Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/281

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The Protestant Ladder
239

black gown & cross together & went off in the Road to hell after a wife & never returned & that all American preachers i e all Protestants are on the same road to destruction. To meet this attack I have planed & Mrs. S. has drawn & painted a chart about 6 feet long & 2 feet wide containing two ways one narrow & one broad. After representing briefly some of the important events of the world before the christian era & the crucifixion of Christ I come to Paul whom I represent as pointing to one who has turned off from the narrow way where he has left his wife & children & with black gown on & a cross in his hand is just entering the Broad Road. A few of Paul's prophecies concerning the man of sin are translated & printed as proceeding from his mouth such as he shall forbid to marry & after he has left his wife & entered the Broad Road he is represented as the Pope with a sword in one hand & torch or fagot in the other, a king kissing one foot & a bishop the other. Further up he is represented with 5 children by his side & again as receiving the bleeding head of Admiral Coligny who was beheaded at the great slaughter of St. Bartholomew & his head sent by Charles IX to the Pope who ordered public thanks to be given to Charles & a jubalee to be proclaimed throughout France. Boniface IX & Benedict XIII are represented as contending with deadly weapons. Tetzel receiving a sum of money from a young man whose father has escaped hell all but one of his feet, is represented. A Nunnery is drawn from which a young priest has come out & is paying 18s to get the sin of Fornication pardoned according to "Taxa camarae Apostolicae" of the Chancery court of Rome. The lifeless body of a father killed by his own son for his money, is represented with the mother & sisters weeping on the bleeding corpse, & at a little distance the murderer before a priest receiving pardon for 10s 6d according to the same book. Some of those burnt in queen Marys reign are drawn, the Burning of Bibles in the N of NY State is drawn. Luther is represented as leaving the Broad road and returning to the narrow way. The end of the Man of Sin is represented by his falling back into hell at the approach of the Lord Jesus Christ who is coming in the clouds of heaven with his holy angels ...

Monday morning proceeded on my journey . . . About 9 oclock came to a village of some 40 lodges, alighted, wrang a bell although most of the people were already around me, unrolled the Chart & talked about 2 hours. Rode hard the rest of the day to reach another vilage but found it upon an Island & did not go over till next morning. However several canoes came over to my tent & I explained the Chart to them as long as brush could be found for a fire light.

The ladder is six feet long and two feet wide, made on heavy paper, fastened to a roller at the top. The colors used in the decoration are green, red, blue, brown, yellow and black. On it are drawn two paths, the narrow one that leads to eternal bliss, and the broad road to destruction. In the lower half of the chart are pictures portraying stories from the Bible, which are readily identified. In the upper half the artist's efforts are confined to depicting the iniquities of the broad path, cul-