The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 39
Letter No X
Letter No X.
My Dear Orthodox Friends.—In this letter I intend to take my leave of you for a time, unless something of importance crops up on which I may deem it necessary to say a word. In this I shall only beseech you to maintain your orthodoxy in spite of everything especially in spite of all common sense and reason, which are the chief of its enemies. I would ask all my Orthodox brethren to read no books, admit no facts, think no thoughts which are calculated to enlighten them, for enlightenment is the death of Creed. Embrace the loving form of Ignorance, for she, with maternal generosity, supplies from her fruitful bosom the streams of Faith whereat the children of the Church may feed perpetually. Strike low and to the earth, and trample in the dust the majesty of Truth, for 'tis her light and her's alone, that has revealed unto the world our crimes and our deformities. Over her corpse let us build a temple to her departed memory.
As we appreciate the light of a star in the night-time, or of a feeble torch in the gloom, so in the darkness of the Night of Faith, do we appeeciate the feeble light of clerical wisdom. When the sun of science is shining our stars and torches are lost, in its too effulgent beams and are therefore unnoticed and unobserved. Across the Sun of Science then, let us spread the Pall of Ignorance, that its beams may reach us not, and that once more the peacefulness of night may be upon us. Then in the gloom of night we clergy will amuse the credulous world with a few intellectual fireworks lit from the fires of Hell. By the light of the torches that devils shall carry, we will preach the following glad tidings.
With all the energies of our being if we wish to maintain our position and to defend our citadel from the attacks of the infidel, let us carry these glad tidings to our brethren, and rest not our lying tongues till from pole to pole these glad tidings spread. So, my dear brethren, you will greatly oblige your old friend,
A Country Clergyman.
J. C. Stephens, late Purton, Printer, 106 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne.