"To them tossin' on beds of nervous sufferin', who lay for hours fillin'
the stillness with horror, with dread of the bells, where fear and dread
of 'em exceed the agony of the clangor of the sound when it comes at
last. Long nights full of a wakeful horror and expectency, fur worse
than the realization of their imaginin's. To them the bells are a
instrument of torture jest as tuff to bear as any of the other old thumb
screws and racks that wrung and racked our old 4 fathers in the name of
Religion.

"I have to think of the great crowd of humanity huddled together right
under the loud clangor of the bells whose time of rest begins when the
sun comes up, who have toiled all night for our comfort and luxury. So
we can have our mornin' papers brought to us with our coffee. So we can
have the telegraphic messages, bringing us good news with our toast.
So's we can have some of our dear ones come to us from distant lands in
the morning. I must think of them who protect us through the night so we
can sleep in peace.

"Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these, our helpers and
benafacters, work all night for our sakes, work and toil. The least we
can do for these is to help 'em to the great Restorer, sleep, all we
can.

"Some things we can't do; we can't stop the creakin' sounds of the
world's work; the big roar of the wheel of business that rolls through
the week days, can't be oiled into stillness; but Sundays they might get
a little rest Sunday is the only day of rest for thousands of men and
wimmen, nervous, pale, worn by their week's hard toil.

"The creakin' of the wheels of traffic are stopped on this day. They
could get a little of the rest they need to carry on the fight of life
to help support wife, child, father, husband; but religeon is too much
for 'em--the religeon that the Bible declares is mild, peacible, tender.
It clangs and bangs and whangs at 'em till the day of rest is a torment.

"Now the Lord wouldn't approve of this. I know He wouldn't, for He was
always tender and pitiful full of compassion. I called it religeon for
oritory, but it hain't religeon, it is a relict of old Barberism who,
under the cloak of Religeon, whipped quakers and hung prophetic souls,
that the secrets of Heaven had been revealed to, secrets hidden from the
coarser, more sensual vision."

Sez Deacon Garven: "I consider the bells as missionarys. They help
spread the Gospel."

"And," sez I, for I waz full of my subject, and