Passing Notes.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 11, 1 August 1884, Page 3

Passing Notes.

In a leCture at Kensington, says a despatch, Max Muller declared that the soul of Buddhism is charity, that indeed it is the true religion of humanity.

At a yearly meeting of Friends in Philadelphia, it was ascertained through epistles that “ in no instance was there a report of any Friend being engaged in the manufacture or sale of intoxicants.”

The fadt that 2,000,000 human bodies have been buried within the limits of the London postal circle during the last twenty-five years, is being used with decided effedt by the advocates of cremation in the British capital.

The London Spectator says : “ Murder is a cause of death in England to 237 per 10,000,000; in Belgium, to 240 ; in France, to 265 ; in Scandanavia, to 266 ; in Germany, to 279 ;in Ireland, (1879,)t° 2 94 I* n Austria, to 310 ; in Russia, to 323 ; in Italy, to 504 ; in Spain, to 533, and in the United States to 820.”

Says Mr. Bradlaugh, respecting the mobbing he received when attempting to leCture at Bridgewater. “ The riot was arranged by the local licensed victuallers and the clergy and gentry, and at the bar of the very hotel in which I was staying, the brother of one beneficed clergyman of the district, was prominent in paying for liquor for those who were hired to assault me.”

The following is another instance of the corrupting influence of Christianity : “ Yes, the women have deserted me,” said murderer Rugg to a Mail and Express reporter the other morning. “ I get no more flowers or sympathy, but I manage to sleep well, eat well, and feel well. Yes, religion is a great thing. I’m going to God when I die!”—New York Mail and Express.

In 1868, George Eliot wrote a friend in regard to herself and Mr. Lewes : “We love too much our associated studies and solitude to let the world have more than one day a week. Society here is, moreover, what it everywhere is,—empty. The English world is extremely like what it was when you left, conversation more or less trivial and little sincere, the literature of the moment scarcely better, and politics worse than one or the other.”

The Mahdi is a radical total abstinence man, even to coffee and tobacco, which he wont even allow in his camp. In fact, he lately gave a refugee one hundred and fifty lashes for smoking a cigaret. But he makes up for this by having thirty nine-wives, and keeps within the letter of the Mohammedan law, which allows onty four wives at a time, by an ingenious system of temporary divorce, by which he always has thirty-five wives in waiting.—Boston Index.

The Crown Prince of Germany recently gave an address before the Royal York Lodge in Berlin, which has been the subject of much comment among his brethren of the Order. He said that Freemasons should be more progressive, and that instead of clinging tenaciously to old traditions, whose value consists solely in their antiquity, they should distinguish themselves by being in the front rank of seekers after new and living truths. T his advice is worthy of an enlightened prince, but will it be followed ? It is quite melancholy to observe the cravings of Masons for historical facts connected with their Order, which do not exist— find an unbroken line running back to Solomon.

From an English telegram we learn with regret that Mr. Bradlaugh is held to have voted illegally in the House of Commons. In other terms, the Court has decided that a member cannot swear himself in. We presume Mr. Bradlaugh has appealed. The costs in the case must be enormous. Would it not be opportune and fitting that the Freethinkers of New Zealand sent him a New Year’s Gift, to be placed at his sole disposal ? The great English champion is fighting the world’s battle of Freethought, and ought to be sustained. We invite suggestions, in order to place something definite before our readers next month.

The Pope’s encyclical on Masonry (from which we give an extract in another column) is an instructive document, deserving of more consideration from Freethinkers than we can give to it in our present issue. The arraignment is really an indictment against the principles of modern civilisation. What Popery condemns modern liberty extols. Masonry, in its practical or administrative aspeCt, probably differs in different countries, but if it is the embodiment in all of the principles set forth in the Encyclical, it is entitled to the respeCt of Freethinkers. In a word, Masonry is a great Freethought Federation. We hope the Pope’s account of it is correCt.

An Insurance Agent encloses us the following extract from the report of a meeting of the congregation of St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Wellington : “ A gentleman in the meeting deprecated the idea of insuring the premises, and instead of doing this they, as Christians, should commend the buildings to the protection of God.” The reporter observes on this: “It is hardly necessary to state that these suggestions did not meet with the approval of those present.” Our Insurance friend supplies the comment: We have competition enough, heaven knows, but this attempt to start a new office up above is too much. At what figure would he put the capital ? Let us add our own—why did God allow his house to be burnt down ?

The Radical Review advocates national organization based upon State secularization. “We should,” it says, “ rejoice over nothing more than the unification of the body of the American Liberals on a platform embodying the principles of social and political reform as well as those of freethought But, as that is a matter of impossibility, remembering that some Liberals are Greenbackers while others are HardMoney Men, some Prohibitionists and others AntiProhibitionists, some Free Traders and others Protectionists, some Socialists and others Democrats, etc., we deem it desirable that there should still be at least one strong organization in the United States that will valiantly battle for universal mental liberty.”

The general election has witnessed a remarkable triumph of the spirit of Liberty over that of bigotry and intolerance, in the return of Mr. Robert Stout for Dunedin, and Mr. John Ballance for Wanganui. Both are avowed Freethinkers, and occupy official positions in the Freethought Federal Union of New Zealand, being President and Vice-President respectively. Into both elections were imported the religious question, and the drum ecclesiastic was beaten furiously. Mr. Stout defeated his clerical opponent by a majority of 240, and Mr. Ballance polled 336 votes more than the next candidate on the list. It need hardly be said that in each case the majority was principally made up of the votes of Christians who refused to have their religion dragged through the mire in a political contest. It is more than probable that many of the men who made the appeal to the odium theologicum cared about as much for religion as the religious wife-beater or the religious murderer.

When we love our brother for the sake of our brother, we help all men to grow in the right; but when we love our brother for the sake of somebody else, who is very likely to damn our brother, it very soon comes to burning him alive for his soul's health. When men respect human life for the sake of Man, tranquillity, order, and progress go hand in hand but those who only respected human life because God has forbidden murder, have set their mark upon Europe in fifteen centuries of blood and fire.