Puck — April 9, 1879 — page 7: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

DOXY. “+7 E have received the following letter from an ardent Christian in South William Street. N. To the Editor of Pi . ; T have read Puck with avidity since his sparkling and successful entrée into the society of New Yorkers. I have derived great pleasure and at times, much profit therefrom. His astonishing fearlessness is certainly to be admired, and the pungent cynicism with which he tramples under foot the fallacious superstitions of the day commends him to all sensible-minded people. Yet did he not, in the issue of the 2nd instant step a trifle too far? In the article relating toTalmadge, wherein certain ambiguous and slighting titles are affixed to the acknowledged saviour of the world, I believe he shocked and sneered at the faith and cherished hopes of many; hopes very dear and a faith better grounded than to be overturned by such allusions, however much they may be disturbed and annoyed thereby. The antics of the clergyman in question should not give occasion for the atheistical remarks contained in your article—with all courtesy, I would say that a decent consideration on such subjects is due your readers. E,G.R. Several communications of similar tenor have reached us before. We have not replied to them, for the reason that the eccentricity of their English and the sanguine multitudinous- ness of their adjectives rendered them unfit for parliamentary discussion, save on the plat- form of a Brooklyn clerical convention or the quarter-deck of an Erie canal-boat. Moreover, they were either anonymous or pseudonymous, that is, not only unworthy of answer, but undeserving of the slightest con- sideration or respect. But Mr. E. G. R. expresses his ideas with moderation; and with a certain regard for the elementary principles of grammatical construc- tion; and he trusts us with his full name and address, for which piece of manliness and good faith he has our compliments. And we are happy to answer his note. Mr. E. G. R., you seem an honest and rea- sonable sort of person. Sit down quietly and comfortably. We want to have a little talk with you, Ruling out the first part of your letter as irrelevant and slightly inclining to soft-sawder, we find the gist of your remarks to be that you object to some of our utterances as not in ac- cordance with the principles of your religion, which is the Christian. Well, why should they be? There are two or three other religions in the world, Mr. E.G. R. Yours is one of the youngest of all. It was the child of Judza’s old age; and Judaism is a babe in arms by the side of those stately creeds whose genesis is lost in the immeasurable anti- quity of Oriental tradition. By what right do you set up your own faith among all the dead and and living faiths of the world as the only true and worthy one? By what right do you demand the allegiance of all humanity to your personal God, rather than to the divided divinity of the Greek and the Ro- man; the elemental ruler of the Persian, or the Almighty Unnamable of the Indian? You are a sensible man, and you don’t. You know perfectly well that in our age and in our country the most that any person can ask for his special sect is the respect and consideration of others, so long as it behaves itself. That respect and consideration, on those terms, your religion, Mr. E. G. R. of South William Street; yours, Mr. Moses of Chatham Street, and yours, Mr. Sam Wing of Mott Street, may always be suze of receiving at the hands of Puck. So long as your church and your synagogue and your joss-house are respectable institutions, exercising a good influence on society, each after its own fashion, we will respect and help them all, When they become disreputable or Fripay, Apri 4th, 1879. PUCK. productive of bad deeds, they may look for neither fear nor favor from /his paper. We really don’t care to enter into your pri- vate and personal quarrels. We don't wish to agitate the great question of the superiority of your respective josses, or the greater question of joss or no joss. But if one of you who is big bullies another who is little, there is going to be a re-adjustment of the balance of war at the very first moment that these pens and pen- cils can get into fighting order. As to the particular article which has called forth your plaint, it was a well-deserved rebuke of a vulgar brute who has for years vilified and outraged every alien creed, and who finally brought his own into ridicule, (by an indecent | insult to a character which we respect quite as sincerely as the gentleman in South William Street,) and thereby laid himself open to a gentle hint that even the ideas he pretended to Tepresent were not sufficient to atone for his personal impropriety. We have nearly finished, Mr. E.G. R. But, before concluding, permit us to call your atten tion to the wholly different way in which other races and sects regard the point upon which you are troubled. Look at your excellent fellow-citizen, the Jew. He practices as high a code of morality as you profess, He cares for his sick and his poor; his daughters are virtuous, and his sons keep out of states-prison; he lives at peace with all men, following the precepts of his religion without even calling your attention to the fact. He seeks neither to convert you, nor to take vengeance upon you for the wrongs you did him of old, From the lowest old clo’ dealer in Baxter Street to the wisest rabbi of the richest synagogue, the attitude of the Jew towards men of other creeds is the attitude of a gentle- man, Also regard the heathen who do not rage, but live, like brothers, in unity: and the licentious Musselman who curbs his appetite and tastes no wine: and the iconoclastic scien- tist who never bothers anybody. None of these people go out of their way to disturb you; yet you call them infidels and blasphemers and evil-minded men; and never seem to think that you can hurt Mr, Huxley's feelings by abuse of his disbelief in a God as much as he could hurt yours by sneering (if he even did it) at your personal Jehovah: or that Chin Lan Pin or Mr, Keshub Chunder Sen see nothing funny in their own private conceptions of a creator. That is all, Mr. E.R. G. Go back to South Williara Street, and ponder over the advisability of getting a little nearer to that simple religion of charity, truth, and wisdom, against which no mortal voice was ever lifted in ridicule or dis- praise. RHYMES OF THE DAY. INCIDENTAL, He rushed into a house, did this adventist, In agonizing haste to find a dentist. “I've a respect for you, impatient youth.”” “Ivory spect!” he answered. ‘‘O, my tooth!” asked: “ Why travel at this rapid rate?” He said: “Tis only a tooth hurty gait.” WHETHER. If lowery skies make flowery meads, Let moisture reign all day: ’Tis April’s due to planted seeds, That dew may come in May. Stowcus. WHERE? Where was the Widow when the jury came in That wouldn’t give her any of old Simon's tin? Where was she and what was she about ? Why, she was in the witness room a crying her eyes out. | vet [See cartson on first page.[ THE DEVIL HOLDS COURT IN BROOKLYN. 2 —s JS) OESN'T it seem a pity that the very 2 pretty town of Brooklyn, on Long Island, cannot keep out of the continual moral stench with which, as it were, her garments are always reeking. If it is not the stench from Plymouth Church, it is the foul vapors which arise from the surroundings of the Taber- nacle. What Hunter’s Point smells do for our bodies, the religious squabbles of Brooklyn do for our poor souls. And it is getting worse and worse. We do not forget that the moral miasmas of the City of Churches have a comic side to them which the bone factories, “rendering” establishments and refineries wholly lack. We know that when these latter places blow their foul stench into our nostrils from across the river, there is never a laugh that comes along with it, ° We felt kindly to Bro, Beecher when he put the low-comedy of Bessie Turner and Theo- dore’s shirt-tail into his melodrama erstwhile enacted at the City Court; and certainly we had to thank Bro. Talmage for the farcical way in which he went about, like a kind of religious Haroun Alraschid, striving to regenerate young men and women by showing them where so? to go. But, as the stench of Hunter's Point stinks without a smile, so the recent trial before the Brooklyn Presbytery, while it may distort our risible muscles, can bring a genuine smile only to the countenances of the Devil and Dr. Tal- mage, ‘or the Devil was certainly presiding Judge, there; and holding High Court. How he must have grinned! It was an- nounced to be the “Court” of his great Heav- enly Opponent, and yet all the proceedings were held after the most approved diabolical manner, “It was,” said the Rev. Dr. Spear, D.D., “originated in the spirit of Hell, and pursued in the spirit of Hell.” And this comes ex cathedra; for Bro. Spear was one of the offi- cial counsellors. From these “hellish” proceedings in the Devil’s Court it is easy to predict that the public may rejoice if it gets rid of the whole thing without reading of a murder or two;— against which, in the Devil's Book of Discipline, there is no canon law. Thus far the Brethren have contented themselves with tongue-lashing each other; but, friend, you would be safer to stand under the blows of a Delaware whipping- master than under the tongue-lashings of a lot of Presbyterian ministers of the Lord when their jaws are unhackled. And don’t you forget it. Already rumors fly thick and fast that the brothers are getting excited, are pelting each other with prayer-books, and are belaboring each other with Bibles. This may be false; but it seems to Puck as if it led the way to some too zealous brother, in his enthusiasm, cutting another Presbyter’s throat with the raw edge ofa psalm-book, And all in the name of that Judge in whose .| name the ‘ Court” is nominally held, but who said his mission was Peace, ‘And herein we don’t inquire if Bro, Talmage was a thief who stole subscription lists; or a swindler about his church finances; or a hum- bug “‘by common fame,” generally. No, we are merely dealing with the self-con- stituted Saints who are trying a sinner, as they say. As to Bro. T.,we think Puck can handle him more pointedly—and far more decently— than all the Presbyters in creation. And we propose to do this in our own good time. comicbooks.com