Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1888-08-09

James A. Garfield, John Wilkes Booth and
Abraham Lincoln-all in glory together
All the innocent men. women and children
who were mnssacred, side by side with
their murderers. If We are all coming out
at the same destiny, without regard to
character, then it is true. I turn away
from such debauched Heaven. Against
that cauldron of piety and blasphemy,
philanthropy and assassination, self
sacrifice and beastliness, place the two
destinies of the Bible forever and forever
and forever apart
Behold also the splendors of the Chris.
tan orthodox death beds. Those who deny
the Bible or deny any part of it never die
well. They either go out in darkness or
they go out in silence pOrtentous. You
NAV gather up all the biographies that
have come forth since the art of printing
was invented, and / challenge you to
show me triumphant death of a man who
rejected the Scriptures, or rejected any
part of them. Here make a great wide
avenue. On the one side put the death
beds of those who believed in an entire
Bible On the other side of that avenue I
put the death beds of those who rejected
part of the Bible, or rejected all of the
Bible. Now, take my arm and let US pass
through this dividing avenue. Look off upon
the right side. Here are the death beds on
the right side of this avenue. ''Victory
through our Lord Jesus Christi" ''Free
grace" ''Glory, glory" 81 am sweep
ing through the gates washed in the blood
of the Lamb" ''The chariots are COM
ing" 81 mount, fy:" Wings, wings!"
..They are coming for me-" ''Peace, be
still" Alfred Cookman's death bed, Rich
ard Cecil's death bed, Commodore Foote'S
death bed. Your fathers death bed, your
mothers death bed, your sisters death
bed. your child's death bed. Ten thousand
radiant, songful death beds of those who
believed in an entire Bible.
Now, take my arm and let us go through
that avenue and look off upon the other
side. No smile of hope. No shout of tri-
umph. No face systematically Illuminated.
Those who reject any part of the Bible
never die well. No reckoning for angels
to come. No listening for the celestial es-
cort. Without any exception they go out
of the world because they are pushed out;
while on the other hand the list of those
who believe in an entire Bible are gone out
of the world in triumph is list so long it
seems interminable. o, is not that a
splendid influence, this orthodoxy, which
makes that which must otherwise be the
most dreadful hour of life-the last hour
positively paradisaical:
Young men, old men. middle-aged men,
take sides in this contest between ortho-
doxy and heterodoxy. ASK for the old
paths, walk therein, and We shall find rest
for your souls" But you follow this cru
10 ,,e-f S.f - -
all you will give up Genesis, which is as
true as Matthew, then you will give up all
the historical parts of the Bible; then after
awhile you will give up the miracles;
then you will find it convenient to give up
the Ten Commandments; and then after
awhile you will wake up in fountainless,
reckless, treeless desert swept of ever
lasting sirocco. If you are laughed at you
can afford to be laughed at for standing by
the Bible just as God has given it to you
and miraculOusly preserved it.
Do not jump overheard from the staunch
old Great Eastern of old-fashioned ortho.
doxy until there is something ready to
take you up stronger than the fantastic
yawl which has painted on the side cad
vanced Thought" and which leaks at the
PROV and leaks at the stern and has steel
pen for one oar aud a glib tongue for the
other oar, and now tips over this way and
then tips over that way, until you do not
know whether the passengers will land in
the breakers of despair or on the sinking
sand of infidefity and atheism.
1 am in full sympathy with the advance
me nts of our time, but this world will
never advance single inch beyond this
old Bible. God was just as capable of die
tating the truth to the prophets and apos-
ties as he is capable of debating the truth
to these modern apostles and prophets.
God has not learned any thing in thou.
sand years. He knew just as much when
He gave the first dictation as He does now,
If He is giving the last dictation at all. So
] will stick to the old paths. Naturally
skeptic and preferring new things to the
old, Inever so much as to day felt the truth
of the entire Bible, especially as l SEQ
into what spectacular imbecility men rush
when they try to chop up the Scriptures
with the meat axe of their own prefer.
ences, now calling upon philosophy, now
calling on the Church, now calling on God,
now calling on the devil. l prefer the
thick, warm robe of the old religion-old
as God-the robe which has kept so many
warm amid the cold pilgrimage of this life
and amid the chills of death. The old
robe rather than the thin, uncertain gauze
offered US by these wiseacres who believe
the Bible in spots.
On July %, 1914, at seventy-two wears
of age, expired Isabella Graham. She
was the most useful woman of her day
amid the poor and sick, at the head of the
orphan asylums and Magdalen asylums,
and an angel of mercy in hospital and re.
formatOry. DR.. Mason, one of the might.
est men of his day, said at her funeral that
she was mentally and spiritually the most
wonderfully endowed person he had ever
met. She was an impersonation of the
most orthodox orthodoxy. Her last word
was peace. As sublime peroration to
my sermon will give an extract from her
last will and testament, showing how one
who believes in an entire Bible may make
a glorious exit:
An extract from a will: ''My children
and my grandchildren 1 leave to my cove
nant God, the God who hath fed me all my
life with the bread that perisheth and the
bread that never perisheth, who has been
a father to my fatherless children and q
husband to their widowed mother thus far.
And now receiving my Redeemer's testi-
mony, set to my seal that God is true;
and believing the record of John that God
hath given to me eternal life and this life
is in His Son, who, through the eternal
Spirit, overcOmes without spot unto
God, and being consecrated a priest
forever hath with His own blood
into the holy place, having OBJ
tanned eternal redemption for me. l also
believe that He will perfect what concerns
me, support and carry me safely through