Newspaper Page Text
Cl)e Ikfteusonian
Vol. 14, No. 16
What was the Quarrel Between Martin Luther and the Pope ?
HR HIS year is the 400th, since a venereally
diseased Pope, whose dissipations had ex
hausted the Vatican treasury, sent out monk
ish peddlers into sundry parts of Europe to
Sell, at public outcry, the papal pardons for
sin, known 7 as “Indulgences.”
Originally, an Indulgence was a financial
<fleal, by which the Roman Catholic violator
of church rules could square himself with his
ecclesiastical lords; just as the peasants, under
the Feudal System, could pay money to the
landlord and escape menial service, or mili
tary conscription.
But as the Papal usurpation grew in power,
it naturally grew also in greed.
Euch successful aggression encouraged the
popes to attempt another; and so it was, that
the Bishops of Rome finally became Gods-on
earth, in the eyes of devout, superstitious
Catholics.
It logically follows that, if we have a God
on earth, this God can forgive sins.
Inasmuch as the popes had, in the course
of a thousand years, reached that monstrous
height of self-assertion, they changed the
original doctrine of Indulgence.
What had formerly been nothing more than
the remission of church penalties (similar to
the remission of a fine by one of our courts)
became a pardon for sin.
This preposterous usurpation of God's
power was carried to such extreme lengths,
that the popes sold Indulgences which wiped
but all crimes past, present, and future; and
the price to be paid was set against each crime,
TA OWN with the autocrats and their autoc
racies!
“So say we all —Daniel Dennis, Foreman.' 1
But which autocrat shall we commence
jwith ?
Whose autocracy must we first swat?
If we kick the wrong one, it’s apt to go
hard with us.
Suppose we had a President who was the
Whole Cheese, and whose constant attitude
reminded us of old Commodore Vanderbilt,
.would it be safe to call him an autocrat?
No sir, it wouldn’t. Two misguided Ameri
cans were put in jail, because they in
advertently forgot that this was no longer a
land of free speech.
One of the in-jails, is my Baptist brother,
Bev. J. R. Phillips, who was seized by some
maniacs at Douglas, Georgia.
The other is a man in New York, of whose
sad fate you may read in this news-item:
New York, April 5. —Henry Yager, a Moy wood,
N. J., real estate dealer, was sentencced to six
months in the workhouse here today for having
attacked President Wilson in a public speech.
“This man is the type of character who has
taken advantage of free speech,” said the magis
trate in sentencing Yager. “It is better that this
type be subdued.”
Ask Your Pastor to Preach on the Protestant Reformation.
WHICH “AUTOCRACY” IS YOURS?
Thomson, Ga,, Thursday, April 26, 1917
in a regular scale, just as you would list the
trices of a number of books, of horses, of
Back to the Old Price!
The responses to the S. O. S. were
many and were sincerely appreciated,
but they were not sufficient to meet
our necessities.
I have decided to restore the old
price of one dollar a year for the
paper, and the same for the magazine,
with the clubbing arrangement the
same as before—to-wit: clubs of ten
at $5.00 for the club.
The paper will carry about the
same amount of editorial matter, but
will have less room for letters and
contributed articles. It will be eight
pages instead of twelve—as much as
the average man can spare time to
read, between war whoops and war
news.
The magazine will also carry the
same quantity of my stuff, but less
of other medicine.
With these economies in space and
paper, and the same amount of T. E.
W. labor, we hope to wade through
the Armageddon. Those who re
newed at the advanced rate will either
be moved up on their subscription or
may take their choice in our literature
Yes, we must subdue “this type.”
The American who speaks his own mind
is going out of fashion, and will soon be obso
lete.
He must be “subdued,” and universal mili
tary compulsion, under Catholic chaplains, is
the shortest cut to the desired goal.
But how dpes the penalizing of honest, out
spoken opinion, in Amterica, consist with the
raising of huge armies to combat “autocrats,”
in Europe?
Must we begin our Avar upon European
autocracy, by creating one, here at home?
If fundamental democracy does not rest
upon the foundations of honest opinion and
free expression, what does it rest on ?
Don't abuse me— answer me!
If the fight against foreign autocracies
begins by costing us our mental freedom and
personal liberties, what will the end be?
Reflect upon it, my countrymen.
You saw the Government drifted into the
Armageddon: what else is it being drifted
into?
Last November, when you hurrahed for the
Democratic Party and voted for Woodrow
Wilson, did you dream that, in less than a
goods in a store, or of saleable articles at a
church fair.
V hen Pope Leo X. found his Vatican duc
ats running low. and sent out his peddlers,
loaded with Indulgences, it so happened that
monks, of a peculiarly bold and brazen type,
were selected as papal auctioneers.
These peddling monks used language which
would almost convince us that they them
selves despised the business in which they
were compelled to engage. *
For instance, when Tetzel would “cry' 5 his
goods at auction, in the market-place, he
would harangue the assembled rustics in
words like these:
“Lo! the heavens are open: if you enter not
now. when will you enter?
For 12 pence you may redeem the soul of
your father out of purgatory.
If you had but one coat, you ought to strip
yourself of it instantly, and sell it, in order to
purchase such benefits.
As soon as the money tinkles in the box,
the soids in purgatory instantly escape tor
ment and ascend to heaven.” »
(See Robertson's “Charles V.” Vol. 1. p.
462.)
This Tetzel chanced to be peddling his par
don-papers in the neighborhood of a pious
monk, named Martin Luther, who had found
a copy of the Bible, among the musty manu
scripts of the monastery, and he had been
stimulated by the Bible to study Christianity
for himself.
(continued on page two.)
month after his second inauguration, he would
be landing you in the European War, and de
manding that your sons be conscripted for
service beyond seas?
No! You never dreamed of such a thing.
If an angel from Above had told you so, you
would not have believed.
• Are you being deceived in any other re
spect?
Are words being used noir, as they were
then, to disguise the true intentions of the
Powers-that-be?
I do not say so, but I advise you to keep
your eyes open. This Government is under
going a revolution.
» IE ESPIONAGE BILL.
Thomas Jclf< rson defeated John Adams for
the Presidency, at the beginning of the 19th
century, because Adams and the Federalists
had made the Alien and Sedition laws.
The most oppressive acts of the Federalists,
under the Sedition law, were exactly equal to
the imprisonment of Phillips and Yager.
For “abusing” President Adams, men were
sent to jail.
(continued on page five.)
Price, Five 6ents