get the cringe and crawl out of our natures, seems the one desirable
thing to lofty minds. But the revivalist, knowing human nature, as all
confidence men do, banks on our superstitious fears and makes his appeal
to our acquisitiveness, offering us absolution and life eternal for a
consideration--to cover expenses. As long as men are paid honors and
money, can wear good clothes, and be immune from work for preaching
superstition, they will preach it. The hope of the world lies in
withholding supplies from the pious mendicants who seek to hold our
minds in thrall.

This idea of a divine bankrupt court where you can get forgiveness by
paying ten cents on the dollar, with the guaranty of becoming a winged
pauper of the skies, is not alluring excepting to a man who has been
well scared. Advance agents pave the way for revivalists by arranging
details with the local orthodox clergy. Universalists, Unitarians,
Christian Scientists and Befaymillites are all studiously avoided. The
object is to fill depleted pews of orthodox Protestant churches--these
pay the freight, and to the victor belong the spoils. The plot and plan
is to stampede into the pen of orthodoxy the intellectual
unwary--children and neurotic grown-ups. The cap-and-bells element is
largely represented in Chapman's select company of German-American
talent: the confetti of foolishness is thrown at us--we dodge, laugh,
listen and no one has time to think, weigh, sift or analyze. There are
the boom of rhetoric, the crack of confession, the interspersed
rebel-yell of triumph, the groans of despair, the cries of victory. Then
come songs by paid singers, the pealing of the organ--rise and sing,
kneel and pray, entreaty, condemnation, misery, tears, threats, promise,
joy, happiness, heaven, eternal bliss, decide now--not a moment is to be
lost, whoop-la you'll be a long time in hell!

All this whirl is a carefully prepared plan, worked out by expert
flim-flammers to addle the reason, scramble intellect and make of men
drooling derelicts.

What for?

I'll tell you--that Doctor Chapman and his professional rooters may roll
in cheap honors, be immune from all useful labor and wax fat on the pay
of those who work. Second, that the orthodox churches may not advance
into workshops and schoolhouses, but may remain forever the home of a
superstition. One would think that the promise of making a person exempt
from the results of his own misdeeds, would turn the man of brains