those cruel things for a purpose, though what purpose any one can have in making themselves out 10 be an ob ject of general detestation and ab Jones Friends, I hope you will send me 25 i nr en rpnts. arh nnf vihn run' fur ihft man, when he beheld the serpent of Drass ne lived," (Num. xxi, 9). But in these times whiskey more pop ular than brass snakes as a snake-bite medicine.

To' give the snakes a' 1 fair chance, as I suppose, Noah let them loose on the top of a mountain, which was so high up as to be above the line of perpetual 'frost. But'they seemed to have done well, and managed to get into a warmet; climate Jn time, iff 1 1 Moses could make a snake out' of a' stick, and so the Egyptians, but Moses' snake swallowed all of the other snakes, and then Moses turned his snake back into a stick again. But it is a mystery as to what became of the snakes that had been swallowed. Now I will tell a story about one of the smartest of all snakes. He was not only a good but he could beat God, his in discussing the fruit question; and after Mrs." Adam had listened to his remarks, she de cided that, for.

an off-hand speech made without notes, it was ahead 'of anything, that she had ever listened to. This little speech raised the' very devil with the human family, and the devil has been to pay ever since. When we think of all the misery that has been caused by srtakes in the boots and other snakes, I think that God could 1 have spent his time better than working 'so long at the snake-making business. But would not dare to say that Rev, Richards does not believe these bible snake stories to be true, lest he might say that ,1 was mistaken, and then sue me for damages as a christain duty. M.

Bahcock. Kansas liberal League. Organized, at the carnp-mceting, Valley Falls; Sunday, Sept. 2d, i 883: Officers. President, J.

M. Haga man, Concordia; Vice Presidents, Hon. Alfred Taylor, Gardner; Maj. J. L.

Ferguson, Haverhill; J. A. Rcms-burg, Atchison; Mrs. C. R.

Doster. Marion; Secretary and Chairman Ex E. C. Walker, Valley Falls; Treasurer, Dr. R.

C. Raymond; Qka-loosa. The Ex. Com. consists of the President, Secretary, Treasurer and Dr.

J. E. Ball, Melvern; W. W. Frazcr, Otta-wa.

The board of Directors consists of the President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Dr. J. S. Sutton, Minneapolis; Wm. Drown, Carbondale; Sears, Williamsburg; Mrs.

Susan Reicherter, Valley Falls; Dr. S. B. S. Wilson, Olathe; Mrs.

II. Patric, Belleville; Mrs. Lydia Hilliker, Cawker City; Wm Rath, Humboldt; Esq. Cummings, Gardner; Ezra Carpenter, Wcllsville; S. R.

Shepherd, Delegates to the Seventh Annual Congress of the National Liberal League, which will be holden at Mil waukee, Sept 21, 22 and 23 1883: J. M. Ilagaman, E. Walker, Vallay Falls; W. Hurd, North Cedar; Mrs.

II. Like i and B. W. Cook, Mound Cretk. The anti-Jewish outbreaks are still continued in Russia, Man exist upon earth, as the crown' ing work of nature.

He stands intellectually ahead of all the animal kingdom, and still, we venture to sajr, man never originated an idea, deep sympathy fori you in your trouble, and bewilderment, and will do my best to enlighten you as to the why and wherefore of my views up on Bibles, Gods and Religions. You see I use them all in the plural sense, for there are many of each and always have been, though; they' are now gradually dying away, 1 disap pearing before the Jight of investiga tion, science and fact. You do not realize this, for you have only kno wn and experienced one side; you have never read an Infidel publication, and hardly know there, are any, You have heard them vaguely spoken of, perhaps in the pulpit, '6r by pome pious neighbor or friend, but always at a great way off, and by all means, fair or foul, to be kept away lest their contact (should contaminate and bring otherwise' very intelligent people who said to me, "If religion was not true, they did not wish to know it;" that is, they preferred beliving in a falsits to knowing a truth, because false belief had become a part of their very life itself, and all the thoughts of their past were associated with it. But from my knowledge you, friend Sissen, I do not think you are one of this class. You al ways want facts, even though they may be at first very unpleasant, in their consequences to you.

is this trait in your character that encourages me to try and show you the falsities of your system of faith and belief, and the unstable foundation upon which it is all built. You wonder what argument I can possibly advance against the exis-tance of a God. me, the wonder would be, what argument could possibly be advanced that there is, cr ever has been, any God, or Gods True, there have been hundreds of 'volumes written, and countless bil-ions-of words spoken, to prove the existance of these myths, but one by one they fall dead and useless to the ground. Once people believed jn the old heathen gods of mythology Jupiter, Mars, Pluto, and all the rest, but now who would think of these as ever having been real' per sonajtes Yet whole volumes cf ancient literature, classical doctrines Homerick poems, are filled with accounts of their sayings and doings, their wonderous powers and good achievemants. The now, very many of have their sacred animals, their gods, of wood and stone, their Joss-houses, and other places of worship.

The Mormons believe in the divinity of Jo. Smith and Brigham Young, and the sanctity polygamy; the Shakers in celil ncy; the Oneida Community in J. II. Christ-cure and earthly perfection. The Catholics believe in the miracles said to be performed by the Holy Virgin, and these miracles are really seen and attested to by "living witnesses," which is more than your Bible miracles can claim.

The world is as full of different be-liefs as it is of differed individuals. God is only a name for what, we do not know 1 A1J. mysterious effects used to be called manifestations of the power of God all accidents, misfortunes, and deaths were said to be God's decree and judgment, direct interventions of his power. But now "all intelligent minds look to natural causes for the solution of events, Science is killing off Gods and Supernaturalism as fast as pos-possible, and discovering real facts and their origion, and this is doing awaj with the need for a God, and therefore with a belief in one. The whole universe is full of matter, and there is no room for a God, as well as no need for any.

1 Matter is eternal, and governed by laws inherent in Identities change, but there is no less, no more matter than there always was, or always will be. No one Identity is immoral; nothing is eternal save matter itself. There are. of questions that scientists are as yet unable to answer satisfactorily, but it is better to let them wait, unsolved, than to stop all research by saying "God did it or "It is one of God's holy mysteries, and past understanding." God and Science are antagonistic one or the other must die. Science isjGod is not.

So let the myth go and seek for facts which alone will make us happy. I hope you will not be discouraged, but will write to me again soon and ask all the questions you please. It is a pleasure to me to show any the way of life. for facts vs. fiction, Mary Jones.

(To be Snake3, Mistakes and' Kichardsism. According to the Bible, God mnde man, and he made But whether iie made man for the snake, or the snake for, man, depends upon which one comes ahead in the fight. Sometimes the man gets the snake, and sometimes the snake gets the man, and at other times it seems to be about a draw game. But at the outset evidently God was not governed by the law of supply and demand, for he made a great many more snakes than men; It is- said there are over five hundred different kinds of snakes, so that God must at least have made one thousand snakes whilst he made but one man and one woman. But of what use are snakes anyhow? When we reflect that in india it ix estimated that annually ten thousand persons die of It would seem as a matter of business, tiat if God, in his great.

wisdom, had come to the conclusion that man and and the world could get along without snakes that the nake manufacturing business might have been dispensed with. lBut it would" seem that after above book. The author is an old man, suffering from a terrible kidney disease, one eye blind and the other nearly so, and an enlargement of air cells of the lungs, that is a perpetual torture. He is living on one meal a day and is des- 1 1. 1 mute 01 an inctumiurib inai iiiukc iiic Cold weather will soon be here and he must have help.

Let us be Liberals by deeds as well as words. The book is excellent. Address, EUIINA I). SUINKER. Snowville, Pulaski Va.

JUST PUBLISHED: A new Liberal Song Hook, entitled, SOtfGS Oi TEE MORNING. Original and Selected. By CALEB S. WEEKS. IN TWO VOLUMES.

EACH VOLUME COMPLETE IN ITSELF. Vol. i. Original, including Responses to Old Hymns, and Old Hymns in Responding Versions 1 Vol. 2, Selections.

The first volume the Original Songs Now Ready. It is gotten up in excellent style, on good thick paper, from large, new. type. It contains an alphabeti- cai index 01 sons lines; anuuicr vi first lines of Song, and an index of tunes suitable for the Songs. One half or more of the Sonus are new and original, and the rest original 1 IIvmnt.

Snnfr and Wi" Doxologies. Nearly aM of the most popular old Hymns, which were sung with religious fervor, and some of Moody and Sankey's, are reurec ted with a changed body and new, live soul of truth and rational philosophy. The author is well known as a-Liberal Songster, He was one of the chief contributors to the Truth Seeker's collection. His songs have been highly recommended. One of our correspondents in 1877 called him "That 1 wonderful American Mocking Bird, who sings us the old, songi with variations, and all the improvement." The first volume of 212 pages, and contains all of the Original The Selections may be published a a second volume at a futnre time- Price in Cloth, Ji.oo.

For sale, wholesale and retail at the Ths Truth Sceker Office," 33 Clinton Place, N. hoirence, and also subjecting themes selves to social ostracism, I cannot Your whole character and i. behaviour ever since you went there has been irreproachable; Every one highly of you in every capac- either as citizen teacher, associ ate or friend. But as I have never heard of a good Infidel, and always fancied the two words to he as an tagonistic to each other as a good liar, a good thief or a good murder er, I seek to know" more about your belief ere I seek to judge you. There are some who are such consummate hypocrites tfiat they can act.