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VOL 12 NO 20
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LINCOLN, NEB., SATURDAY. JUNE 20, 1807.
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1 OBSERVATIONS. :
t
Rev. Byron Beall, in a letter to a Lin
coln newspaper commends the work of
Evangelist Suaday. Both of these men
advertise sensational subjects, use in
temperate and 'profane language, and
shock and frighten children and women
without hesitation, in order to get an
audience, in order to be talked about on
the street3. Mr. Sunday claims that he
left the bass ball profession to become a
preacher bscause he thought he wsb
converted and he wanted everybody else
to be. In point of fact the large salar
ies of ten years age attracted so many
to the diamond that the price of players
dropped below the sum that Pitcher
Sunday considered his talents worth
and he began to look about him for a
paying job. His flexible, though not
especially choice vocabulary and the
practice he had in long distance shout
ing and shearing in the constantly re
curring decisive moments on the bate
ball field, together with his personal ex-
psrience of low life, led him to believe'
that he could pose as a brand snatched
from the burning for about four hund
red dollars a month. In this venture he
is constantly helped by the natural re
spect that everybody instinctively feels
for a preacher. A true Christian would
hesitate to make his former wickedness
or his self announced goodness his only
stock in trade. Real convert to all re
ligions are humble and ready to learn of
the regular teachers. Pitcher Sunday
defies and denounces the church. With
the egotism of a nature essentially
arse he is unably to comprehend that
he is speaking to an audience much
higher in the grade of morals tnnn he
was in the dajs Lefore the profession of
Christianity made it necessary for him
to be anything but tricky, profane and
lustful.. Goodness i9 always unsuspi
cious and accuses no mie of that which
it is itself incapable of. Tho best
preacher that ever lived was crucified
eighteen hundred and ninety-seven
years ago. He told a story of a publican
and a sinner. The publican Etood confident'-
near tho altar and proclaimed
his own goodness and attempted to
draw the attention of the deity to the
faults of other men. The real penitent
stood afar en and confessed his s'ns.
In modern times Phillips Brooks has
helped humanity more than any other
preacher. When he died the business
of the town where he lived was suspend
ed for a day. Everybody who came in
to his presence wan'ed to be good. His
life was, humanly speaking, spotless.
He never asked for an endorsement, ho
never needed one. When little children
heard him they wanted to wait and
speak to him. Tho purity and unfit
ness attracted them when they did not
understand his words, which, gentle as
they were, threw a white light on the
conscience of the grown up people who
listened to him and which made them
loathe themselves of an hour ago. There
were no ejaculations and no groaning
among the men and women he talked
to, but when they left him there was
a firmer set to the shoulders of the men
and the lips cf the women; there was
a kindly giving a in the crowds which
had pushed themselves in. In thus
comparing Bishop Brooks with a man
who takes his cheap goods and talk from
town to town, there is an absurdity. I
do so only becaure in deciding upon a
counterfeit it is necessary to know the
ring and the stamp of the coin. Measur
ing with such a standard doss not ex
clude poor and ignorant workers like
those of the Salvation and Volunteer ar
mies. If the motive which animates a
man is to be good in order to help tho
world, the newspapers will not hinder
his work with denunciations, nor will
the pure in heart shrink from his words;
but if he is working for himself by pre
tending to pious indignation of sin,
he can not deceive the people for long.
Mr. Sunday complains of the news
paper?, wherever he goes. But they axe
unable to give a veibatim report of
his speeches without breaking postal
regulations. The reporters listen to
him at first with enrne admiration for
his loquacity, but after they have heard
fuurtei u of his twenty eight speeches
the Verdict is that he is unworthy to
tase the name be uses so frequently.
The papers of all denominations, re
publican, as well as democratic and pop.
uliit, express the hope that the able
lawyers for the defense in the Bartley
trial will not be able to mix things up
so that the efforts of the jury to apply
the law to the particular case of em
bezzlement with which the treasurer is
accused will not be effectual. While
the case is being tried it is enough for
the daily nowspapers to report the pro
ceedings of the i:ourt which is trying him.
The jury is composed of twelve men of
average honesty and intelligence. The
claims of the stati are presented by able
lawyers and they are met by representa
tives of the law, who havo won more
hopeless cases than this one of ex Auditor
Bartley, who, if ho bo innocent, resorted
to the artifices and expedients of dis
honesty to conceal conduct which on
this date, June 21st, judge and jury are
debating the legality of. When tho
jury has finished its work, the people of
the state, through the newspapers, will
approve or disapprove according to tho
unobscured principles of justice which
inhere in all the people as a unit. If the
decision is not coincident with the opin
ion of the intelligent, commonplace men
and women who read the testimony as
it is presented to the court from day to
day, their disapproval will react upon
the party which elected Mr. Bartley.
Taking out of account the popular
clamor f.r a victim when a crime has
been committed, these who do not join
in it are willing to wait the verdict of
the court. When it is recdered if justice
seems to have been defeated it is time to
protest.
The republican party all over the state
has drawn a breath of relief since tho
Wednesday papers printed the news of
Mr. Bartley 8 conviction. Judge Baker
showed an uncompromising front to tho
defense throughout the trial. To all
appearances he was anxious that the
jury should get the unobscured facts.
They got them and rendered a verdict
that the whole state is sat is tied with.
Mrs. Annie Besant, the theosophist
who lectured to a large audience on
Sunday night and to a larger one en
Monday in the Universalist church, is a
woman of medium pize, with deep set
eyes and a low pitched, somewhat hoarse
voice. She wore a costume of China silk
with a long broad scarf of the same
material swathed from her Kft shoulder
to the right hip where the two ends were
mysteriously draped and fell to the hem
of the skirt. The c stume was a very
warm one, considering the night, and
not exactly graceful, but it was made in
England and worn by an Englishwoman
and it looked as though it would last a
long time. Mrs. Besant spoke clearly
and slowly without jestures except as the
regular leaning forward of the body and
emphatic jounco upon the heels at the
end of a Beries of sentences or phrases
can be called jesturing. The thick folds
of silk laid diagonally across the torso un
fortunately emphasized round shoulders
and a hollow chest, which in a different
costume would not have been noticeable.
Swathed in white silk, made like the
dress of a ghost or a mahatma, which
hung in full, straight folds like tho drap
ery of a caryatid, with glistening, thick,
white hair, drawn smoothly back to a
knot in her nectc, and with the deep.glow
ing eyes of a mystic, Mrs. Besant kept
tho usua ly restless summer night audi
ence still. She said that there wero
three worlds, this one, the astral, and
the heaven!. She knew their geo
graphy, climate and conditions beoause
she had traveled in every one of them.
Then she Baid that each one of tho im
mortal souls who listened to her could
at will travel in them it they would get
into the vehicles of transportation suit
able to the medium it was made to
travel in or over; as in this world we
use the steam cars for land travel, tho
steam propeller for water travel and the
balloon and airship for air travel, eo to
get into tho other two places she used
the discoveries of prophets and masters
who died thousands of years ago and
found that she could get into these
other two place with quickness and ease.
But like the patent memory man, who
related the miraculous deeds, bis pupils
accomplished, she did not tell the audi
ence where the station to the astral
world is, or how to get transportation
there. When questioned, after the
lecture, she said that it would not do to
tell an uninformed audience how to
travel. But she gave me a little pamph
let which tells what tbeosophy is and
prints on the last page a list of bookB
.for a course in tbeosophy, elementary
advanced and ethical, consisting of
twenty-nine books, fifteen of which she
is the author, and five by H. P. BlavaS
sky. Several years ago I bought for five
dollars the six little pamphlets which
the patent memory man said would give
faithful students a memory as good as
Macaulay's, but they did not. Now this
course in theosophy costs 137 GT, which
is cheap enough for a ticket to the astral
world and return. Especially if while
in that world we learn enough to help
us to live the rest of our lives mora
worthily in this one. But the very
warm weather and the labor of speaking
in to many plpces between San Francis.
co and Ne.v Yark, together with the ex
periences of the patent memory "pro
fessor," m ike it probable that Mrs. Be
sant advertises her bosks as well as at
tempting to lift humanity from the
gutter that it is too slowly crawling out
of. Madam Blavatsky's book. ''The
Secret Doctrine," costs. $12.50, which, 1
repeat, is cheap enough if it tells how to
get safely out of this and return if we
are not 6uited. It is unfair to treat the
lecture of so Ieatned and so keenly in
telligent a woman as Mrs. Annie Besant
with a Jack of seriousness. If it were
the first time thatgifted talkers had bull
ed unknown stocks she would be treated