Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 70.djvu/147

Rh the others, the wounds of the whip and the cactus stab remain as realities when the illusion of joy has passed by.

"In Orange County, California, there is a religious sect which finds the old Bible of our race, the Bible of Moses and Job and Jesus and Paul, an outworn book, no longer fitted for the aspirations of man. This bible is still tinctured with the gospel of selfishness, for it recognizes private ownership of land, and goods and men. 'To honor thy father and mother' implies special ownership of them, and the higher life demands that there should be no respect of persons. There can be no personal claims of any sort if all are to be as 'angels in heaven.' Its command 'thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods' implies the neighbor's ownership of material things, a relation which must degrade all who submit to it. 'To render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's' is an outworn recognition of powers that be but which ought not to be. Clearly a new bible is needed, and one of the members of the sect sat down by a typewriter (presumably not his own property) and wrote a bible. It was not his own composition, but that of the Almighty, for the writer simply lent the hands with which divine power did the work. As his fingers played over the Remington keys, he thought of anything or everything except his writing. The result was the book of Oahspe, the Bible of this new dispensation. And the name of the book arose naturally. One looks up to Heaven, and he says 'Oh,' then he looks down to earth and says 'Ah,' and between Heaven and earth is Spirit,—Oahspe!

"In the City Park of San Francisco is the wooden image of some monstrous creature carved by the Indians of Queen Charlotte Sound to express some phase of their mystic devotions. This image was stolen by a Norwegian sailor. Its makers resented its loss by a series of incantations so horrible that they took effect in the image itself. The idol came to San Francisco, bringing sickness, shipwreck or failure to all who touched it. Even now while it rests on a shelf in the Park Museum in apparent quiet, its evil power is shown at night in the smashing of vases and the overturning of bottles. Something of this, kind takes place whenever the image is left unguarded. A man who had charge of it for some time avers that one night the creature rose up in living form and seized him in its clutches, and only by the most violent efforts could he make his escape.

"When an electric current, whatever that may be, is passed through a glass tube from which most of the air has been exhausted, various peculiar phenomena are shown. There is an appearance of bluish light, and from certain parts of the apparatus peculiar rays are given off which do not appear as rays at all. Ordinary light rays pass readily through water, glass or crystal, and we call these objects transparent. Through wood or cloth or stone they will not pass; hence these objects are said to be opaque. And the rays of light may be diverted from