The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1882-02-23
GOOD FRUITS
Strewn Along the Christians
Career.
Sermon Preached in Brooklyn tabernacle
on Sunday, February II, 1882, ly
Rev. T. Dewitt TaImage.


| Chicago, on February 9th. DR.. Tai
mage will be absent next Sunday, Feb
ruary 18th. The opening hymn this
morning was:
Salvation! oh, the joyful sound,
'Tis pleasure to our ears"
And the sermon was as follows:
SUBJECT OF THE SERMON TO-DAY-"FIFTH
REPLY TO MIR. INGERsOLL."
TEXT-Matthew vii, 16: "DO men
gather grapes of thOrnsP
Not in this country, not in any cOun-
try. ThOrns stick, thOTns wound, thOTns
lacerate; but never have they all to-
gether yielded one cluster of Isabella or
Catawba grapes. In other words, Christ,
who was the master of apt and potent
Illustrations, sets forth what we all
know, that you can not get that which
is luscious, and pleasant, and good, out
of that which is bad. If you find large,
round clusters of grapes, you know that
it was a good grapevine that produced
them, and not snarl of Canada thistle.
Now, if / can show you that the fruits
of this Bible are good fruits, healthful
fruits, splendid fruits, you will believe
the Bible is good, and all Mr.. IngersOlls
attempts to make it iniquitOus will be
rejected. Do men gather grapes of
thOTns? Can bad book yield good re-
suits? Mr.. IngersOll, the exponent of
nfidelity, charges most vehemently and
in about all his lectures that the Bible
is a cruel book, and he reads the stories
of the ancient wars, and reads passages
from the lives of David and Joshua, and
reads about the determination of the
Canaanites, and then declares the Bible
is in favor of laceratiOn and manslaugh-
ter and massacre. Well, now, among
your acquaintances who have read the
huu in
tiOn as they become acquainted with the
Scriptures and fond of the Scriptures
they got cruel in their habitsp Have
you ever known any of them to come
out and practically say: 81 have been
reading the Bible, and of that story
about the determination of the Canaan
ties, and am seized by disposition to
stab and cut and beat and knock to
pieces everything can lay my hands
on" What has been the effect upon
your childrenP As they become more
they become more and more fond of
tearing off the wings of flies and PIN
ming grasshOppers and rObbing birds
nests? If the Bible is a cruel book you
see that would be the direction of the
result So far from that, you know as
well as do that all the institutions of
mercy were founded by Bible leaders,
Bible believers. When did this book put
cruelty into the heart of George Pea
body. or Miss Dix, or Florence Nightin-
gale, or John Howard, or John Freder-
lex Oberlin, or Abbott Lawrence? Go
into a hospital. There are twenty
Christian women binding up the wounds,
giving the cOrdials, kneeling by the
dying pillow, and saying: Lord,
Jesus, receive this poor mans spirit"
Where does the cruely of the Bible
crop out in their lives? Do you find it
i'll the gentleness of their step, or in the
| soft cadence of their voice, or their
| soothing words in the dying hours.
| Oh, siTs, when you can make rose leaf
stab like bayOnet, when you can man
| ufacture icicles out of the South wind,
when you can poison the tongue with
honey got from blOssOming buckWheat,
then you can find cruelty gotten out of
the Bible. That charge falls flat in the
presence of every honest man.
Nil lngersOll and his cOadjutOTs assail
the Bible as an impure book. They take
SOlOmOn'S song, read certain portions,
make their own Interpretation, and
then fling down the book and say: THE
writings" My friends, there is one
principle that no one will deny, and
that is that impure books have impure
results, That cause produces that re-
suit. Now, you have known a great
many people who read the Bible, among
your own friends-a great many-whO
have been reading it for years, How
many of them have had their morals
despOiled? Did it make your father an
impure man? Did it make your mother
a bad woman? What effect had it upon
your sister who died in the faith of the
Gospel, and who has been now some ten
or fifteen years in heaven? We're their
morals taTnished? Did they become
impure of speech impure of action?
Two hundred and fifty million copies of
all impure book scattered among the ma
tiOns! Why, there must have been a
great many victims. Show me a thOus-
and, show me five hundred, show me a
hundred, show me fifty, show me five,
show me two, show me one. | am not
particular about the specimen you give
me, whether man, woman, child, white,
black, cOppeT-cOlOred, American, Afri-
can, European, Asiatic, just one speci-
men give me-a man who was pure be-
fore being made impure by the reading
of the Scriptures. l am not cOnfining
you to this day. Go through all the four
thousand years that have passed, and
show me a victim. On the contrary,
you know that the family institution is
nowhere regarded except in Bible-Tead-
ing countries. You know that the only
foundation of the home institution is
the Word Of God. What is the differ
ence between SodOm, COnstantinOple,
Madras and Pekin on the one hand, and
our American city on the other? No
difference, except Bible and no Bible.
l challenge all earth and hell for one
victim, if the two hundred and fifty
million copies of what you say is an i'm
pure book! The charge falls fiat in the
presence of every honest man
But MT. IngersOll says that the Bible
is a mass of contradictions, and he puts
chapter against chapter and Prophet
against Prophet and Apostle against
Apostle, and he says: Now, if this is
so, how can that be SOP" Mr.. Mill, who
was friend of the Bible, and who
translated many parts of it, declared
that he had found thirty thousand differ
ent readings Of Bible passages, and he
declared also that there was not one i'm
pOrtant difference, and no difference ex-
cept what might be accounted for from
the fact that the Bible came down from
generation to generation, and was
copied by many different hands, while,
at the same time, l declare in your hear
ing this morning that all the Bible
writers agree in the great cardinal
doctrines of the Bible: God good, holy, |
inst fOrUiVinU OmniDOtpnt. man q lost |