Excerpt from Brann the Iconoclast, Vol. 2 of 2: A Collection of the Writings of W. C. Brann
Is Our Deity Of Negro Descent?
The terrible cyclone which recently tore its way through St. Louis prompted a resident of the stricken city to com plain to the Iconoclast, that a God of infinite justice and mercy would not indiscriminately destroy saint and sinner by flood and fire, and crush nursing babes beneath an avalanche of stone and brick. Like Jonah, he feels that he does well to be angry, for he declares that if the Deity really exists, he is a demon, and adds that "the God idea was born in the stupid brain of negroes on the upper Nile, and from thence oerspread the planet like a foul pestilence."
As a Deity usually resembles his worshippers, both in physical appearance and mental and moral attributes - is, in fact, but an idealization of themselves - it follows as an in evitable sequence, if my correspondent be correct, that the Creator was originally a "coon." Dr. Seasholes, an autotheistic little Dallas dominie, recently declared in effect that the Deity was an Indian, who sometimes got off the reservation and raised merry hades among the early inhabitants - wore feathers in his hair and wielded a tomahawk; and now we are assured, by inference at least, that he is an Ethiopian. First thing we know Gran"ma Lease, of the Kansas gynecocracy, will be protesting that he is a Populist. I fear that the St. Louisan has brought his theological ducks to a bad market - he should have taken them to Talmage, who receives a princely salary for defending the Christian concept of the Creator. In my humble opinion, however, the Deity had naught to do with the St. Louis catastrophe. He may order matters mundane, but scarce follows every whirl wind, as a schoolboy does a top, governing its gyrations. He may note the fall of the sparrow, but certainly does nothing either to promote or prevent.
"Remember man, the Universal Cause
Acts not by partial, but by general laws."
These are the laws of nature, immutable, inexorable. The physical world knows naught of mercy; the mills of God make no distinction.
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