Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1886-06-19

tH- dfu, every DOuN WAS shocked;
Lat infidelity proposes something
worse han that-the robbing of all the
graves of Christendom of the hope of a
resurrection. 1t proposes to chisel out
from the tombstone of your Christian
dead the words, "Asleep in Jesus" and
to substitute the words. ''O~bliteration--
annihilation." lnfdelity proposes to
take the letter from the worlds Father,
inviting the nations to virtue and hap
plness, and tear it up into fragments so
small that yon cannot read Il word of
1t. IL proposes to take the consolation
from the brokcn-hearted and the sooth-
ins pillow from the dying. Infidelity
proposes to swear in the president of
the United States and the supreme
court and the governors Of states and
the witnesses in the court room, with
their right hand on Paine's age of
Reason" or Voltaire's PHILOSOPHY of
History 1t proposes to take away
from this country the book that makes
the difference between the United States
and the United Kingdom of Dahomy,
between American civilization and Bor-
nesian c~annibaiism. If infidelity could
destroy the scriptures it would in two
hundred years turn the civilized nations
back to semi-barbarism, and then from
semi-barbarism into midnight savagery,
until the morals of a menagerie of
tigers, rattlesnakes and chimpanzees
would be better than the morals of the
shipwrecked human race.
The only impulse in the right direction
that this world has ovcr had, has come
from the bible. 1t was the mother Of
Roman law and Of healthful jurispru-
dence. That book has been the mother
of all reforms and all charities-mother
of English magma charta and American
declaration of independence. Benjamin
Franklin holding that holy book in his
hand, stood before an infdel club at
Paris and read to them out of the
prophecies of Habakkuk, and the inf
dels, not knowing what book it was, de-
clared it was the best poetry they had
ever heard. That book brought George
Washington down on his knees in the
snow ut Valley Forge, and led the
dying Prince Consort to ask some one
to sing '.Rock of Ages"
tell you that the worst attempted
crime of the century is the attempt to
destroy this book; yet infidelity. loath-
some, stenchful, leprous, pestiferous,
rotten monster, stretches out its hand,
ichorous with the second death, to take
the hand of this republic. 1t stretches
it out through seductive magazines and
through caricatures Of religion. 1t asks
for all that part of the continent already
fully settled. and the two-thirds not yet
occupied. 1t says: Give me all east
of the Mississippi with the keys
of the C hurch and the Christian
printing presses; then give me Wyo-
ming, give me Alaska, give me Mon
tana, give me Colorado-give me all
the states and territories west of the
Mississippi, and l will take those places
and keep them by right of possession,
long before the gospel can be fully en-
trenched."
And this sutton presses his case APP
pallingly. Shall the banns of that mar
riage be proclaimed? NO." say the
home mIssionariesof the west-a martyr
band OF whom the world is not worthy.
toiling amid fatigues and malaria and
starvation. '.No! not if we can help it.
BY what we and our children have
suffered we forbid the banns of that
marriage" mo- say all patriotic
voices; .'our institutions were bought
at too dear a price, and were defended
at too great a sacrifice to be so cheaply
surrendered" MOI a v the God OF
Bunker Hill and independence hall and
Gettysburg; Il did not start this nation
for such a farce" mo- cry ten
thousand voices; ''to infidclity this land
shall not be married"
But there is another sutton tina,
presents his hand for the hand of this
republic. He is mentioned in the
verse following my text, where
it says: "As the bridegroom re
ioiceth over the bride, so shall thy God
rejoice over thee" 1t is not my tig.
ure, it is the figure of the Bible. Christ
is so DESTROYS to have this world love
him that he stops at no humiliation q
smile. He compares his grace to spit
tie on the eyes of the blind nan. He
compares himself to a hen gathering
the chickens, and in my text he com
pares himself to a sutton begging q
hand in marriage. Does this Christ,
the king. deserve this land? Behold
Pilates hall and the insulting expccto-
ration on the face of Christ. Behold
the Calvarean massacre and the awful
hemorrhage of the five POUNDS. Jacob
served fourteen years for Rachel, but
Christ, my Lord, the king. suffered in
torture thirty-three years to win the
love of this world. As often princesses
at their very birth are pledged in treaty
of marriage TO princes or kings of
earth. so this nation ut its birth was
pledged to Christ for Divine marriage.
Before Columbus and his hundred and
twenty men embarked on the Santa
Maria, the Pinta and the Nina, for their
wonderful voyage. what was the last
thing they didp They kneeled down
and took the holy sacrament of the
Lord Jesus Christ. After they caught
the first glimpse of this country and
the gun of one ship had announced it
to the other vessels that land had been
discovered. what was the song that
went up from all the three decksP