Says He Prefers Hell to Future in Heaven

1915

Infidel Writes Own Funeral Oration — Wants His Ashes Cast on Graves of Friends

SHENANDOAH, Iowa, Dec. 16. — Cremated and half his ashes cast on the waters of the Mississippi in honor of those who have gone down to their death in the deep, and the other half scattered on the graves of ten of his friends, is what Jerry Brown, a famous Shenandoah character who professes to be an infidel, states in his funeral oration, which he has already written, he wishes done with his body.

"But should the Christian story of Heaven and hell be true, and such men as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Lot, David and Solomon be in Heaven, I wish my friends to check my baggage to the other station," says Brown in his funeral document. "Heaven may have a little advantage in climate, but hell certainly has the best society."

The ten friends who this second oldest Shenandoah citizen wishes to honor with his ashes are, Joe Van Buskirk, A. B. West, D. C. Wills, H. S. Holcome, D. S. Campbell, Charles Keenan. Dr. Cheschier, Henry Nesmith, Mrs. David Wingert and D. B. Brubaker.

Pleads For World Evangelization at Students Meet

1914

Preacher Says It Must be Done in This Generation

Appeal From World

Kansas City, Jan. 2. — "The evangelization of the world must be accomplished in this generation," declared Rev. Dr. Robert E. Speer of New York in an address to the Student Volunteer convention. L. L. Kinsolving of South Brazil, bishop of the Episcopal church, emphasized the needs of Latin-America for more missionaries.

Previously 8,000 students and visitors listened to impassioned appeals from natives of China and Japan and from missionaries returned from India and South America for help in meeting what was characterized as the greatest opportunity Christianity ever has faced.

"A new era of world life," said Rev. Dr. Speer, "has broken upon us revealing the essential unity of the problems of personal salvation and national character and of racial relationships across the world. It is soon realized that for us the only world that there is is not the world of thousand-year-old trees or century old brutes, but of a single generation of men."

Dr. K. Kato of Japan, now of the University of Chicago, told of the progress of Japanese thought.

"The educated classes are dominating every department of Japanese life today," he said, "but among these upper classes atheism and agnosticism are growing."

J. H. Si of Yale university, a native of China, appealed to his hearers for help in the work of Christianizing China and for greater consideration of foreign students in North America.

Thomas Edison Attacked by Pastors, Denies Atheism

1910

GOOD CHANCE AS PASTORS FOR HEAVEN

Inventor Edison Denies Charge of Atheism and Says Preachers are Out for the Money

WEST ORANGE, N. J., Nov. 29. — That he is not an atheist, but that, on the other hand, he has as good a chance of going to heaven as any minister of the gospel, was the declaration of Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor about whose white head the war of religions is raging.

Edison declared some time ago that he did not believe in a hereafter in which crowns and harps and golden slippers would figure. Since then he has been attacked and defended. One of his notable assailants was Rev. Charles P. Aked, of the Fifth Avenue Baptist church — the Rockefeller church.

"I'm not an atheist — never have been — never said I was," said Edison today, "and those people who have called me one have not read what said. I believe in a supreme intelligence, but I have grave doubts as to whether the good folk of this earth are going to be roused from their graves to go to some beautiful, shining place up aloft. Don't see it, can't understand it, and neither can these ministers of fashionable churches. They don't even say what they think. Often they don't even think. It's all business with them. They tell me I am heading straight for hell. May be I am, but I'll take my chances with the fashionable minister and if there is such a spot as heaven I'll bet I get there first — yes, even before Dr. Aked.

"Here's what 'those' will do. A poor reporter, who had a leg shot off in the war when he was a correspondent for his paper, came to me for an interview. He writes a splendid story and I gave him the interview, because I wanted to help him. A certain clergyman read what I said and made some kind of a comment. The reporter went to him for an interview. Now what do you suppose that man of God answered? He said: 'Yes I will give you the interview — for $200.'"

—Lincoln Evening News, Lincoln, NE, Nov. 29, 1910, p. 3.