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Subject:
From:
Scott Holmes <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:42:47 -0700
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"...all get respectable if they last long enough."  I find it
interesting how excitable people can get over such things.  I just
wonder how concerned Sam Clemens would be in regards to old buildings he
was associated with.  I'm thinking of some passages in The Innocents
Abroad related to the cursing of towns, churches and peoples.  Twain
remarks that the Pilgrims associate such things with landmarks but he
disagreed and felt such curses were aimed at the people themselves, the
people of Capernaum? or Capernaum?  What eventually happened to these
locations was not at all related.

As an example:
'Those "prophecies" are distinctly leveled at the "churches of Ephesus,
Smyrna," etc., and yet the pilgrims invariably make them refer to the
cities instead. No crown of life is promised to the town of Smyrna and
its commerce, but to the handful of Christians who formed its "church."
If they were "faithful unto death," they have their crown now—but no
amount of faithfulness and legal shrewdness combined could legitimately
drag the city into a participation in the promises of the prophecy.'

This may be stretching the point a bit.  I don't know.  He was also very
critical of the Pilgrims' habit of collecting artifacts - vandalism.  I
suppose I'm just not drawn to architecture and artifacts.

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