The daily Green Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1861-1865, 1863-09-15

| with their eyes a certain person raise man
from the dead have satisfied myself beyond
any possibility of skepticlsm that the disciples
Of Jesus and many more saw Him do thin
act. | can know, also, what is truth and
what is falsehood when | meet the one or the
other and [ am certain that the Jesus who
speaks to me in the Gospel speaks the truth.
L know, once more, that this christian igiOn
the religion of the Bible, has made new
mao of me. Say not that this is fancy or en-
thuslasm. | feel the change in the roots OF
my being [ know it to be different in essen
tial respects from any change wrought in me
by altered circumstances, by good advice, or
by development of character. This mighty
mass of evidence is sufficient for me. There
may still be much which [ do not fully and
logically comprehend in Christianity, much 10
the Word Of God which desire 10 have more
perfectly explained to me but | am not
cropping in the dark | am seated on tow
er do no violence to science, | deny none
OF her facts, impede none of her operations,
but | confidently believe that any Of her de-
monstrated facts, which seem at present, to
my limited view, to conflict with Christiani-
ty, will be found, one day, to support and
harmonic with the religion Of the Cross. By
recollecting that the evidence of Christianity
is primarily human, spiritual, divine, we place
ourselves beyond the reach of any fundamen-
tai skepticism based upon the present aspect
OF science.
In the second place, all that has been in
du6jtably established by science has not only
failed TO overthrow the religion of the Bible,
but has been an auxiliary force to its influence
and its power. Time after time infdes have
reJolced, and Christians nave feared, as SCI
the earth. But when Christians became calm
enough to ask themselves whether it was the
Bible or their Interpretation Of the Bible
whether 1t was the meaning put by God into
His Word or the meaning and function at.
tached to it by the presumptuous reason Of
man-that was in fault they discovered that
this new knowledge which they had attained
Of the works of God only threw new luster on
his word. Christians trembled when it was
found that the earth is globuIar-that the
sun does not move relatively to our solar sys-
tem-that the creation OF the whole visible
universe did not occur aix thousand years AGO.
There Is no panic iE the minds of Christians
on these points now ; and surely, when We
think how astronomy has lit up for us the !
chambers Of heaven revealing unutterable |
splendor and inconceivabe magnitude-and |
when we think how geology has opened up
the dark backward and abysm of time, aud
pointed out to u.s. as it were, the footsteps of
the Creator on the sands OF the by.gone et9r-
nity-we cannot hesitate to allow that science
has confirmed the logic which satisfied the
Arabian patriarch and the Hebrew psamst,
and taught US to abhor ourselves and to re-
pent in dust and ashes before this great and
wonderful God.
For real Christianity, for Protestant Chris.
tianity there can, besides haste and inconsid-
Grafton, be but one serious danger in relation
TO science 1t is that danger to which the
church of Rome fell victim-the danger of
to destroy or enthral science by
way Of protecting the faith. In going on
ward to the light, whether shed from the word
Or the works Of God lies the safety of the
Christian church the church of Rome paused
IN its course, looked backward, and, since the
lays of Galiee, has stood petrifed a pillar of
salt by which passes the stream of human