Smyrna times., 1886-01-20
Against Infdelity.

On Sunday evening Rev. VIM. b
Gordon delivered the third lecture of a
series of twelve, to be given in St.
Peters p. E. Church, against the curse
of infidelity, and the discourse was lis
tened to attentively by a large congre-
CATION. The speakers object in this
lecture was the refutation of the theory
that Christ's existence and character
was a myth, He said that these the
Orists based their argumental claims
upon two distinctive bases. The one
class deny that such a parsonage as
Christ eUer existed and the other class,
while they admit that such parsonage
did exist, deny Him the attributes of
goodness of character, power and deity
as portrayed in the Holy Scriptures.
They claim that this scriptural pOr-
traiture of Christ was the result of the
fanatical infatuatiOn of His gullible and
simple-hearted followers. That their
individual enthusiastic statements and
writings were fused and the result was
the compilation of the New Testament
and the portraiture of Christ therein
contained They deny His holiness
while they admit his greatness and
power of gaining the love, alteration
and filial obedience. Finally, they
deny His miracles and resurrection at
tributing them to the chimerical no.
tiOns of His ardent and deluded fol-
lowers. The reverend gentleman
stated that the first of these theories
of Christ's parsonage being of mytho-
logical origin had received so few fol-
lowers and was considered 50 univer-
sally fallaciOus as to be almost totally
abandoned even by its prOgenitOrs,
and that, therefore, it was useless to de-
| leneate it, but that he would give ex-
tracts from JOsephus, the Jewish his
/ tOrian Tacitus, Pliny and some of their
cOntempOraneous heather writers sta
| ting that these conclusive proofs of
Christ's existence had never been ques-
toned even by the infidels themselves.
He then took the latter theory in hand
for refutatiOn, saying that it was pre-
/ pOsterOus to assume that humble per-
sOnages such as Christ's followers were,
uneducated, inexperienced, guileless,
/ could, without inspiration, have writ
| ten such production of literary gems
as the New Testament, surprising in
their simplicity, elegance and moralis-
| tic effectiveness, any etfusion of
pen or any poetic production in exis-
! tence. He referred briefly to the burn
| ing of Rome by Nero and the martyr
! dom of vast multitude of Christians
to pacify the pOpulace of the city, Nero
having assured the Romans that it was
a Christian plot to destroy thecity, and
read an extract from Tacitus, who. while
he condemned the Christians. said that
| this martyrdom was not done for the
good of the city. but, rather to feed the
insatiate blOodthirstiness of Nero. He
said that the more they were persecu.
ted the larger and more powerful the
followers of Christ became. sDreading
to the adjacent villages and country,
the converts showing by their willing
ness to undergo torture, privations,
severance of family ties and social inter
course, a daily living death of mockery
and insult from former friends, that it
was not a mere hallucination that i'm
PEELED them in their conviction, but
deeply-seated faith in Chrst's iniinitv.
power and goodness. This he said was
a strong point. That if people living
in Christ's time, knowing his life, mir
acles and seeing Him suffer death for
that greatness and goodness, as some
of them did, saw fit to suffer death for
what they saw, did not see, yet believed,
it was proof conclusive, from their
number, that Christ's power over their
hearts was an infinite and not an illus
i've one. He spoke of the catecombs
of Rome, stating that there were nine
miles of tombs under the city, many,
of them the graves of Christians and
martyrs. In conclusion he cited
the fact than it was wholly unneces-
sary to 60 to the New Testament for
Christ's Identification regarding the
main points of his life and death He
said that it was only necessary to per-
use carefully the writings of Justin
Martyr and they would be found a
complete corrOboration of the New
Testament in all such main features as
form the foundation stones upon which
Is reared our Christiap belief. and he
also gave many other well-based and
irrefutable facts testifying the truth Of
Chrlst's inflnity and giving Implicit
belief In n Christ as deity and the
truth and purity Of our Christian re-
liglon.
Next Sunday evening he will prove
moro eoneluslvely still the truth of bls
assertions md bis lecture promises to
be even better than Oh former ones M
tho deeper ho delvea into the eublect
the moro interesting ho becomes.
A