Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1892-02-22
THOSE SMART YOUNG MEN.
If They Are Too Smart to Believe the
Truth They Are to Be Pitied.

If They Are Too Smart to Believe the
Truth They Are to Be Pitied.
We do not know of any class more de-
serving of compassion than that select
number of extremely talented young men
whose intense originality and independ-
ence force them to the painful necessity
of skepticisln. They are too heavy to
sail with Christ in the vessel" and so
are stranded upon the bleak and desolate
shore of unbehef. Their mothers and
grandmothers may have educated them
in the Scriptures, az Eunice and Lois did
Timothy. But when, like Moses, they
come to years, they repudiate their early
training, though they reverse the Mosaic
example.
We heard of one such brilliant youth
of late who had been schooled in all the
learning of the Egyptians, Fond friends
regarded him as a prodigy, and cast for
him wonderful horoscope. Excelsior"
was the vote of his circle of admirers.
But ne was a skeptic. He had not studied
his Bible very much for himself. and
| when one was put into his hands he read
| little of il and then threw it aside as
unworthy of his acceptance. He could
not indorse the severity of Joshua and
| David and those great warriors who,
| under divine sanction, took such sum
| mary vengeance upon their foes. His
| tender spirit recoiled from the wholesale
destruction of cities and nations. And
| unless the so called word of God could
| be thoroughly eliminated from such
statements and God could viudicate him
self from all responsible for such acts
of his servants, be would accept neither
| God nor his word.
The friend who related this sad tale
| did SO in point of his own sympathy with
| this case, and in welcome of a deliverer
| who had entered the lists lat such time
| as this" His special province was a
| knight errantry for the rescue of such as
were doomed to unbelief by the Bibllola-
try of the general assembly, and all VINO
side with them in holding to the unquah-
! fed authoritativeness Of the Word of
| God. The case is only one illustration
Of a large class, varying in many re-
| spects, but alike in being too smart to
| accept the Bible Their name is legion,
| their habitat cosmopolitan. They catch
the echo of unbehef as sounded by its
different champions and are readily
whistled off by any new master. They
talk Ingersoll in the country store and
higher criticism in the city club room.
| W nat shall be done for them? 1t is hard
to induce them to renounce their unbe-
lief, for this is their pride and PETITE
badge and evidence of their superiority.
1t is what they rely upon TO declare their
originality and Independence. Robbed
Of this they would lament with the be-
reaved Ephramite, they have taken away
our gods and what have we more7 Ii
is as hard to convince them of their error
as it would be to make blind man see.
at takes" said Lord Bolingbroke, "a
clear head to be Calvinist," and so il
does to be a believer, but in this particu-
lar they are defective. What shall be
done to cure these intellectual dudes OF
their strut and affectation of u>beliefi
In their case "a little knowledgeeis a
dangerous thing. "-Christian Intelhgen-
Ger.