Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-01-23

AlDan, Inc urSL Dr1IlSl Sdcrluc65 o.
Zuinglius, the Swiss reformer; or JOIN
Oldcastle, the Christian nobleman; o.
| Abdallah, the Arabian martyr; or Anne
Askew, or Sanders, or Cranmer? Grea
work Of determination they made of it
just at the time when they though
they had slain all the royal family o
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 t.
trample on, and they were piled up IL
! the public squares and set on fire, anC
mountains of indignant contempt were
hurled on them, and learned universe
ties decreed the Bible out of existence
Thomas Paine said: ''In my Age o.
! Reason l have annihilated the Script
ures. Your Washington is a pusillan.
imous Christian, but l am the foe Of
| Bibles and of churches.
o, how many assaults upon that
Word! All the hostilities that have
/ CftA DCtI ALNdDNh Oll EdL III arc l4Ob W III
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" 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 its 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 here.'
How many individual and organized
attempts have been made to extermi-
nate 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 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 determination, l do
not know but that our children may live
to see the millennium! Yea, if 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 infdelity and sin should be
holding jubilee over the universal ex-
tinction, there would be in some closet
of q backwoods church a 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 intidelity 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 Joash!
The second thought 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 strangled mon
archs and of young Princes who have
been put out of the way. Here is the
story of 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 him! 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. 1t 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
children of great King.
They are born of Almighty parentage,
and will come to throne or a crown, if
permitted. But sin, the old Athaliah,
goes forth to the massacre. Murderous
are out for the assassina-
ton. Valens, the Emperor, was told
that there was somebody in bis realm
who would usurp his throne, and that
the name of the man who should be the
would begin with the letters Z.
Il. Z. o. D., and the edict went forth
from the Emperor's throne: Kill
every body whose name begins with T.
A. l..
sands were slain, hoping by that massa-
ire to put an end to that one usurper.
But sin is more terrific in its denuncia-
ion. 1t matters not how you spell your
lame, you come under its knife, under
is sword, under its doom, unless there
De some omnipotent relief brought to
he rescue. But, blessed be God, there |
s such thing as delivering royal soul. |
Who will snatch away Joash?
This afternoon, in your Sabbath |
chool class, there will be Prince of |
one who may yet reign as
King forever before the throne; there |
will be some one in your class who has |
corrupt physical inheritance; there will |
'e some one in your class who has a
ather and mother who do not know
low to pray; there will be some one in
our class who is destined to command |
n church or State-some Cromwell to |
dissolve parliament, some Beethoven
o touch the worlds harp strings, some
ohm Howard to pour fresh air into the
azaretto, some Florence Nightingale to
,andage the battle wound, some Miss
Dix to soothe the crazed brain, some
ohm Frederick Oberlin to educate the
some David Brainard, to
hange the Indians war whoop to Sab
'ath song, some John Wesley to marshal
hree-fourths of Christendom, some
ohm Knox to make Queens turn pale,