Herald and news. [volume] (West Randolph, Vt.) 1878-1943, 1890-02-13
Eternal defenses

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Lord, and there she will hide him for
six years, and at the end of that time he
will come forth for your dethronement
and obliteration.
Well, my friend, just as poor botch
does the world always make of extin-
| gushing righteousness. Superstition
rises up and says: ~ will just put an
end to pure religion" Domitian slew
10000 Christians. Diocletian slew S44,
600 Christians. And the scythe of perse-
cution has been swung through all the
J ages, and the flames Missed, and the
guillotine chopped, and the bastile
groaned; but did the foes of Christianity
exterminate it? Did they exterminate
Alban, the first British sacrifice; or
Zwinglius, the Swiss reformer; or John
0ldcastle, the Christian nobleman; or
Abdallah, the Arabian martyr; or Anne
Askew, or Sanders, or Cranmer? Great
work of determination they made of it,
just at the time when they thought
they had slain all the royal family of
Jesus some Joash would spring up and
out, and take the throne of power, and
WELD very scepter of Christian domin-
ion.
Infdelity says: "I'll just exterminate
the Bible" and the Scriptures were
thrown into the street for the mob to
trauple on. and they were piled up in
the public squares and set on fire, and
mountains of indignant contempt were
hurled on them, and learned univer-
stiles decreed the Bible out of existence.
Thomas Paine said: ''In my Age of Rea-
SON have annihilated the Scriptures.
Your Washington is pusillanimous
Christian, but am the foe of Bibles and
of churches" o, how many assaults
upon that world 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 inhdel desperation, to his wife:
you must not be reading that Bible"
and he snatched it away from 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 its contents into the fire,
and stirred it with the tongs, and spat
upon it, and cursed it, and said: Susan.
never have any more of that damnable
stuff here"
How many individual and organized
attempts have been made to extermin-
ate that Bible! Have they done it?
Have they exterminated the American
Bible Society? Have they exterminated
the British and Foreign Bible
Society? Have they exterminated
the thousands OF Christian institutions,
whose only object is TO multiply copies
of the Scriptures. and throw them broad
cast around the world? They have exter-
minated until instead OF one or two cop
les 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 determination,
/ do not know but that our children may
live to see the millennium Yea, II
there should come a 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 jubilee over the uni
versal extinction, there would be in |
some closet OF backwoods church Sc |
GREETED copy Of the Bible and this Joash |
of eternal literature would come out |
and come up and take the throne, and |
the Athaliah Of infidelity and persecu-
tor would fly out the back door of the
palace and drop her miserable carcass
under the hoofs of the horses of the |
Kings stables. You can not extermin-
ate Christianity You can notkill Joashl
The second thought l hand you from
my subject is that there are opportuni-
ties in which we may save royal life.
You know that profane history is re-
plete with stories of stranglod
and of young princes
who have been put out OF
the way. Here is the story of young
king saved. How Jehosheba, the cler-
yyman's wife, must have .trembled as
she rushed into the imperial nursery
md snatched up Joash. How she hushed
aim, lest by his cry he hinder the es-
APE. Fly with himl Jehosheba, you
lold in your arms the cause of God and
rood government. Fail, and he is slain.
and you turn the tide of the
worlds history in the right direction. II
seems as II between that young king
ind his assassins there is nothing but
he frail arm Of a woman. But why
should we spend our time in praising
his bravery OF expedition when God
lsl1s the same thing Of you and me? All
lround us are the imperiled children of
great King.
They are born OF almighty parentage,
md will come to throne or a crown, If
But sin, the old Athaliah,
roes forth to the massacre. Murderous
are out for the assassina-
ion. Valens, the Emperor, was told
hat there was somebody in his realm
Who would usurp his throne, and that
he name Of the man who should be the
lsurper would begin with the letters T..
1. Z. o. d., and the edict went forth
a. 41,r1pa. tsLyfll |