Milford chronicle. [volume] (Milford, Del.) 1878-1974, 1891-07-17


/ conclusively that it was impossible TO
! him to rise from the dead. 1t was shown
logically that when man was dead, h
/ was dead, and the heart, and the liver, anC
( the lungs having ceased to perform thei
Offices, the limbs would be rigid beyond al
( power of friction or arousal. They SHOWED
It to be an absolute absurdity that tn,
dead Christ should ever get up alive; but
no sooner had they proved this than thu
dead Christ arose, and the disciples behelt
him, heard his voice, and talked with him
and they took the witness stand to prove
that to be true which the wiseacres of the
day had proved to be impossible; the rec
ord Of the experiment and Of the testimony
isin the text: "Him hath God raised from
the dead, whereof we are witnesses"
FOLLY OF THE AGNOsTIC.
Now let me play the skeptic for a mo
ment. "There is no God, " says the skeptic
"for l have never seen him with my phys
ical eyesight Your Bible is pack Of con-
ttadictions. There never was miracle.
Lazarus was not raised from the dead, and
the water was never turned into wine.
Your religion is an imposition on the Gre
dulity of the ages" There is an aged man
moving in that pew as though he would
people with faces a little flushed at these
announcements, and all through this
throng there is a suppressed feeling which
would like to speak out in behalf of the
truth of our glorious Christianity, as in the
days of the text, crying out, I'VE are wit
nessesW
The fact is that if this world is ever
brought to God it will not be through ar
lint
might cover the whole earth with apollo
giles for Christianity and learned treatises
in defense Of religiOn-yOu would not con-
vert soul. Lectures on the harmony be-
tween science and religion are beautiful
mental discipline, but have never saved a
soul and never will save a soul. Put man
of the world and man of the church
against each other, and the man of the
world will, in all probability, get the tri-
umph There are a thousand things in
our religion that seem illogical to the
world, and always will seem illogical.
Our weapon in this conflict is faith, not
logic: faith, not metaphysics; faith, not
profundity; faith, not scholastic eXplora-
ton But then, in order to have faith, we
must have testimony, and if five hundred
men, or one thousand men, or five hun
get up and tell me that they have felt
the religion of Jesus Christ a joy, COM
fort, help, an inspiration, am bound MS
a fair minded man to accept their testi-
mony. | want just now to put before you
three propositions, the truth of which [
think this audience will attest with over
whelmmg unanimity. The first proposition
is: We are witnesses that the religion Of
& L. 60 1ba
pei may have had a hard time to conquer
us, we may have fought it back, but we
were vanQuished. You say conversion is
only an imaginary thing. We know bet
ter I'VE are witnesses" There never
was so great u change in our heart and life
on any other subject as on this
People laughed at the missionaries in
Madagascar because they preached ten
years without one convert; but there are
many thousands of converts in Madagas-
car today. People laughed at DR.. JudsOn,
the Baptist missionary, because he kept on
preaching in Burmah five years with
out single convert; but there are many
thousands Of Baptists in Burmah today.
People laughed at DR.. Morrison in China
for preaching there seven years without a
single conversion; but there are many
thousands of Christians in China today.
People laughed at the missionaries for
at Tahiti for fifteen years with 1
out single conversion, and at the mis- /
sionaries for preaching in Bengal seven .
teen years without a single conversion; yet /
in all those lands there are multitudes of !
Christians today,
But why 90 so far to find evidences Of I
the Gospels power to save a soul? 1--WE /
-.
man could have humbled us; we were SO /
hard that no earthly power could have
melted us. Angels of God were all around |
about us; they could not overcome US; but
one day, perhaps at a Methodist anxious
seat or at a Presbyterian catechetical lee
ture or at a burial or ON horseback, power
seized us and made Us get down and made
US tremble and made us kneel and made
us cry for mercy, and we tried to wrench
away from the grasp, but we
could not. 1t flung us fiat. and when we
arose we were as much changed as Gourgis,
5he heather, who went into prayer meet
ing with a dagger and gun, to disturb the
meeting and destroy it, but the next day
was found crying: "Oh, my great sins!
Oh, my great Saviour" and for eleven
years preached the Gospel of Christ to his
elbow ilOuuLdlueCIof bAn 4aNb WI Aa pAA his
lying lips being Free gracew Oh, it was
Tree gracei
MILLIONS CONFoRTED BY THE GOSPEL.
There is Il man who was for ten years a
lard drinker. The dreadful appetite had
eut down it's roots around the palate and
he tongue, and on down until they were
with the vitals of the body,
mind and SOUL but he has not taken amy
tin. lants for two years. What did thatP
not temperance societies. Not prohibition
avs Not moral suasion. Conversion did
t. "Why, said one upon whom the great
hange had come, sir, Ifeel just Us though
were somebody else.n There is a sea cap
ain who swore all the way from New
FORK to Havana, and from Havana to San
francisco. and when he was in port he was
worse than when he was on sea. What
,ower was it that washed his tongue clean
( profanities and made him psalm
inger2 Conversion blythe Holy Spirit.
here are thousands Of. neonle here today