Index, The.
A Weekly Paper Devoted to Free Religion.
1870-1880 Weekly
Toledo, OH, Boston, MA. Language: English.
Publisher: Index Association. Editor: Francis Ellingwood Abbot.

1/1, January 1, 1870-11/548, June 24, 1880. $2.00 a year. 8 pp. 9 1/2 x 14. Devoted to "free religion"-a sort of simple, doubting Theism combined with rabid anti-Catholicism and hatred of the Irish, coupled with a passion for reform. Space devoted to the lucubrations of the American Free Religious Association formed by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robert Dale Owen, Keshub Chunder Sen (of the Indian Brahmo Samaj), G.B. Stebbins, O.B. Frothingham, Lucretia Mott, Isaac M. Wise, et hoc genus omne. The issue for July 2, 1870, quotes the flowery praise of The Index by Cora L.V. Tappan (Richmond), and the issue for August 20, 1870, notes the praise of The Index by Warren Chase in the Banner of Light and comments: "Among spiritualists of this liberal character, Free Religion has many of its most earnest friends . . . ." Abbot (1836-1903) set out the philosophy he had attempted to inculcate in The Index in his The Way Out of Agnosticism; or, The Philosophy of Free Religion (Boston, 1890).