The Russellville Democrat., 1890-01-30

hurled on them, and learned universi- ties decreed the Bible out of existence. Thomas Paine said: ''In my Age of Reason l have annihilated the Script ures. Your Washington is pusillan- inous Christian, but l am the foe of Bibles and of churches.
 O, how many assaults upon that Wordl All the hostilities that have ever been created on earth are not to be compared with the hostilities against that one Book. Said one man, in his infidel desperation, to his wife. You must not be reading that Bible,n and he snatched it away from her her. And though in that Bible was lock of hair of the dead child-the only child that God had ever given them-he pitched the book with it's contents into the fire, and stirred it with the tongs, and spat on it, and cursed it, and said: Susan, never have any more of that damnable stuff herer'
 How many individual and organized attempts have been made to extermi- nate that Biblel Have they done it? Have they exterminated the American
 
 the British and Foreign Bible Society? Have they exterminated the thousands of Christian institutions, whose only object it is to multiply copies of the Scriptures, and throw them broadcast around the world? They have extermi- mated until instead of one or two copies of the Bible in our houses we have eight or ten, and we pile them up in the corners of our Sabbath-school rooms, and send great boxes of them everywhere. If they get on as well as they are now going on in the work of extermination, I do not know but that our children may live to sec tha millennium Yea, if there should come time of persecution in which all the known Bibles of the earth should be destroyed, all these lamps of light that blaze in our pulpits and in our families extinguished-in the very day that infidelity and sin should be holding a jubilee over the universal ex- tinction, there would be in some closet of backwoods church secreted copy of the Bible, and this Joash Of eternal literature would come out and come up and take the throne, and the Athaliah of infdelity and persecution would fly out of the back door of the palace and drop her miserable carcass under the hoofs of the horses of the Kings stables You can not exterminate Christianity You can not kill Joashl
 The second thought hand you from my subject is, that there are opportuni- ties in which we may save royal life. lat setn to plete with stories of strangled mon- archs and of young Princes who have been put out of the way. Here is the story of a young King saved. How Je- hosheba, the clergyman's wife, must have trembled as she rushed into the imperial nursery and snatched up Joash. How she hushed him, lest by his cry he hinder his escape. Fly with himl Je- hosheba, you hold in your arms the cause of God and good government. Fail, and he is sian. Succeed, and you turn the tide of the worlds history in the right direction. It seems as if be- tween that young King and his assas- sins there is nothing but the frail arm of woman. But why should we spend our time in praising this bravery of ex- petition when God asks the same thing of you and me? All around us are the imperiled children of great King.
 They are born of Almighty percentage, and will come to a throne or crown, if permitted. But sin, the old Athaliah, goes forth to the massacre. Murderous temptations are out for the assassina- tion. Valens, the Emperor, was told that there was somebody in his realm who would usurp his throne, and that the name of the man who should be the usurper would begin with the letters T. H. E. o. D., and the edict went forth from the Emperor's throne; Kill every body whose name begins with T. H. E. o. D." And hundreds and thou sands were slain, hoping by that massa- ere to put an end to that one usurper. But sin is more terrific in its denuncia- tion. It matters not how you spell your name, you come under it's knife, under its sword, under it's doom, unless there bo some omnipotent relief brought to the rescue. But, blessed be God, there is such thing as delivering royal soul Who will snatch away Joash?
 This afternoon, in your Sabbath school class, there will be Prince of God-some one who may yet reign as King forever before the throne; there will be some one in your class who has a corrupt physical inheritance; there will | be some one in your class who has father and mother who do not know how to pray; there will be some one in | your class who is destined to command | in church or State-some Cromwell to | dissolve parliament, some Beethoven | to touch the worlds harp strings, some | John Howard to pour fresh air into the l lazaretto, some Florence Nightingale to 1 bandage the battle wound, some Miss | Dix to soothe the crazed brain, some | besotted, some David Brainard, to | change the Indians war whoop to Sab | bath song, some John Wesley to marshal | of Christendom, some l John Knox to make Queens turn pale, l some Joash to demolish idolatry and | strike for the Kingdom of Heaven.
 There are sleeping in your cradles by night, there arc playing in your nurs- | cries by day, imperial souls waiting for | anu NultttNtI SAtlt lilt they get out will decide the destiny of 1 empires. For each one of those chill | dren sin and holiness scontend-Athaliah l on the one side and Jehosheba on the l other. But hear people say;
 What's the use of bothering children | with religious instruction? Let them | grow up and choose for themselves. | Don't interfere with their yolition." Suppose some one had said to Jeho- sheba:
 Don't interfere with that young Jo- ash. Let him grow up and decide 1 whether he likes the palace or not, | whether he wants to be King or not. Don't disturb his volition." Jehosheba | knew right well that unless that day the young King was rescued, he would never be rescued at all.
 tell you, my friends, the reason we don't reclaim all our children from wOrldliness is because VIC begin too late. l malt ,1pAfI tIafr oI,slIuo., 1;e bo