Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1892-05-16

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today who has not been present on some
occasion when the Cisristi:.n religion be-
came Il target for raillery Perhaps it
was over III the store some day when
there was not much going on and the
clerks were In Il group, OF it was Ill the
factory ut the noon spell, on it Was ont
on the farm under the trees while you
were resting, or it was III the cil7broo1n
or it was III social circle. or il was in
the street on the way home from bust
ness, or it was on some occasion which
you remember without my describing it.
Some one got the laugh on the Bible
| and caricatured the profession of re-
! igion as hypocrisy, or made pun out
! of something that Christ said. The
laugh started and you joined in, and not
one word of protest did you utter. What
kept you silent? Modesty? No. In
capacity to answer? No. Lack of OPP
portunity? No. 1t was blow on both
your lips by the wing of the dumb devil.
If some one should malign your father
or mother OF wife or husband or child
you would flash up quick, and either
with an indignant word or doubled up
fist make response. An yet here is our
Christian religion which has done SO
much for you and SO much for the world
that it viii take all eternity to celebrate
it, and yet when it was attacked you
did not SO much as say: Il differ, OBJ
! ject, am sorry to hear you say that.
There is another side to this.
You Christian people ought in such
times us these to go armed. not with
earthly weapons. but with the sword Of
| the Spirit. You ought to have four OF
FIVE questions with which you could
confound any man who attacks Chris
tianity. A man ninety years old was
telling me few days ago how he put to
flight a sccffer. My aged friend said to
the skeptic, Did you ever read the his
tory of Joseph in the Bible?" Yes
sale; the man: lit is a fine story. and as
interesting a story as ever read
"W ell. now" said my old friend, s'sup-
pose that account Of Joseph stopped half
way oh" said the man, "then it
would not be entertaining We'll.
now" said FAY friend. I'VE have isl this
world only half of everything, and do
you not think that when we hear the
last half things may be consistent, and
that then we may find that God was
right
LOAD Cs' WITH INTERROGATION POINTS.
Oh, friends, better load up with few
Interrogation points. You cannot afford
to be silent when God and the Bible
and the things of eternity are assailed
Your silence, gives consent to the bonn
bardment of your fathers house. You
allow a slur to be cast on your mothers
dying pillow. In behalf of the Christ,
who for you went through the agonies
of assassination on the rocky bluff hack
of Jerusalem, you dared not face sick
ly joke Better load up with few ques-
tons so that next time you will be ready
Say to the scGasfer: My dear sir, will
you tell me what makes the difference
between the condition of woman in
China and the United States? What do
you think Of the sermon on the mount?
How do you like the golden rule laid
down in the Scriptures? Are you In
favor of the ten commandments? In
your large and extensive reading have
you come across a lovelier character
than Jesus Christ? Will you please to
name the triumphant deathbeds of in
fdels and atheists? How do you account
for the fact that among the out and
out believers il Christianity were such
persons as Benjamin Franklin, John
Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle, Darlington
Macaulay, William Penn. Walter Scott
Charles Kingsley, Horace Bushnell
James A. Garfield, Robert e. Lee, Stone
wall Jackson, Admiral Foote, Admiral
FaTragut, Ulysses S. Grant, John Mil
ton, William Shakespeare. Chief Justice
Marshall, John Adams, Daniel Webster
George Washington? How do you ac-
count for their fondness for the Christian
religion? Among the innumerable col
leges and universities of the earth will
you name me three started by infidels
and now supported by infdels? Down
i'll your heart are you really happy in
the position you occupy antagonistic to
the Christian religion? When do you
have the most rapturous views of the
next world:
Go at him with few such questions
and he will get SO red in the face as to
suggest apoplexy, and he will look at
his watch and say he has an engagement
and must go You will put him in
sweat that will beat ii Turkish BATH
7 on will put him on a rout compared
with which our troops at Bull Run made
no time at al. Arm yourself, not with
arguments but Interrogation points, and
| promise you victory. Shall such
man as you, shall such woman as you
surrender to one of the meanest spirits
that ever smoked up from the pit-the
dumb devil spoken of in the text?
But then there are occasions when
this particular spirit that Christ exer-
cised when he said, 81 charge thee to
come out of him. takes people by the
wholesale. In the most responsive reli-
gious audience have you noticed how
many people never sing at all? They
have book, and they have avoice, and
they know how to read. They know
.naraxr of tho times and yet are client