Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1891-04-16

some reasons why cannot be an inhdel,
and so will try to help out of this present
condition any who may have been struck
with the awful plague of skepticism.
First, cannot be an infidel because in
fidelity has no good substitute for the con-
ISOLATION it proposes to take away. You
know there are millions Of people who get
their chief consolation from this book.
What would you think of crusade of this
sorti Suppose man should resolve that
he would organize a conspiracy to destroy
all the medicines from all the apothecaries
and from all the hospitals of the earth.
The work is done. The medicines are
taken, and they are thrown into the river,
or the lake, or the sea.
A patient wakes up at midnight in a par
oxysm Of distress, and wants an anodyne.
"Oh," says the nurse, ''the anodynes are
all destroyed; we have no drops to give
you, but instead of that I'll read you
book on the absurdities of morphine and
on the absurdities of all remedies" But
the man continues to writhe in pain, and
the nurse says: "I'll continue to read you
some discourses onanodynes, the cruelties
of anodynes, the indecencies of anodynes,
the absurdities of anodynes. For your
,groan I'll give you laugh"
ALAsl FOR THE soRRowING.
Here in the hospital is patient havinga
gangrened limb amputated. He says: ooh,
for etherl Oh, for chlorofQrm" The doc
tors say: "Why, they are ah destroyed; we
don't have any more chloroform or ether,
but have got something great deal bet
ter. I'll read you a pamphlet against
James Y. Simpson, the discovererof chloro-
form as an anesthetic, and against Drs.
Agnew and Hamilton and Hosack and
Mott and Harvey and Abernethy" "But."
says the man, II must have some an@s-
thetics." NO." say the doctors, ''they are
all destroyed, but we have got something a
great deal better" "What is thatf"
"Fun." Fun about medicines. Lie down,
all ye patients in Bellevue hospital, and
stop your groaning; all ye broken hearted
of all the cities, and quit your crying; we
have the catholicon at last!
Here is dose of wit, here is strength
ening plaster of sarcasm, here is bottle
of ribaldry that you are to keep well shaken
up and take spoonful of it after each
meal, and if that does not cure you here is
a solution of blasphemy in which you may
bathe, and here is a tincture of derision.
Tickle the skeleton of death with repar-
teel Make the King of Terrors cacklel
For all the agonies of all the ages a jokel
Millions of people willing with uplifted
hand toward heaven to affirm that the
goepel of Jesus Christ is full of consolation
for them, and yet. infdelity proposes to
take it away, giving nothing absolutely
nothing, except fun. Is there any greater
height or depth or length or breadth or i'm
mensity of meanness in all Gods universe?
Infdelity is religion of Don't know"
Is there God2 Don't know! Is the soul
immortal? Don't knowl If we should
meet each other in the future worldwill we
recognize each other? Don't know A re-
ligion of don't know" for the religion of
81 know" 81 know in whom I have be-
lieved," 81 know that my Redeemer liv-
eth." Infdelity proposes to substitute
religion of awful negatives for our religion
of glorious positives, showing right before
us world of reunion and ecstasy and high
companionship and glorious worship and
stnpendous victory, the mightiest joy of
earth not high enough to reach to the base
of the Himalaya of uplifted splendor
awaiting all those who on wing of Chris
| tian faith will soar toward it.
Have you heard of the conspiracy to put
out all the lighthouses on the coast? Do
| you know that on a certain night of next
| month, Eddystone lighthouse, Bell Rock
| lighthouse, Sherryvore lighthouse, Mon
| tauk lighthouse, Hatteras lighthouse, New
| London lighthouse, Barnegat lighthouse,
| and the 640 lighthouses on the Atlantic
and Pacific coasts are to be extinguished?
"Oh," you say, ''what will become of the
ships on that nights What will be the
| fate of the one million sailors following the
seaf What will be the doom of the mil
| lions of passengers? Who will arise to put
down such conspiracy" Every man, wo-
man and child in America and the world.
But that is only fable. That is what in
fidelity is trying to do-put out all the
| lighthouses on the coast of eternity, letting
the soul go up the "Narrows" of death
with no light, no comfort, no peace-all
| that coast covered with the blackness of
darkness. Instead of the great lighthouse,
a glowworm of wit, FREELY of jocosity.
Which do you like the better, o voyager
for eternity, the FREELY or the ighthouses
| What mission infidelity has started onl
The extinguishment of lighthouses, the
breaking up Of lifeboats, the dismissal of
all the pilots, the turning of the inscrip-
tion on your child's grave into farce and
a lie. Walter Scott's "Old Mortality" /"
chisel in hand, went through the land to
cut out into palmer letters the half ohliter-
ated inscriptions on the tombstones, and it
was beautiful mission; but infldelity
spends its time with hammer and chisel
trying to cut out from the tombstones OF
your dead all the story of resurrection and
heaven. It is the iconoclast of every will
age graveyard and Of every city cemetery
and of Westminster Abbey Instead OF
Christian consolation for the dying, freez.
ing sneer. Instead of prayer grimace.
Instead of Pauls triumphant defiance OF
death, going out you know not where, to
stop you know not when, to do you know
not what. That is infdelity
THE FALSE PLEAS OF INFIDELITY.
Furthermore: cannot be an infidel be-
cause of the false charges infdelity is all
the time making against the Bible. Per.
haps the SANDER that has made the most
impression and that some Christians have
not been intelligent enough to deny is that
the Bible favors polygamy. Does the God
of the Bible uphold polygamy, or did he!
How many wives did God make for Adami
He made one wife. Does not your common
sense tell you when God started the mar
riage institution he started it as he want
ed it to continue? If God had favored
polygamy he could have created for Adam
five wives or ten wives or twenty wives
just as easily as he made one.
At the very first of the Bible God shows
himself in favor of monogalny and antago
nistic to polygamy. Genesis ii, "a, "There
fore shall man leave his father and
| ranthar and shall claaua unto his xzrifa !,