A. J. OKER IN REPLY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3044, 19 January 1892, Page 3

A. J. OKER IN REPLY.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sin,—Having been busy among m.V sheep the last week, I have not been able to attend to this second lower-oider-inan as I • uld have wished ; but now I must look

rhi in. I have not brought my bastinado this time, but my stock whip; and unless his skin is as thick as the skin of an alligator, he will, I think, feel tho effect. Of course I shall not wade through the whole of this literally inagmire; but shall gently and briefly notice a few of the most interesting points. You are struck instantly with the remarkable likeness of number two to number one. Why, they are as like as two peas ! If these two are not one, they must be twins ; so like in tasto, in sympathy, in principle, and in descent; for it appoars that both glory in having a piece of a tail left. They are certainly very like each other, only this last foams at the mouth a little more than his brother, aud is a little more lively. He puts me in mind of a dancing monkey. To be sure, how he frisks, aud fumes, and sputters ! Dear Sir. if you could only get this pair into a menagerie it would be a fortune! Whatever is it makes them so lively do you ask? Just a sentence— "True morality must hav9 some reliable foundation; a standard of right and wrong.' That appears to be all. Or, is it possible that this man has heard of the proposed "cap and bells " to be given to his brother, and is suffering from mental aberration, lie blunders ; then tries to be funny ; the next moment froths at the mouth. He regards everything bad, excepting atheistical morality. I advise him to get this last effusion printed and placed along side of his brother's ; they would nakean interesting pair, the reading ot which would be a simple remedy for melancholy. [ believe this would really be more efficacious than a dozan boxes of Holloway's pills. These twins do not believe in a "standard of right and wrong." They appear as avowed freethinkers and atheists. Now as to freethinking, I am n"t ashamed to confess that lam myself a froothinker. I think and believe what in my judgment is true and right. Is not that frecthought ? Thus led by my judgment and common sense, 1 cannot degrade myself to become an atheiet. I am free to believe that the creation has a creator ; and that I am in a higher scale of being than the dog at my feet or the horse I ride. I tin freely led to this conclusion ; and I pity the man, be he young or old, so blind to reason; so bereft of common understanding, as to have the degrading hardihood to declare to reasonable men that he does not believe in a

Creator! As to our origin ; I cannot boast of a piece even of a tail, as these twins appear to do. lam therefore obliged to disclaim any relationship to this pair. Now, as he declares that he has the butt, or piece, of a tail left (the other part worn off, I suppose, by sitting on it to write critiques) I must conclude that the whole tiiil was there at one tiine. But then. I understood him to intimate that his ancient progenitor was tho "noble orangoutang," but let us consider the matter, and decide. This writer intimates that ho actually has the piece or butt of a tail left. Now tli3 noble orang has no tail ; therefore, the writer could not have descended from his tadpole state through the noble orang to his present condition. Then again, the writer of this remarkable piece has not only the piece of a tail behind, but a nose on his face. This evidently distinguishes him from a variety of monkeys, aud connects him with a distinct kind, namely, the proboscis monkey. Then there is another species noted for the tremendous noise they create ; namely, tho stentor, or howling monkey. Now, after careful consideration and the free use of logic 1 am led to Llie conclusion that this wonderful critic is a cross between the nose monkey and the howler. He it understood that the whole of this important investigation is based on supposed truth of the unchallenged intimation, that the writer was evolved from a t:\dpolo, through a toad, through a monkey, down to noble manhood. I am astonished at the conclusion to which facts have led me. Look at the following :—l. These twins acknowledge they have some portions of tails left.; they are therefore distinguishable from the orang and become connected with the lower order of monkeys. 2. The faco of these monkeys " exhibit the grotesque resemblance to a man." Let the critic look into tho glass and see for himself. 8. " They find a difficulty in walking upright." There you are again. The man recognises no proper foundation for his morality ; has no true standard of right and wrong. 4. "They have great talent for imitation." Just look over the last critique, and see how this second man imitates his brother, and how both imitate Tom Paine. Ho shapes well, and can swear almost as well as his tutor, 5. "They leap about with wonderful agility." This is striking evidence. How lively and brisk these men aro ! Just mention a standard of right and wrong and off they go—jumping, whistling, fuming and spattering. 'Tis really wonderful. G. " They arc often produced two at a birth." And have we not twins before us—this pair of lower order men. 7. " Their chattering is very unlike human speech." Just read over these productions. Who would suppose they emunated from human beings? 8. " They use their extremities for prehension." Just look here and see how thoy grasp at facts and try and twist them. They grasp at shadows and try to make us think they are realities. !). In the howler, " the formation of the jaws aud throat gives a prodigious power to the voice, enabling them to emit hideous sounds, which may be hoard miles away." How wonderful are the conclusions of science. Supposing that what they have stated or implied is true, what is the conclusion to which we are brought but this : That these twin critics are the production of a proboscis and a stentor. But now comes the most important part. These men having tried to hurl abuse against an innocent dreamer, 'attack Christianity, and advise mo not to try to defend it, as many greater than I had tried and failed ; that the worship of Christians is fetish (the worship of some tribes of negroes in Africa); that the Christian religion is dying out, and that Tom Paino is to survive, and with his infidelity to occupy a niche in the temple of fame 1 I would ask your intelligent readers, if this effusion, if laid before the Commissioners of Lunacy, would not be sufficient to decide as to the insanity of tho writer. Who but a lunatic or a drunken man who had lost his wits, wculd venture on such statements? Does the writer really think that the poor little coterie of sceptics to which he belongs has all tho wisdom of the world ? Does he not know that among the defenders of Christianity there are men of tho most profound learning, men possessed of masculine intellects; some of the greatest thinkers ol the age? Does ho not know that this religion has faced the hostility of nearly nineteen centuries ; faced all the hate anil scorn the vile of the earth could brine against it; and yet it stands, unmoved, like some mighty rock in mid-ocean ; anc was never more widely extended or firmlj established than at this hour? Let hin know that millions have been blest by it ir life ; consoled amid its trials and sufferiugs and proved it a healinp b.tlm in the hour o: death. Christianity, that has gone fortl raising the most degraded savages U civilization ; striking off the shackles of tht slave and setting him free; feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, and clothing the naked ; building alrr.s-houses, orphar asylums, and refuges for tho outcasts ; the lirsfc principle of which is tolovo (Jod, am to love our neighbours as ourselves this religion this wont be-wise critit

the (oily and audacity to describn as the curse of the world. Tlie heroes of infidelity have pr.t forth their most strcnuons efforts in opposing it, and

have ignoininiously failed. Voltaire boasted that lie would with one hand tear down tho fabric which tile twelve apostles had raised. Voltaire died, but Christianity lives! and the identical printing press ho bought to print his abominations lias been secured and employed ill printing; the Bible. Yet this wiseacre fancies lie sees the grand structure fall, and Tom Paine forsooth occupying a niche in the temple of fame. Poor Turn ! if anything was needed to exposo the shallowness, impudence, ignorance, and consummate folly of this man, you have it hero. He is, doubtless, a dishonour to tho lower orders. I defy any man who is not a fool to write such a conglomeration of egotism, folly and rubbish. T.'UI Paine to have a niche in the temple of faino when the religion of Christ will have perished ! Who is this model of virtue and eoodne«s ? Let his biographer apeak : '• He was a man who had considerable abilities; ho was put to jail becauso he did not pay his debts ; he was imprisoned tor Inking part in the French revolution, and narrowly escaped the guillotine ; ho went off to America with tho wife of a French bookseller, with whom he continued to live ; oy his virulent attacks on Christianity he was forsaken by large numbers of his admirers ; many regarded him with execration ; foeJine this very keenly, and having always had a tendency to the bottle, it became habitu-d, to the extreme injury of his health and the ultimate production of a complication of diseases, to which lie fell a victim." This is the man who is to have a niche in the temple of fame . These twins hope, I suppose, to have a niche near him in the same temple, and yet one of these is the man who has the city to call Christian worship fotish. Talk of insolence ! A puppy trying to mount a pyramid is nothing to it. It reminds me of a dog barking at the moon. Destroy Christianity! Go and draw a. curtain across the east to prevent the rising of the sun, annul the changes of the moon, prevent the ebbing and flowinor of the tides, and when you have accomplished theso feats, then try to overthrow Christianity, and not till then. I cannot but cry shame on them ! Poor vain mortals, partially instructed, prating about adjectives, loeic and grammar, as if no one had ever beforo heard of Whateby and Mill. It is quite possible that men may be found in our township who have forgotten more than they ever knew. I would say to them, go and hide your heads in darkness and never take upon you to outrage common sense with your folly when anyone writing on a national subject expresses a belief in the necessity of a standard of right and wrong. I do hope that what I have expressed will do them good ; but perhaps it will not, for old Aosop or someone else says, " Bray a fool in a mortar with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him." Now I have done with him. —I am, &c., A. J. OKEU.