Fifty Great Cartoons

REPRODUCED BY A NEW PROCESS FROM THE ARTIST’S ORIGINAL DRAWINGS AND ENGRAVED BY THE SPECTROTYPE COMPANY, CHICAGO.

PUBLISHED BY THE RAM’S HORN PRESS 153 LaSALLE STREET . CHICAGO U. S. A.

Charles Wesley once said, “There is no reason why the devil should have all of the best tunes,” and it is equally hard to conceive why he should have all of the best pictures. There is probably no phase of art which Satan has tried harder to control than that of painting. He has sought to corrupt literature, music and oratory, but even if he meets defeat in each of these quarters, he will be fully resigned, if it remains in his power, to make the pictorial artist his ready slave; for well the arch spirit of evil knows that it is pictures that catch the eye, fasten the attention, quicken the imagination and enthrall the soul.

For years and years the pen of the caricaturist was in the exclusive service of the secular and humorous press. There it often did good work as the champion of social and political reform. Nast, Gillam and Beard, in their several fields of pictorial journalism, have laid the nation and the world under deeper obligations than it will soon be able to repay. One of that famous trio, however, not being content with his success in merely amusing men, or at best in directing their thoughts to the foibles of politics, and society, sought to enlarge his usefulness by consecrating his pen and his genius to the betterment of the religious conditions of the race and hoped thereby to bring men to a better understanding of themselves and their Maker.

It was Frank Beard, who, first among the great artists, used the pen of caricature as a champion of Christian living and Christian reform. He could have found no better opportunity to exercise his talent and distribute its effects broadcast than in the pages of The Ram’s Horn, that wonderful weekly paper which far and near is now known as “the miracle of modern journalism.” For nearly three years Mr. Beard has given The Ram’s Horn a full page cartoon each week and it is Fifty of the Best of these Pictures which now appear in the pages of this volume.

The highest hopes of Mr. Beard and of The Ram’s Horn will be accomplished if, by the publication of these pictures, stronger emphasis is laid upon the fact that Christ is the foundation of the church, and good citizenship is the foundation of the state, and that the only great foe to the former is Unbelief, and as for the latter no good citizenship is possible so long as it remains in an unholy league with the licensed saloon.

By Faith the walls of Jericho fell down flat. Hebrews xi:30.

At a long blast with the ram’s horn the walls of the city shall fall. Josh. vi:5.

Fifty loud blasts from The Ram’s Horn will be found in this book of Cartoons. At their reverberating peal may the walls of Mammon, Rum and Unbelief fall shattered in the dust.

THE RAM’S HORN, Chicago, U. S. A.

WANTED! A DAVID.

The church can scarcely be said to be somnolent. It is awake and active. But its activities are too frequently spent in affairs that do not relate to its mission which is to fight the hosts of sin in a wicked world. The giants of iniquity stalk forth boldly. They find the church not in battle but in the tents, feasting and drinking, planning for dime socials and not for war against sin. Oh that some modern David would soon step forth and teach us that it is not shields nor armor nor tall steeples nor worldly expedients that are to win the day. It is faith in God. That is what gave aim and speed to the stone that slew Goliath, and it is what will give efficacy now to work and prayer.

Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand. Ephesians 6:11.

COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY FRED’K L. CHAPMAN & CO.

WANTED! A DAVID.]

IMPREGNABLE!

It was fortunate that the Savior did not build his church upon a perishable foundation. When in answer to his inquiry Peter said, Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God, Jesus had a corner stone for an edifice whose summit would reach the stars and whose base would be as broad as creation. The church is founded upon a fact and that fact is the historic Christ. No lever of human assumption bolstered by conceit has ever moved that corner stone the breadth of a hair. The church of Jesus is founded upon the impeccable, the faithful, the everlasting Christ who is the same yesterday, today and forever. Touch not the walls of Truth which surround Zion. They are impregnable.

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. I Cor. 3:11.

COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY FRED’K L. CHAPMAN & CO.

IMPREGNABLE!]

BACK TO CHRIST.

Hard and exacting is the toil of the preacher. Especially so in these years when a cultured and enlightened pew demands the religious discourse presented in the best form and embellished with the adornments which modern art and literature supply. A preacher who yields to the extreme demands of modern thought, however, will soon find himself abandoning the true and best source of sermon material and will begin to forage in the desert fields of literature to find sustenance for an impoverished mind. Many such a preacher, tired and heartless, would find instant relief if he would but burn the human aids to the manufacture of artificial sermons and turn to the rich mines of truth which still lie unexplored in the sacred word. Back to Christ is the call of a starving world which is now shepherdless and unfed.

For there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Acts 4:11.

COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY FRED’K L. CHAPMAN & CO.

BACK TO CHRIST.]

AT THE CHURCH FAIR.

The preachers are not alone guilty of levying tribute from the world in carrying on the work of the gospel. There are church organizations which might be numbered by the thousands, the wealth of whose membership would in each congregation exceed a million dollars, but they seem unable to buy a church organ or a pulpit bible without getting up a bazaar or a Church Fair. The same Jesus who drove the money changers from the house of prayer, sits in sad judgment upon the church which turns its sacred chamber into a market place or into a scene of rank levity and low grade amusement.

Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord God; Surely because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee. Ezekiel 5:11.

COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY FRED’K L. CHAPMAN & CO.

AT THE CHURCH FAIR.

Gentleman in Black:――I am not exactly a church member myself, but I am always glad to support this kind of enterprise most liberally.]

A GIFT FOR THE ALTAR.

There were but few gifts recorded in the bible which were large enough to attract the attention of Christ. They were not large but they all implied sacrifice, they represented the utmost that the giver could bestow. When the widow bashfully pushed her little mite into the collection box she little dreamed that her offering weighed more than all the gold and precious treasure that lay stacked in the safety deposit vaults of Jerusalem. If God has a cordial contempt for anybody in the world, we suspect it is for the man who, having made a fortune, gives ostentatiously a part which is insignificant in proportion to the amount which he retains to minister to his own comfort and ease.

Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Malachi 3:8.

COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY FRED’K L. CHAPMAN & CO.

A GIFT FOR THE ALTAR.]

“WHAT LACK I YET?”

One cannot square accounts with God on any other basis than complete surrender, whether of the will or of wealth. “What lack I yet?” asked the rich young man who prided himself extravagantly on his moral life. Go, said Jesus, sell your estate and give the proceeds to the needy. We have no evidence that this young Jew got his money in any but an honest method, and if his way to salvation lay along the path of complete surrender what shall those do who derive their riches by corrupting law makers and by defeating justice, and by cornering products and raising the price of food?

I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hands. Mal. 1:10.

COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY FRED’K L. CHAPMAN & CO.