The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1893-09-15

hdult anu udtttiy Win ihtciit W Kill,
the Judge would lose his patience and
say, go back to your room now and
make up verdict Agree on some
thing"
Well, my friends, there has been q
great trial going ON for centuries and for
ages between Skepticism, the plaintiff,
versus Christianity, the defendant, The
scientists have been impaneled and
sworn ON the jury. They have been gone
for centuries, some of them, and they
come back, and we say, Gentlemen of
the jury, have you agreed upon ver-
diotg They say, mo, we have not
agreed" Then we say, go back for a
few more centuries and then come in
and see if you can agree, see If you can
render some verdict" Now, there is not
the meanest prisoner in the Tombs court
who would be condemned by a jury that
could not agree, and yet you expect us
to renounce our glorious Christianity
for such miserable verdict as these
men have rendered, they themselves not
having been able to agree.
A WEAK COMMANDMENT.
But my subject shall no longer be de-
fensive; it must be aggressive. must
show you that instead of Christianity
falling back it is on the march, and
that the coming religion of the worlds to
be the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ
10000 times intensified. 1t is to take
possession of everything-of all laws, all
manners, all customs, all cities, all MI
tons. 1t is going TO be so mighty as
compared with what it has been, so
much more mighty that it will seem
almost like new religion.
adopt this theory because Christian
ity has gone on straight ahead notwith-
standing all the bombardment, and in
fidelity has not destroyed a church, or
crippled minister, or rooted out one
verse of the Bible, and now their am
munition seems to be pretty much ex-
hausted. They cannot get anything new
against Christianity, and if Christianity
has gone ON under the bombardment of
centuries and still continues to advance
may we not conclude that, as the powder
and shot of the other side seem to be ex-
hausted, CHI; istianity is going on with
more rapid stride?
| find an encouraging fact in the
thought that the secular press in this
day and the pulpit seem harnessed III
the same team for the proclamation of
the gospel. Tomorrow there will not be
a banker on Wall street or State street
OF Third street who will not have IN his
pocket or on his table treatises on Chris
tianity, calls to repentance and Scripture
passages, 90 or 30 of them, in the re-
ports of the Christian churches of this
city and other cities. Why, that thing
would have been impossible few years
ago. Now on Monday morning and
Monday evening the secular press
spreads abroad more religious truth than
all the tract societies of the country
spread in the other six days. Blessed
be the tract societies! We hail them,
and we hail these others.
say it would have been impossible
few years ago Hundreds of letters
would have come to the secular news
paper offices, saying, stop my paper;
we have religion on Sunday; don't give
us any through the week. Stop my
paper" But have been told that many
of the secular papers have their largest
circulation ON Monday morning, and the
whole population of this country are be-
coming sermon readers. Besides that,
have you not noticed the papers pro-
claiming themselves secular almost every
week have re .4- -ialr sgH5 b. GagH
Go back h.. as .l4 -hers ~Ea
not decent ... D l te'o.,
that had not ,...eu d ..tl s.gd ..-5...
of eternal pu -l4cne- @5uaa ST l,g ls
merry, knc as s"".e VISA aq- IN +.-
telligent ma .O ~ @sataF 'as
as result o. 10. .&. 7sT ia gam
to eternal p....s.-------~ - - aa. ..-
self the question, What is to be my
eternal destiny" And some years ago
when Tyndall offered his prayer gauge
there was not a secular paper in the
------~-- >-------. 1880
United States that did not discuss the
question: docs God ever answer prayer?
May the creature impress the Creator"
Are not all these facts encouraging to
every Christian and every philanthropist?
Besides that, the rising generation are
Being saturated with gospel truth as no
other generation by this international
series of Sunday school lessons. Formerly
the children were expected only to nibble
at the little infantile Scripture stories,
but now they are taken from Genesis to
Revelation, the strongest minds of the
country explaining the lessons to the
teachers, and the teachers explaining
them to the classes, and we are going to
have in this country 5000, 900 youth fore
stalled for Christianity. Hear it! Hear
It'll
Besides that, you must have noticed, if
you have talked on these great themes.
that they are finding out that while
science is grand in secular directions
worldly philosophy grand in secular di-
rections, they cannot give any comfort
to soul in trouble.
COMFORT IN THE GOSPEL.
Talking with men on steamboats, and
in rail cars, find they are coming back
to the comfort of the gospel. They say,
Somehow human science doesn't COM
fort me when have any trouble, and |
must try something else" And they
are trying the gospel.
Take your scientific consolation to that
mother who has just lost her child. Ap-
ply the doctrine of the Survival of the
fttest." Tell her that her child died be-
cause its life was not worth as much as
the life of one that lived. Try that if
you dare. Go to that dying man with
your transcendental phraseology and tell
him he ought to have confidence in the
great "to be" and the everlasting "now,"
and the eternal what is it?' and go on
with your consolation and see if he is
comforted.
Go to that woman who has lost her
husband and tell her it was geological
necessity that that man passed out of ex-
istence, just as the megatherium disap-
peared in order to make room for a
higher style of creation, and go on with
1.