February 22, 1907

However loathe we may be to have knowledge it, we must admit all the fools are not democrats, neither are all the cranks in the State Legislature. Any of the citizens of Milton are afflicted with bibliomania, and are searching for all the dusty tomes they hear of to prove the blessed doctrine of their present cultus. Dr. Clarke Spanheim and of Dr. Hudson[i] are being read with avidity and the tomelets, of whatever age, that can be found on the library shelves, or in the musty closets of forgotten years, are brought forward to substantiate, and prove the truth of the old, revived cultus. One man said a few days since, in substance: he heretofore sought Holiness impossible to attain in this life; he now thought it is as easy to be holy, as otherwise. While listening to this cant our mind reverted to Burns, who, on a certain occasion wrote:

“O, I want some power the giftie gie us,
to see ourselves as others see us.” [ii]

A wave of the motion a listen, of the present bond, strikes the community periodically, and if all do not subscribe to the doctrine then promulgated, those dissenting are branded as heretics, or called by other opprobrious names. This engenders a spirit of resentment and leads to a line of demarcation which is only too willingly drawn by some aggressive spirit on either side. To differentiate between the two factions–and, probably a third, or more–would be easy, by cool heads, but where did one ever see a religious fanatic with a cool head, or a heretic with a well poised equilibrium? But this will soon pass away. The bibliomaniacs will regain their reason and the “heretics” will see the folly of their ways when the equipoise of society will become normal.

We did not care to write anything of this matter which has, to a certain extent, choked the wheels of social intercourse, but our obligation to our readers compels us to do so. The education of our youth in early manhood taught us to revere the ways of religion, and to breathe the name of the Holy Trinity with silent awe. But in these days we hear the Holy Ghost spoken of with a flippancy that is astonishing, and , really, leads one to believe the persons, so doing, are not responsible, and do not know of what they are talking.[iii]

The old stables that have graced Hazzard Alley for probably a hundred years have been torn down.

The real estate of the late Samuel M. Lofland was sold at administrator’s sale on Saturday, in front of the Hart House. Lot No. 1 being in Broadkiln Hundred, containing ten acres was bought by Captain George E. Megee, for $161. Lot No. 2 being on Federal Street, Milton, with a two-story dwelling house and out buildings, was struck off by P. J. Hart, for Dr. J. A. Hopkins, for $539. A farm in Broadkiln containing 93 acres and 73 perches[iv] was bought by John Lofland for $1,225, and another containing 174 acres and 96 perches, to the same party, for $1000.

W. H. Welch, J. M. Lank, E. W. Warren, Arthur Jefferson, Frank Carey, T. B. Spencer, W. H. Stevens, J. C. Lank, C. H. Sharp, Fred Pepper, left on Monday to attend the annual meeting of the Jr. O. U. A. M., which held its session at Delmar on Tuesday.

F. P. Truitt, traveling agent for the Milford Chronicle, was in town last week in the interest of the paper.

William Walls has lumber on the ground to build a blacksmith shop on the land of P. J. Hart, on Mulberry Street.

William Fosque, son of Mayor Fosque, who has been visiting in town for some weeks, has returned to his home at Lynchburg, Va.

Memorial services were held at the M. E. Church on Sunday morning in memory of Frances E. Willard.

Presiding Elder Morgan preached at the M. E. Church on Sunday evening. He came from Lewes and Rehoboth with the Rev. H. D. Wilson, and while here was entertained by Captain G. E. Magee and wife.

The Fourth Quarterly Conference of this conference year will be held at the M. E. Church next Monday.

Ike Bailey, the Milton sail maker, left on Monday for Milford, where he will do a job of work in his line.

Minos Z. Banks died last week in Long Neck, of pneumonia, aged 34 years, 3 months and 26 days. Funeral at Conley’s Chapel, on Tuesday, by Rev. W. T. Compton, and interment in the adjoining cemetery by S. J. Wilson & Son.

Town election will be held one week from next Saturday, March 2nd.

Sarah Rebecca Reynolds, relict of the late James Reynolds, died at her home near Reynolds, on Monday, aged 74 years, 11 months, 20 days. Funeral at Zion, and interment in cemetery.

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[i] There is a mash-up of names in this sentence; there is no Dr. Clarke Spanheim, but there is a Dr. Adam Clarke, who collected, edited and published the personal papers of John Wesley, founder of Methodism; and there is an Ezekiel Spanheim, a 17th century diplomat and antiquities scholar, whose writings were consulted by John Wesley, and is named as one of Wesley’s sources by Dr. Clarke. The Dr. Hudson named is probably Hilary T. Hudson, D. D., who wrote Methodist Armor, or a Popular Exposition of the Doctrines, Peculiar Usages, and Ecclesiastical Machinery of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, published in 1889.

[ii] Conner doesn’t get the first two lines of the poem quite correct; they actually say
“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!”
The quotation is from the Robert Burns poem titled “To a Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady’s Bonnet at Church,” written in 1786.

[iii] Apparently, the issue that “choked the wheels of social intercourse” among Milton Methodists concerned the Holy Trinity. Among Christian theologians, the divinity of Jesus and the nature of the Trinity had been a serious matter of dispute since the very first years of Christianity, and was supposed to have been settled at the Council of Nicaea and the recitation of the Nicaean Creed as a routine part of most mainstream Christian church services. The exact nature of the issue that Conner is writing about rather obliquely is unclear, and requires research that is beyond the scope of the endnotes to this Milton News letter.

[iv] A square perch is equal to 1/160 acre.