Lucifer, the Light-Bearer from Valley Falls, Kansas • 1

We date from the First of January, J'jOI, This era is call the Era of Man (E. to distinguish it from the theological epoch that preceded it. In that epoch the earth wan supposed to be flat, the sun teas its attendant Light revolting about it. Above wan heaven where God ruled supreme over all potentates and powers; on earth ruled the Pope as the vice-gerent of God; below was ih kingdom of the Devil, Hell. So taught the Jiihle.

Then came the New Astronomy, the astronomy of Copernicus, Galileo and Bruno. It demonstrated that the earth is a globe revolving about the sun; that the stars are worlds and suns that there is no vp and down in space. Bruno sealed his devotion to the new truth with his life on the nth day of February, 1600. During the 17th century Grotius wrote the first work upon in tcr national law. Our name, Lucifer, tomes to vs from Astronomy.

Its etymology: Lux tLueis). Light, and Ferre, to Bring or Bear. It was originally applied to the Morning Star. To shout how this illustrious name was bedimmed by theologians see ebster's Dictionary, page 792 note by Henderson. See aUt page 1621: -Lucifer" la fact, no Firofan or Satanic titl.

ia the Latin tha Light-brlnger, tha xnorninraur, equir-Jent to tha Greek "Phoa-phorua," and was a Christian name in early times, borne eren by on of tha popes. 1 1 only ac -quired Ita present association from the apostro- 5 he of the rained king of abylon.ln Isaiah, as a. fallen star. As the night of theology wanes, and as the Daylight of Science advances the grand old name will regain its pristine significance. Again will -cifcrus" be hailed "Son of the Morning "Her aid of the Dawn I Harbinger of the Good Time Coming Whole No.

322- VALLEY FALLS, KANSAS, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, E. M. 2S9. New Series, Vol. No.

24. ment to sustain the system of Slavery; Age of Reason' passed from hand to hand, Lucifer The Light-Bearer. and so now it is sought to bring the and furnished food for the evening's PUBLISHED WEEKLY. power of the government, by invoking the Camstock Law, to maintain the discussion in the tavern and the village store. Lincoln read both these books and thus assimilated them into his own TERMS: Oik copy, one year.

One copy, six months, SPECIMEN COPIES FREES tl.25 65 being. "He prepared an extended essay called by many a book in which he made an All lettersshould bo addressed to Lucifer, argument against Christianity, striving Valley Falls, Kansas. No communications inserted unless accom panied by the real name of the author. slavery of the wife. But we live in an age of progress.

Chattel slavery has been swept away. Woman is demanding that the causes which are making marriage a failure in so many cases, shall be removed; and that the wife shall be regarded as a person entitled to self-government. Woman is protesting in behalf of her sex, against the attempted suppression of appeals and arguments in her behalf; and if the people of Kansas are awake to the spirit of the age, they will listen to her protest, and will rebuke the prosecution of Lucifer, and the instigators of that prosecution will be buried in a grave so deep that the hand of resurrection will never find them. Diana. Each writer is alono responsible for the opinions, advice or statements made bvhim.

to prove that the Bible was not inspired, and therefore not God's revelation, and that Jesus Christ was not the son of God. The manuscript of these audacious and comprehensive propositions he intended to have published or given wiae circulation in some other way. He carried it to the store, where it was read and freely discussed. His friend and em Entered at the Valley Falls Tost-office as second class matter. ployer, Samuel Hill, was among the listeners and seriously questioning the Intelligence ascertains the conditions of well-being, and zvisdom lives in accordance with those conditions.

Ingersoll. ecclesiastical censorship. That is, whether a man has a right to say what he pleases in language no more improper or broad than is used in hundreds of clas3ical books, and the Bible which the Christians pretend is perfection, or whether when the Cnristians do not approve of what a man says he shall go to jail. These Christians have got a law which they will not enforce against themselves but which they use with great effect against their heretical neighbors, should these neighbors borrow biblical expressions and print them. This law and the method of its enforcement give the church the position of censor over the literature of the country; and in exercising her power she has fallen foul of the heretical editors of Valley Falls, Kan.

A good illustration of the church's methods was seen in the ease with which heretic D. M. Bennett was seut to prison for mailing a pamphlet which the most eminent men in the country declared not obnoxious to the law, while soapboiler Colgate, president of the Vice Society and Baptist church member, who violated the law as plainly as language could do, was not even indicted. It was a most infamous case of partiality, but in strict keeping with the character of the Christian church, which has always used the secular power to punish her enemies and secure immunity for crime to her friends. The two Harmans and Mr.

Walker seem prepared for their fate, whatever it may be. Mr. Walker says almost nothing, and Mr. Harman remonstrates with his prosecutors more in sorrow than in anger. Nevertheless their case is a hard one, and all who stand up for justice must sympathize with them, and, when the way is pointed out, do all in their power to aid them.

In a week or two we shall Know what kind of men they put on juries in Kansas. In the mean time we should judge that letters addressed to the United States District Attorney at Topeka, Kansas, remonstrating against this prosecution, would be the best way of aiding the threatened victims of Christian fidels on that subject, for evidence of Christ's divinity came to us in a Bome-what doubtful shape." Forbidden Fruit. "Curse of Godism." The marriage law as it exists to-day, is part of the plan to keep the power ia the hands that now hold it. They are determined that this question of sex shall not be investigated they are determined that woman shall be held to the child-bearing plane, or be a condemned outcast whose only method of life shall be to minister to man's passions till no longer able to do so, and then die become as dung upon the face of the earth this to sustain Godism But Humanity has grown in spite of this dwarfing method. The only way to kep people subject is to keep them ignorant hence the effort to confine the knowledge of life's finer forces of the sciences, and all that tends to elevate the race hence the effort to confine these things to the few.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is, and has been forbidden fruit, and we here say to woman: That which has been counted your shame, shall yet be your highest glory. Eat; we say eat; and continue to eat of the fruit of the tree; eat and give to your children, to your, not man's children. You, who build up the human body from your own heart's blood, shall no longer bear children unto man, shall no longer be his servant, but a free woman directing the mighty forces of creative life, and holding man to his own place. Yes, Humanity has grown in spite of this Godism that hangs over it like the pall of night. Man thinks, questions, and buried in dungeons, stretched on the rack, burned at the stake, passing LVKIC OF LABOR.

Let us raise up a tocsin of warning, Wo tli.it toll on the shore and the sea. Our sonjr is the song1 of the morning'. And our theme is the right to be free; The light of the sky has been breaking. Wo have seen what the clouds had in thrall. The tyrants that hold us are quaking.

For Upharsin is writ on the wall. Wo toll but wo do not inherit. Wo build but we do not possess; The iiower of our skill and our merit Only blossoms for others to bloss. It is time that Right cried a warning. That Justice had thundered her call: Our sonic is the song of the morning And Upharsin is writ on the wall.

Sweet freedom is ours if we dare it. Demand it with resolute will. And the gold that we coin we shall share it. The fruit of the forge and the mill; The Creators of wealth cry a warning, A new hope now shines for us all Our song is the song of the morning. And Upharsin is writ on the wall.

Natural Co-Operator. through the thousand forms of torture that have been meted out by those who claim that the end justified the means; that end consolidated power, with "kings and priests unto God forever," as the promised heritage of obedience, in spite of all this there has been a slow. POLITICO ECCLESIASTIC CK3T-SOJSSIIII. Under the head of "Help for the Messrs. Harman and Walker," E.

M. Macdonald, editor of the Truth Seeker, in his issue of the 5th comes forward with the following earnest and manly protest against the threatened incarceration of the Valley Falls publishers now prosecuted for the crimeC?) of institutional heresy. Ed, Lucifer. About this time the Harmans and Mr. Walker are getting closer to the vortex of their trouble.

October 10th is the day set to begin their trial in the United States district court ostensibly for send ing obscene print through the United" States mail thereby probably imperiling the morality of the mail bags but really for being social and religious heretics, and having the audacity to express their discontent with the existing state of things in Kansas and elsewhere. We do not believe that the Christian people of Valley Falls and vicinity are quite as anxious to preserve the purity of the United States mail bags as they are to drive the defendants in this case out of town and so close up the offices whence issues the heresy complained of. The moving spirits in the prosecution are a banker and the local clergy. The banker's excuse for nieddiiDg is that Valley Falls has acquired, because of the presence of the defendants, the reputation of a free love town. The clergy have entered upon the war against the heretics for the same reason that the clergy everywhere and at all times have persecuted heretics.

Taking advantage of the laws passed at the instance of an organization composed of ecclesiastics and hypocrite, the local monetary and religious inlluences of Valley Falls are endeavoring to serve God by imprisoning three men whose only crime is publishing protests against the abuse of marital privileges. It is not pretended that these protests are in themselves illegal that is, that everyone who objects to marital brutality steady growth; even till reason and sci ence are to-day disputing the idea of there being a God, or a throne for one to sit on. Moralifj- ol To -Day. B. F.

Underwood. The morality of the advanced nations to-day is commonly called Christian propriety of a promising young man like Lincoln fathering such unpopular notions he snatched the manuscript from his hands and thrust it into the stove. The book went up in names, and Lincoln's political future was S9 cure. "But his Infidelity and his skeptical views were not diminished. He soon removed to Springfield, where he attracted considerable notice by his rank doctrine.

Much of what he then said may properly be credited to the impetuosity and exuberance of youth. Ou of his closest friends, whos9 name is withheld, narrating scenes and reviewing discussions that 1838 took place the office of the county clerk, says: 'Sometimes Lincoln bordered on Atheism. He went far that way and shocked me. I was then a young man, and believed what my good mother told me. ije would come into the clerk's office where I and some young men were writing and staying, and would bring the Bible with him; would read a chapter and argue against it.

4Lmcoln was enthusiastic in his Infidelity. As he grew older he grew more discreet; didn't talk much before strangers abont his religion but to friends, close and bosom ones, he was always open and avowed, fair and honest; to strangers he held them off from policy. John T. Stuart, who was Lincoln's first partner, substantially indorses the above. He was an avowed and open declares Stuart, "and sometimes bordered on Atheism; went further against Christian beliefs and doctrines and principles than any man lever heard; he shocked me.

don't remember the exact line of his argument; suppose it was against the inherent defects, so-called, of the Bible, and on the grounds of reason. Lincoln always denied that Jesus was the Christ of God denied that Jesus was the son of God as understood and maintained by the Christian church. "David Davis tells us this: 'The idea that Lincoln talked to a stranger about his religion or religious views, or made such speeches or remarks about it as are published, is to me absurd. I knew the man so well he was the most reticent, secretive man I ever saw tr expect to see. He had no faith, in the Christian sense of the term had faith the laws, principles, causes and effects.

"Another man (William H. Hannah) testifies as follows: 'Mr. Lincoln told me that he was a kind of Immortalist; that he never could bring himself to believe in eternal punishment; that man lived but a little while here; and that if eternal punishment were man's doom, he should spend that little life in vigilant and ceaseless preparation by never-ending "Another intimate friend (I. W. Keys) furnishes this: 'In my intercourse with Mr.

Lincoln I learned that he believed in a creator of all things, who had neither beginning nor end, possessing all power and wisdom, established a principle in obedience to which worlds move and are upheld, and animal and vegetable life come into existence. A reason he gave for his belief was that in view of the order and harmony of all nature which we behold, it would have been more miraculous to have come about by chance than to have been created and arranged by some great power. As to the Christian theory that Christ is God or equal to the creator, he said that it had better be taken for granted; for by the test of reason we might become In morality; but only with the same disregard of truth which is implied in deny ing tbe existence of goodness before Christ, and outside of Christendom. The morality of this age does not owe its existence to any religion, to any book, to any historic cJiaracter, however Judge Foster's lceisIon. NUMBER XVIII.

Ill this concluding letter, which will bring ns up to the time appointed for the trial, I propose to apply the recognized definition of obscenity to the two articles which Judge Foster considers ob-scoue. It has been repeatedly ruled in the courts: "The test of obscenity is, whether the teudoncy of the matter is to deprave and corrupt the morals of those whose minds are open to such influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may Is the Markland letter obscene under this test? Does it have a tendency to deprave and corrupt the morals of a husband to tell him that such an aggression as that referred to in the letter, endangering the life of a sick wife, is "coarse, selfish, ignorant, that although the law may not so define it and may not bo punish it, it is substantially a rape? that a woman ought to haye the same protection after 6he becomes a wife as before? If to listen to such an appeal has a tendency to deprave and corrupt the morals, it must be because a wife has no right which her husband is bound to respect, and because good morals requires that wives should be kept in abject servitude; and it must be because the brutality which inspired the Markland protest is needed to keep wives in subjection. We must have a jury of Le-grees before we can reach such a verdict. When we turn to the second article complained of as obscene, and apply the same test, we reach very similar conclusions. Again it is the question whether it tends to deprave and corrupt the morals of a husband, to tell him that his wife's wishes should be sacredly respected, and that his selfishness should not demand her self-sacrifice.

That is the lesson of the Whitehead letter. And if to listen to that tends to deprave and corrupt the morals, it must be again because the wife has no right to have her wishes respected, and because it is her duty to sacrifice herself to her husband's desires. It was the Shelbys and St. Clairs who made theLegrees possible. And so it is the respectable and unthinking invasion of the wife's personality, which makes such instances as that described in the Markland letter, in Helen Wilman's "Awful iu many others which have never appeared in print, possible.

The Fugitive Slave Law brought the power of the govern much or little any one of these has influenced mankind. present conception of morality has grown through many centuries of human experience, and exists now only Is it essential to the administration of justice that everybody refrain from laughing? IJiana. Tlie Religion Views of Abraham Lincoln. From Freethonght, San Francisco. William H.

Herndon, for twenty years a friend and law partner of Abraham Lincoln, has written a life of that great figure of American History, the sixteenth president of the United States. Unlike many biographies, this appears to be a natural and truthful one. It makes the reader acquainted with the man as well as the president. As Ingersoll says: "Nearly all the great historic characters are impossible monsters, disproportioned by flattery, or by calumny deformed. We know nothing of their peculiarities, or nothing but their peculiarities.

About the roots of these oaks there clings none of the earth of humanity." Herndon might have had these words in mind when he wrote his life of Lincoln, so little does their criticism bear upon his work. With regard to Lincoln's religious views particularly the author seems to have been perfectly honest, and as these views are of special interest to Freethinkers we will make some extended extracts from Herndon's testimony. He says: "Inasmuch as he was so often a candidate for public office, Mr. Lincoln said as little about his religious opinions as possible, especially if he failed to coincide with the orthodox world. In illustration of his religious, code, I once heard him say that it was like that of an old man named Glenn, in Indiana, whom he heard speak at church-meeting, and who said: 'When I do good I feel good and when I do bad I feel bad, and that's my religion.

In 1834, while still living in New Salem, and before he became a lawyer, he was surrounded by a class of people exceedingly Liberal in matters of religion. Volney's 'Buins and Paine's because, by many mistakes and much suffering, man has learned its adaptea-npRH tn his wants. It ia the result of the combined influence of our natural character and education. To ascribe it to the dominant religion were as absurd as a nusoana towards ms wire is a to attribute the enlightenment of the ancient Greeks to their mythology, or a a a aft proper subject for immediate imprisonmentbut the authorities, at the in tne eniigniement or. toe Daracens oi Snain in tha ninth and tenth centuries.

when darkness enveloped Christian Eu stance of the ecclesiastics, claim the language used was obscene. On this, rope, to JUohameaanism. it is only just to the defendants to say that if the language is objectionable to Colien to IMnctum. Editor Luctfer: In answer to my such an extent, a very large portion of the best of the literature of the world question, Is compulsory education an invasion of the personal domain, Binctum must come under the same ban. This was admitted by the judge before whom answers in Luctfeii No.

312, that he the demurrer to the indictment was argued. thinks not, but says further, "But if we find a man with good education who holds it a damage to himself and wishes his children exempt from the corse, I The question, then, is not really one of obscenity, but the issue is, as Mr. Harman states it, whether the natural and civil right of free speech and free for one would not insist. 2ow, inena Binctum, since you believe In the platform of the S. L.

does not the above statement place you in the same position publication shall be sustained; or whether, on the contrary, this birthright as the man who was in favor or a pro of every American shall be tamely surren hibitory law, but "agin" ita enforcement? dered to the encroachments or a politico- ilEXBY UOHEX..