Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-05-26

- --CA A-flAEDs
A man ninety years old was telling me
few days ai'o how he put to flight a seoG-
er Ny aged friend said to the skeptic.
did you ever read the history Of Joseph
in the Biblef" "Yes." said the man. ''it IS
a fine story, and as interesting q story as
ever read" well. now" said my old
friend, suppose that account of Joseph
stopped half ways" "Oh," said the man,
''then It would not be entertaining.n
''Well. now" said my friend, 1--WE have in
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 rights"
Oh. friends, better load up with a few in
terrogation points. You cannot afford to
be silent when God and the Bible and the
things Of eternity are assailed. Your 81
lence gives consent TO the boinbardment 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 back of Jerusalem, you
dared not face sickly joke. Better load
up with few questions so that next time
you will be ready Say to the scoffer: 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 Scripturesi Are you in favor of the
ten commandments? In your large and
extensive reading have you come across a
Iovelier character than Jesus Christi Will
you please to name the triumphant death
beds OF infidels and atheists9
''How do you account for the fact that
among the out and out believers in Chris
tianity We're such persons as Benjamin
| Franklin, Jobn Ruskin, Thomas Carlyle,
Darlington Macauley, William Penn, Wal
ter Scott, Charles Kingsley, Horace Bush
nell, James A. Garfield Robert E. Lee,
Stonewall jackson, Admiral Foote, Ad-
miral Farragut, Ulysses S. Grant, John
Milton, William Shakespeare, Chief Jus
tice Marshall John Adams, Daniel Web
ster, George Washington? How do you
account for their fondness for the Chris
tian religion2 Among the innumerable
! colleges and universities of the earth will
you name me three started by iafdels and
now supported by infidelsS Down in your
heart are you really happy in the position
you occupy antagonistic to the Christian
religion? When do you have the most rap
turous views of the next worldW
| Go at him with a few such questions and
he will get SO red in the face as to suggest
apoplexy, and he viii look at his watch
and say be has an engagement and must
go. You will put him in a sweat that will
beat Turkish bath. You will put him on
a rout compared with which our troops at
Bull Run made no time at all Arm your
self, 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?
A PLEA FOR CHURCH SINGING.
But then there are occasions when this
particular spirit that Christ exercised
when he said, 81 charge thee to come out
of him." takes people by the wholesale.
In the most responsive religious audience
have you noticed how many people never
sing at all9 They have a book, and they
have voice, and they know how to read.
They know many of the tunes, and yet
are silent while the great raptures of mu-
sic pass by Among those who sing not
one out of hundred sings loud enough
to hear his own voice. They hum it.
They give sort of religious grunt. They
make the lips go, but it is inaudible.
With voice strong enough to stop a
street car one block away, all they can
afford in the praise of God is about halt
awhisper. With enough sopranos, enough
altos, enough basses to make small
heaven between the four walls they let the
opportunity go by unimproved.
The volume of voice that ascends from
the largest audience that ever assembled
ought to be multiplied about two thousand
fold. But the minister rises and gives out
the hymn; the organ begins; the choir OF
precentor leads; the audience are standing
SO that the lungs may have full expansion
and mighty harmony is about to ascend
when the evil spirit spoken of in my text
the dumb devil-spreads his two wings
one over the lips of one-half the audience
and the other wing over the lips of the
other half of the audience, and the voices
roll back into the throats from which they
started, and only here and there anything
is heard, and nine-tenths of the holy power
is destroyed; and the dumb devil, as he
flies away, says Il could not keep Isaac
Watts from writing that hymn, and
could not keep Lowell Mason from com
posing the tune to which it is set, but
smote into silence or half silence the lips
from which it would have spread abroad
to bless neighborhoods and cities, and ther
mount the wide open heavens" Give the
long meter doxology the full support ot
Christendom and those four lines woul6
take the whole earth for God.
During the cotton famine in Lancashire
! England, when the suffering was some
thing terrific, as the first wagon load o.
cotton rolled in the starving people un
hooked the horses and drew the load them
selves, singing until all Lancashire JOINED
in with triumphant voices, their cheeks
sopping with tears, Praise God, from
whom all blessings flow" When Commo
dore Perry, with his warship, the Missis
sippi lay off the coast of Japan, he bonn
barded the shores with "Old Hundred
played by the marine band. Glorious "OlC
Hundred, y composed by William Franc, O
Germany.
In war prison, at 10 o'clock at night
the poor fellows far from home and wound
ed and sick and dying, one prisoner started
! the "Old Hundred Doxology," and then {
score of voices Joined, then all the prison
ers on all the floors took up the acclaim
until the building, from foundation to tol
stone, fairly quaked with the meIodiou.
ascription. A British man-of-war, lyins
off foreign coast, heard voice singing
that doxology, and Immediately guessed
and guessed Alright, that there was an Eng
lishman in captivity to the Mohammedans
and in the small boats the sailors rowed tt
shore and burst into q guardhouse and. Sc
the captive free.
! Idon't know what tune the trumpets O
resurrection shall play, but it may be tn,
doxology which is now sounding acros.
Christendom. How much more hearty
we would be in our songs, and how easily
we could drive back the dumb devil from
all our worshiping assemblages, if W,