If one may judge by the effect it has produced in arousing a
storm of criticism, the book of the year is undoubtedly "The
Christian," by Hall Caine. Not only the book of the year,
perhaps, but of more years than one cares to count, for of books
worth reading or remembering, there has been the fewest number
within these latter days. And it must be conceded, in the
beginning, that Hall Caine has written a book--a live book--and
that no one will dissect it without finding blood on his rapier's
point.
As for the critics themselves, they have had much to say, after
their fashions, and have wasted vast quantities of good ink in
giving the author of "The Christian" meanings which he never
meant. One of them has found that John Storm was intended to
represent Christ himself, come back to earth in this most
unbelieving Nineteenth century; a construction which seems to
have been as far as possible from anything that was in the
novelist's thought. Another finds the plot weak and the motif--it
is the custom to use French in this connection--strained; and can
endure nothing in the book but Glory, who is "altogether
delightful." Still another is furious because of the "nurses'
ball," and thinks it is reflection upon the whole sisterhood of
trained nurses; and there are others who cannot recover from that
still further insult to the sisterhood conveyed in the fact that
Polly was a nurse.
I have read the criticisms--all I could find--with weariness of
spirit, and have felt that the real meaning of the author lay
deeper than any of these shallow comments could reach. What
difference does it make whether Polly was or was not a trained
nurse? The real thing at issue was this--that she was a woman,
ruined and played with and tossed aside. For this book is, above
all, an earnest book, with bitter protest and lofty purpose
running through it, and in such a light as this the paltry errors
sink into nothingness. Hall Caine has had something to say to the
world, and has said it. The world has waited long enough for a
writer with a message. When it comes, let the space-writers and
all the horde of small spirits retire for a little while, or go
on sounding the praises of this or that "society novel" by Mrs.
Van Kortland Van Kordtland, or other of that ilk.
And while there may be lay-figures in the book, as has been
charged, the people around whom the interest centers are so
terribly real that they cannot stay in the book. They come out of
it, and become part of our lives. Glory is a vivid creature, with
her moods and fancies, her dual nature, with the one side of her
in love with John Storm and his work, and the other side--and so
much the stronger side, alas! in love with the world, and filled
with merry, buoyant life. One follows her through every step of
her course, and feels the moral deterioration coming upon her so
gradually and yet so surely. Splendid, wholesome, Glory,
pure-eyed and frank-hearted, going through the wild rout of
music-halls and theatrical successes, suggestive songs, Derby
days and midnight suppers; one follows her with dread as though
she were the child of a loved friend, and finds the smell of fire
gathering upon her garments. Nothing could so show Hall Caine's
art as this. If he had written nothing else worth reading, Glory
should make him immortal, for this sweet, wild nature is more a
living being to us than many whom we meet every day.
But the real character of the book is John Storm, one of the
finest portrayals that the English language has yet given to
fiction; a Christian, but not Christ. Nothing could be more human
than this man, full of faults, and yet so earnest, so brave, so
intense. His love for Glory is the dominant feeling that leads
him into many strange paths, for he loves as intensely as he
works; but above even this he is a Christian, and trying to do
the work of Christ. How natural it is that a man like this,
filled with enthusiasm and eager to begin work among the poor and
the suffering, should find the shallow hypocrisies and shams of a
fashionable church abhorrent to his soul. And the asceticism of
the Brotherhood was as far from the possibilities of this man as
long-faced and comfortable hypocrisy would have been. It was the
fall of poor, ignorant Polly that gave him his life-work; and the
discharge of the girl from her position in the hospital, while
the man who had accomplished her ruin remained a member of the
Board which presided over the destinies of that same hospital.
And Hall Caine could have given no more conclusive proof of his
courage and his earnestness of purpose than in selecting as the
motif of this book that outrage upon justice, that travesty on
morality; the condemnation of woman for a crime that is readily
ignored or as readily forgiven in man. It is really such an
outworn theme that the very mention of it is greeted with smiles
or supercilious shrugs, and even lovers of their kind have grown
apologetic about it. If any man like John Storm, fired with the
best and truest principles of Christianity, steady of eye and
bold of heart and fearless of speech, dared to utter such
principles as his in any social circle of any one of our cities,
what a consternation he would create; and here as in London he
would be called a madman and avoided as an outcast. Yet what was
his creed? "Let him that is without sin amongst you cast the
first stone at her." We have heard it before, have we not?--but
in leaving it out of our Revised Version we have taken care to
leave it out of our practice as well, and are very busy casting
stones, though in truth not one of us is without sin.
The author of "The Christian" has loosed many a shaft that will
surely pierce between the joints of the armor; and not the least
of these is the story of a young girl's marriage to the abandoned
young lord, the man who had dragged Polly to ruin which ended in
suicide. We see such things every day, and it is not polite to
call them by their names. For that is the bitterness of it; that
ruin and disgrace and the swift downward road to hell are set by
society before the feet of the woman who errs, while for the man
who was at least her equal partner in crime, there are cordial
greetings, and a thousand doors, opened by women, alas!--and he
may have some pure girl for a wife, if he likes, and go serenely
every evening to a happy home, untroubled by remorse. Is it any
wonder, with the scales so unevenly balanced as this, with a
premium put on corruption among men, that new and ever new
recruits from womanhood are marching down into the infected
quarter of our cities, and that the wretched army grows and will
grow?
True, there are good women, here and there, making earnest effort
to "rescue" some of this miserable horde; and here and there one
is gathered into some house of refuge, and is helped to give up
her evil life. But even there, are the hopes held out before them
such brilliant hopes? One goes back to her old home and her
mother, and is thenceforward a marked creature among all the
people who have known her, doomed to cold avoidance or impudent
familiarity. One succeeds in getting work, of some menial kind,
and must live a life of utter subjection of self and utter
abnegation of pleasure, or will be suspected that she has a
secret longing for the old life. Many hide themselves in convent
walls, knowing what kind of welcome the world would have for them
if they went forth. If they could look over those walls, and
could be gifted with some far-seeing vision, they could see the
men who helped them to become criminals, abroad and at ease,
riding or driving in the free sunlight, bending over jeweled
fingers or whispering pretty nothings into dainty ears, as much
approved by all the world as though their records were as pure as
snow. Servitude or convent walls for one, even after she has
repented; the world and its gaieties for the other, to whom
remorse is unknown. No doubt the woman should be punished, and
her punishment should be as great as her sin has been; but one
would like to see the man who was guilty, equally with her, at
least avoided a little; at least made to know that there were
circles of society sufficiently refined to shut him out.
"The first stone." Many of these women have fallen through their
adoring love for men, for whom they would willingly have given
life itself, and would have counted it well lost. Wretched,
sinful women, no doubt, but is that any less a prostitution which
leads a woman to marry a man she does not love, whose very
presence is repulsive to her? Yet that is done every day, to the
music of the wedding march, with all the world there to see. If
there be any justice in heaven, the unfortunate who falls through
love is less a criminal than is the silk-robed bride who became a
prostitute under the holy cloak of marriage.
The first stone! The workers of all our large cities have among
them hundreds of girls who are doing their faithful best to earn
an honest living; who work long hours and endure fatigue, and
wear poor clothes, and surrender all girlish pleasures for the
simple right to exist. Once in a while comes a lull in business,
and scores of these girls are turned off. The employer makes no
effort to learn how they will live, meanwhile. "Am I my brother's
keeper?"--the old cry, many times repeated in these latter days.
How subtle, how alluring are the temptations that come in the
weeks and months of idleness; how inexorable seems the choice
held out to these helpless working girls--starvation or infamy.
It takes so long to starve, and life, after all, is sweet; so
they make their choice, shirking from death while age is still so
far away, and hope is bounding in the pulses; and having so
chosen are shut out from hope forever more. Yet there are items
in the society columns of the morning papers only too often,
which, if the truth could stand out through the flattering lines,
would tell how this or that fashionable girl has sold herself for
money, her mother standing by well-pleased, and all her five
hundred friends sending presents to commemorate the occasion.
There was no bitter hunger urging her to the sacrifice--there was
not the slightest excuse or necessity for it in any way. Which
was the greater prostitution?
And yet, women who have sinned these gilded sins of society, or
who have at least condoned the offense in their friends and
intimates, unite in shutting the fallen unfortunate away from
light and hope; and women of blameless life and pure name stretch
welcoming hands to men who have helped to recruit the army of the
fallen and make them outcasts and pariahs in the earth.
An outworn theme, doubtless; but there is enough in it still to
thrill the heart and bring tears to the eyes. It is well for the
world that a Christian, even in a book, has stood up among men
and told them of their crimes, and has told it face to face, in
the old Apostolic way; for we have come upon a Christianity, in
these latter days, which is silent when the Magdalene is brought
out for stoning if it casts no stones itself. New Orleans, La.,
November 14.
* * *
SALMAGUNDI.
Bishop Wilyum Doane hath an abiding place at Albany, N. Y., a
village on the Hudson where the peons of the political bosses
most do congregate to leg for bribes. In his recent annual
address to the clergy the Bish. lamented bitterly that the
American "jingo" was provoking dear patient Christian England to
put on her war-paint. "The English press," quoth he, "has been
most patient." Yea, it hath--in the optic of ye animal yclept the
hog. For two years past nearly every English paper, large and
small, has systematically insulted Uncle Sam--has belched upon
him all the feculent bile it could rake from its putrid bowels,
all the moldy mucus it could snort from its beefy brain. Even the
press of Canada--that Christ-forsaken land of bow-legged
half-breeds which continues to lick the No. 7 goloshes of old
Gilly Brown's leavings because it lacks sufficient sand to set up
for itself--barks across the border like a mangy fleabitten fice
yawping at a St. Bernard. But Doane would have America swallow it
all--just as the Thibetans swallow pastiles made of the excrement
of their Dalai Lama. The Bish. evidently has John Bull's
trademark branded on the rear elevation of his architecture. So
Hingland is growing blawsted tired of our Hawmewikan himpudence.
Aw! Vewy likely, don-cherknow. But we shoved it down the old
harlot's throat twice with the business end of a bayonet, and
we'll fill her pod again with the same provender whenever she
passes her plate. Doane ought to amputate his ears and send them
to the British monarch to be used as door-mats.
. . .
My old friend, Major-General Whistletrigger Vanderhurst, of the
Amazonian Guard, minister plenipotentiary of the Gal-Dal News,
has just run a superb "scoop" on all his contemporaries. He
rustled out one morning all by his lone self and discovered that
prosperity had arrived--that every Texan afflicted with chronic
hustle hath greenbacks to burn, and blue yarn socks galore
stuffed to the bursting point with "yellow boys," while ye farmer
simply slings the silver dollar of our sires at marauding
blackbirds. Whistletrigger turns up his patrician nose at all
"pessimists" and broadly intimates that the man who hasn't a new
silk cady, seventeen pair o' tailor-made "pants," a silken
nightshirt and sufficient provender in his pantry to run a
Methodist camp-meeting for a month, would starve to death in a
Paradise whose springs run Pomery Sec, and whose trees grew
pumpkin pies, hot weinerwurst and pate de foie gras. Texas,
according to this Columbus of prosperity, is a veritable Klondyke
bowered with roses instead of imbedded in snowbanks--a place
where every financial prospect pleases and only the popocrat is
vile. But I note with pained surprise that the farmers are still
selling middling cotton below six cents, buying bacon and wearing
pea-green patches on the bust of their blue jeans two-dollar
hand-me-downs; that I can hire all the common labor I want at 75
cents a day despite the advance in flour; that scores of
mechanics are idle; that there is no longer a wage rate in any
trade; that the streets are full of able-bodied beggers, while
merchants offer me 2 per cent a month for the use of a little
money. I note that in every Texas city realty is being cast upon
the bargain counter, while great newspapers are cutting down the
pay of their employees. There's prosperity and prosperity.
Perhaps Whistletrigger has been talking to the agent of some
mortgage company or to Colonel Hogg--who's making so much money
compromising railroad cases with the Chollie Boy Culberson
administration and suppressing prize-fights for $2,500 fees that
he really cannot afford to serve Texas in the United States
Senate.
. . .
Now that Henry George is dead, those papers and politicians that
were wont to abuse and misrepresent him most brutally are fairly
falling over each other to do him honor. The post-mortem gush is
sickening because of its insincerity. If Henry George was not a
great man living he is not a great man dead. If his economic
views were fatuous while he was among us they are folly
forevermore. I am not of those jackasses that delight in kicking
dead lions; I insist that simple justice be done a man while he
is in the land of the living--that we should not hound him to the
grave with gross misrepresentation then try to make restitution
by placing him among the stars. Henry George was a good man, but
he was not great. He was an advocate, not an originator. He
created no new epoch; he added nothing of importance to the
world's knowledge; but he did stimulate most wonderfully economic
investigation. He was a thought-compeller. He brushed the mold of
prejudice and the cobwebs of partisanship from many a brain. By
so doing he rendered the world invaluable service and is entitled
to its profoundest gratitude. So long as men can be induced to
THINK there is hope for the race. Although his Single Tax theorem
will perish, it has served a good purpose.
. . .
A Denver party wants to know if I would KNEEL if given an
audience by the Pope of Rome. I would be pretty apt to do so if
such action on my part was expected. I would ascertain beforehand
what conduct was required, then prove myself a gentlemen by
either observing the proprieties or declining the audience. What
would the Denver man do? Waltz up to the august head of the
Catholic church, slap him on the back and offer to shake him for
the drinks? Novalis says: "There is but one temple in the world
and that is the body of man. Nothing is holier than this form.
Bending before men is a reverence done to this revelation in the
flesh." We, whose ancestors for so many centuries bowed, not only
to the Pope, but to 2 x 4 kings and petty princelings, should not
unduly exalt our Ebenezer--should not become so stiff in the
joints that we prove ourselves boors by declining when in Rome to
do as the Romans do. Were I to seek the presence of Queen
Victoria I would observe all the court etiquette.
. . .
It is said that Miss Rebecca Merlindy Johnson, editress of the
Houston Post, and winner of the ICONOCLAST'S $500 prize as the
most beautiful woman in the world, will be a candidate for the
office of lieutenant-governor. If this be true she can depend on
the unswerving support of the ICONOCLAST. If there be
constitutional objections to her holding the office with both
lily-white hands we will amend that remarkable instrument. I will
take it upon myself to elect Rebecca and ask no other reward than
the privilege of dancing with her at the inaugural ball. She was
my first, if not my only love; and although she threw me over for
Pinkie Hill, by whose effulgent aurora borealis she was
hypnotized, and took to wearing pantaloons in public despite my
protest, she has since repented and given all her maidenly heart
to me; hence it will be my duty and my pleasure to manage her
campaign. Rebecca may safely consider herself elected and
discount her salary whenever the Post gets into a pinch. I am
willing to do anything for Rebecca except pay off the mortgage on
her paper.
. . .
Because a young man was killed while playing football, the lower
house of the Georgia legislature passed a bill prohibiting that
game under severe penalties. To be consistent the same body
should now prohibit swimming because some boys are drowned, and
possum hunting because some nocturnal sportsmen are killed.
Georgia appears to take it for granted that nature makes no
mistake--when she finds a man who's good for nothing else in the
universe she sends him to the legislature to make laws. There's
an element of danger in foot-ball as in all other athletic
exercises; but that is no reason why we should confine the
youngsters to croquet, mumble-peg and finger-billiards, and allow
the race to degenerate into a lobeliaceous aggregation of
lollipops. That Georgia legislature is full o' goobers and red
lemonade.
. . .
I am rejoiced to learn that the two factions of Texas Baptists,
after having for months past denounced each other in language
that smelled of sulphur and would have disgraced opposing parties
of Parisian gamins--after resorting to all the petty meanness of
peanut politics to control the flesh-pots--have kissed and
hugged, slobbered and boohooed each on the other's brisket. "How
sweet it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" That's
whatever. I'm glad the ruction is over, for it was becoming a
rank stench in the nostrils of the Protestant religion. It was
enough to drive an intelligent man to Atheism, to make him not
only suspicious of religion but ashamed of his race. It seems to
me that the ICONOCLAST should have had a reserved seat at the
love-feast--should have been forguv and slobbered over with the
rest of the sinners, for it had not said nearly as hard things
about its dear brethren in Christ as they had urged against each
other. It might at least have been permitted to collect the tears
of the penitents. That flood of brine, if carefully evaporated,
would have supplied Scholtz's Garden with beer salt for a
century. And it all went to waste! Doc Hayden and myself were the
only Baptist parsons who didn't get hugged. Hayden was made a
scape-goat for the sins of both factions and sent to wander in
the wilderness, and it was decided to no longer recognize the
ICONOCLAST as the official organ of the Baptist faith. It looks
as though Hayden and I would have to start a little Baptist hell
of our own.
. . .
J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska, one of those "village Hampdens"
whom G. Cleveland discovered when raking the country with a
fine-tooth comb in a frantic search for intellectual insects even
smaller than himself, says the Bryan Democracy is composed of
fanatics, bigots and idiots. He must have seen that brilliant bon
mot in the Chicago Inter-Ocean. Poor J. Sterling Morton. Not
being born great, nor having the ability to achieve greatness, it
was his misfortune to have it driven into him with a maul. And
he's never gotten over it. Had Cleveland done naught else evil he
would have damned himself everlastingly by pulling this
intumescent jay out of a Nebraska turnip- patch to make him a
cabinet clerk. I say cabinet-clerk, for the so-called secretaries
of the Cleveland regime were merely stool-pigeons for the
Stuffed-Prophet. And now this erstwhile seneschal of the Buffalo
Beast, this pitiful stool-hopper for the d--est fool that ever
disgraced the presidency, turns up his beefy proboscis at the
intellectuality of the Bryanites. If J. Sterling Morton would
only shave his head he could get four dollars a day for playing
What-Is-It in a dime museum. As an anthropological curio
Oofty-Gofty or the Wild Man of Borneo wouldn't be "in it."
. . .
The committee sent to Europe by McKinley to talk a little twaddle
about international bi-metallism has completed its alleged
labors, and the net product is nothing--just as the people knew
it would be when saddled with the expense of this high-fly
junketing trip to enable the administration to make a pretense of
redeeming the kangaroo promise of the Republican platform. The
silver problem is not at present the burthen of my song--I simply
rise to remark that the American people have been buncoed by this
commission business. It was sent abroad at great outlay of boodle
to ascertain what is perfectly well-known to every man outside
the insane asylum, viz.: that England, being a creditor nation,
would not consent to the remonetization of silver. Now let us
send a commission to Europe to see if the water over there is
wet. O Lord! how long will Uncle Sam consent to enact the role of
a long-eared, pie-bald ass?
. . .
I wonder, O I wonder who that "prominent lawyer and sound money
Democrat" was who got drunk at Charlie Cortizio's in Austin the
other day and toasted Chollie Boy Culberson as "Texas' most
distinguished son, the man who has done most to distinguish his
state abroad"--just a bummy little boost for Chollie Boy's
anaemic senatorial boom? I cannot imagine who he may be, but I
was pleased to see his toast followed in my pet daily by an "ad"
for a tansy compound warranted to "give relief from painful and
irregular periods regardless of cause." I hope that the "sound
money Democrat" aforesaid did not overlook the "ad," as he was
evidently having a painful period and much in need of relief. I
sincerely hope that he doesn't get that way often. It is a trifle
difficult to determine whether he was pregnant with a great idea
or full o' prunes--whether he needed a tansy compound or a
cathartic. Poor Chollie Boy! His senatorial boom must indeed be
in a bad way when he must fill old boozers with beer to induce
them to boost it. But it is quite true he has been heard of
outside the state--the ICONOCLAST has mentioned him several
times.
. . .
I noticed in one of the local papers that "Dallas wants Baylor,"
$50,000 to $75,000 worth. Doubtless I'm a hopeless heretic, but I
don't believe a d--n word of it. If anybody thinks that Dallas
will put up $25,000 cash to secure the removal thither of Baylor,
he can find a man about these premises who will make him a 2 to 1
game that his believer is 'way of his base. Dallas doesn't want
Baylor even a little bit. There isn't a town in this world that
wants it except Waco. It is simply another Frankenstein monster
that has destroyed its architect. Baylor spends no money here
worth mentioning. Its students are chiefly forks-of-the-creek
yaps who curry horses or run errands for their board and wear the
same undershirt the year round. They take but two baths during
their lifetime--one when they are born, the other when they are
baptized. The institution is worth less than nothing to any town.
It is what Ingersoll would call a storm-center of misinformation.
It is the Alma Mater of mob violence. It is a chronic breeder of
bigotry and bile. As a small Waco property owner, I will give it
$1,000 any time to move to Dallas, and double that amount if it
will go to Honolulu or hell. There is no bitterness in this, no
desire to offend; it is simply a business proposition by a
business man who realizes that Baylor is a disgrace to the
community, is playing Old Man of the Sea to Waco's Sinbad. The
town could well afford to give it $100,000 to "pull its freight."
* * *
SOME ECONOMIC IDIOCY.
A correspondent calls my attention to the recommendation of a
commission appointed by the governor of Massachusetts, to the
effect that "all taxes on intangible property be abolished." He
adds that, "as much of the wealth of Massachusetts is in stocks,
bonds and mortgages this would relieve the rich at the expense of
the poor." I could recommend that my correspondent be placed in a
well-padded cell in a lunatic asylum and fed on Ladies Home
Journal literature. The idea that what he calls "intangible
property" should be taxed is quite prevalent among the ignorant
and a perfect hobby with the half-educated. No writer
distinguished for economic erudition recommends laying a tax on
notes, stocks, bonds and other such evidence of wealth. Such a
tax should never be laid by a government guaranteeing equal
right. It is class legislation--it is DOUBLE TAXATION. This
statement may not be at all palatable to the West and South, but
the proposition is impregnable. It taxes both the lender and the
borrower on the same property and the latter has to pay for both.
It must be remembered that such securities are not wealth per se,
any more than a cook-book is a square meal--they are merely
evidences of ownership. Let us say that I hold $10,000 worth of
stock in the Illinois Central railroad: The road is my property
to the extent of my stock--I am a small partner in the
enterprise. It pays taxes to the State of Illinois and to every
county and municipality through which it passes. Having paid
taxes upon my property in Illinois, where it is located, must I
pay taxes upon it again in Texas, where it has no existence? If I
must pay taxes upon my railway property, then pay it again upon
the certificate that I own it and am entitled to its usufruct,
why not compel me to pay taxes on my business block, then pay it
again on the deed thereto in my possession. My certificate of
railway ownership and my certificate of realty ownership are on
an exact parity from an economic standpoint. Each is evidence
that I possess tangible property upon which I am paying taxes,
and I emphatically object to a double dose. Exactly the same
principle applies to promissory notes and bonds. A bond is
nothing more nor less than a note. Suppose that I hold Illinois
Central bonds to the extent of $10,000 instead of stock: The
corporation has borrowed the money of me and invested it. It is
paying taxes as well as interest on my property in consideration
of use. As the corporation is using the property it must earn all
the taxes, by whosoever directly paid, for I can earn nothing
with property not in my possession. If I am taxed on my bonds, I
must "put it in the bill," just as the merchant puts rent,
interest and insurance. If Massachusetts owns ten million dollars
of Texas securities she has simply transferred that much tangible
wealth to this state for us to tax. If the paper evidence that
this property is located here be taxed in Massachusetts, Texas
must pay the piper. Let it never be forgotten that a tax is but a
toll and can only be taken of something tangible. You cannot get
blood out of a ghost or wealth out of a paper evidence of
property. The blood must come from real veins and the tax must be
drawn from something tangible. It is a contravention of justice
and a violation of economic law to tax this man's property once
and that man's twice. That the one is rich and the other poor
does not mitigate the infamy--it is a fundamental principle of
this republic that all men shall be equal before the law. Some
years ago a howl was raised that reached high heaven that Jay
Gould was worth 50 millions and paid taxes on but 75 thousand.
Economic idiots gnawed a file because the ex-house-trap maker
objected to paying his taxes twice, and charging his patrons on
both the amount and the cost of collection. There are many
abnormal fortunes in this country, but confiscation through
taxation is not the proper remedy. If the government toll be an
ounce in the pound let it BE an ounce in the pound, whether the
citizen possess ten pounds or ten million. Let every citizen
contribute to the support of government in exact proportion to
his means. To exempt the man who makes $500 a year and place the
entire burden upon the man who earns $1,000 a year and upwards is
to make of the first a political pauper. The graduated income
tax, so-called is wrong to one class of citizens and an insult to
the other. Let us tax all property once and only once; but let us
see to it that unctuous old hypocrites like Rockefeller are not
permitted to rob the public--that they do not build collegiate
monuments to their own memory with other people's money.
* * *
AN EPISCOPALIAN MISTAKE.
Sometime ago a correspondent sent the ICONOCLAST a newspaper
report of the "jubilee sermon" of a Rev. Mr. Reed, rector of a
Protestant Episcopal church, and inquired if the statements
contained therein were true. The clipping has been mislaid, and I
do not now remember where Rector Reed is located; but I do know
that his statements, so far as I have investigated them, are
arrant falsehoods. He affirms that the American Republic is the
handiwork of Episcopalian patriots; that more than two-thirds of
the signers of the Declaration of Independence and an equal
proportion of our generals, statesmen and presidents have been
members of that denomination. As the sources of information
regarding the religious views of most prominent Americans are
shamefully meagre, I was inclined to regard Rector Reed's sermon
as a historical document of inestimable value. Being prone,
however, to act upon the advice of St. Paul and "prove all
things," I began a cursory investigation. Rector Reed neglected
to give the source of his information, and to save me I could
find but seven presidents, including Washington, who were
Episcopalians, and now Col. Patrick Ford, of the Irish World
calls my attention to Jared Spark's statement that the Father of
his country "withdrew himself from the communion service."
Jefferson, whom Rector Reed claims as an Episcopalian, was, as
every school-boy knows, an avowed free-thinker. The Adamses were
Unitarians, Garfield was a Campbellite, Jackson, Buchanan,
Cleveland and Ben Harrison were Presbyterians, Lincoln was
non-sectrian, Grant and Hayes were Methodists, as is McKinley,
while the religion of several others is unknown. Rector Reed's
other statements stand examination as poorly as that relating to
the presidents. It is pretty safe to judge a church by its
clergy, and the clergy of the Anglo-American or Episcopal church
were tory almost to a man. As I have made this statement before,
and it has been flatly denied in the Chicago press by an
Episcopalian bishop, it may be well to quote a few paragraphs
from an article by Rev. Chas. Inglis, entitled "State of the
Anglo-American Church in 1776." Inglish was at the time Rector of
Trinity Church, New York, and afterwards bishop of Nova Scotia.
His article may be found in Vol. 3, O'Callaghan's "Documentary
History of the State of New York." Inglis says under date of
October 31st, 1776:
Reverend Sir: The confusions which have prevailed in North
America for some time past must have necessarily interrupted the
correspondence of the missionaries with the society. A short
authentic account of them, and of the Church of England in
general, in this and the adjacent colonies, may be acceptable to
the society at this most critical period. The success of his
majesty's arms in reducing the city, and driving out the rebels,
the 15th of last month, affords me an opportunity of doing this,
as packets are now again established between this port and
England. I have the pleasure to assure you that all the society's
missionaries, without excepting one, in New Jersey, New York,
Connecticut, and, so far as I can learn, in the other New England
colonies, have proved themselves faithful, loyal subjects in
these trying times; and have to the uttermost of their power
opposed the spirit of disaffection and rebellion which has
involved this continent in the greatest calamities. I must add
that all the other clergy of our church in the above colonies,
though not in the society's service, have observed the same line
of conduct; and although their joint endeavors could not wholly
prevent the rebellion, yet they checked it considerably for some
time, and prevented many thousands from plunging into it who
otherwise would certainly have done so. . . . The present
rebellion is certainly one of the most causeless, unprovoked and
unnatural that ever disgraced any country; a rebellion marked
with peculiarly aggravated circumstances of guilt and
ingratitude. . . . About the middle of April, Mr.
Washington--commander-in-chief of the rebel forces, came to town
with a large reinforcement. Animated by his presences, and I
suppose, encouraged by him, the rebel committees very much
harassed the loyal inhabitants here on Long Island. Soon after
Washington's arrival he attended our church; but on the Sunday
morning, before divine services began, one of the rebel generals
called at the rector's house (supposing the latter was in town)
and, not finding him, left word that he came to inform the rector
that "General Washington would be at church, and would be glad if
the violent prayers for the king and royal family were omitted."
This message was brought to me, and, as you may suppose, I paid
no regard to it. Things being thus situated, I shut up the
churches. Even this was attended with great hazard; for it was
declaring, in the strongest manner, our disapprobation of
independency, and that under the eye of Washington and his army.
I have not a doubt but, with the blessing of Providence, his
majesty's arms will be successful and finally crush this
unnatural rebellion."
The ICONOCLAST is indebted to Col. Patrick Ford for a transcript
of Rev. Inglis' ebulition. It fully substantiates the statement
made by this journal some time ago that the Episcopal churches
were, during the revolution, "nests of tories and traitors."
* * *
GLORY OF THE NEW GARTER.