Democratic messenger., 1893-09-23

better man for such reading"
Next I put upon the stand William f.
Gladstone the head of the English gov
crnmcnt, and / hear him saying what
he said to me in January of 1890. when
in reply to his telegram. Pray come 10
Hawarden tomorrow" | visited him.
Then and there asked him as to wheth-
er in the passage of years his faith in the
holy Scriptures and Christianity was on
the increase or decrease, and he turned
upon me with an emphasis and enthusi-
asm such as no one who has not con-
versed with him can fully appreciate
and expressed by voice and gesture and
illumine1 countenance his ever increas-
ing faith III God and the Bible and Chris
tianity as the only hope of our ruined
world. That is all, Mr.. Gladstone, we
will take of your time now, for, from
the reports of what is going on in Eng
land just now. think you are very
busy"
The next man put upon the witness
stand is the late Earl Of Kintore. and
ask him what he thinks of Christianity,
and he replies, why do you ask mo
that: Did you not hear me preach Christ
in the Midnight Mission of London?'
"Oh, yes. | remember But I see
many witnesses present today in the
courtroom. and call you to the witness
stand, but have only n second of time
for any one of you. As you pass along
just give one sentence in regard to
Christianity Under God it has
changed my entire nature SAYS
one. 1T brought me from drunken
ness and poverty TO sobriety and n
good home" says another. 1T solaced
me when lost my child" says another
1T gave me hope of future treasures
when my property was swept of by the
last panic" says another. 1T has given
me a peace and n satisfaction more TO me
than all the world beside" says another
1T has been to me light and music and
fragrance and radiant anticipation"
says another. All. stop the procession
of witnesses. Enough! Enough! All
those voices OF the past and the present
have nightly increased our faith
TESTIMONY OF TIE ROCKS.
Again, our belief is re-cnforced by ar
chronological exploration. We must con-
fess that good men at one time were afraid
of geologist's hammer and chemists cru
cible and arch9ologist's investigation,
but now intelligent Christians are re-
ceiving and still expecting nothing but
confirmation from all such sources. What
supports the Palestine Exploration soci-
ETY.: Contributions from churches and
Christian benefactors. saw the marks
OF the shovcls of that exploring society
amid the ruins of ancient Jericho and
all up AMI down from the Dead sen to
C;usarea Philippi. dig away" says the
church of God, ''and the deeper You dig
the better like"
The discovered monuments of Egypt
have chiseled on them the story of the
sufferings of the Israelites in Egyptian
bondage, as we find it in the Bible
there. in imperishable stone, representa-
tions of the slave, of the whips and
of the taskmasters who compelled the
making of bricks without straw. Ex-
humcd Nincveh and Babylon. with their
dusty lips, declare the Bible true. Ma
poleon's soldiers in the Egyptian cam
paisn pried up stone. which you may
find i'll the British museum. n stone, as
| remember it, presenting perhaps two
feet of lettcrcd surface. 1t contains words
in three languages. That stone was the
key that unlocked the meaning of all
and tells over and over again the same
events which Moses recorded.
The sulphurous graves of Sodom and
Gomorrah have been identified. The re-
mains of the tower of Babel have been
found. Assyrian documents lifted from
the sand and Behistun inscription hun
lreds of feet high up on the rock echo
and re-echo the truth of Bible history
The signs of the time indicate that al
most every fact of the Bible from lid to
lid will find its confederation in ancient
city disentombed, or ancient wall
cleared from the dust of ages, or ancient
document unrolled by archnologist.
Before the world rolls on as far into
the twentieth century as it has already
rolled into the nineteenth an infdel
will be man who does not believe his
own senses, and the volumes now crit
ical and denunciatory of the Bible. if
not entirely devastat ID by the book
worms, will be taken down from the
shelf as curiosities Of ignorance or idiocy.
All success to the pickaxes and crow
bars and powder blasting of those apos-
ties of archaeological exploration. like
the ringing defiance of the old Huguenots
to the assailants of Christianity: Pound
away, you rebels. Your hammers break.
but the anvil of Gods word stands"
How wonderfully the old book hangs
together. 1t is library made up of &C
books and written by at least 80 authors.
1t is IA supernatural thing that thoy have
stuck together. Take the writings of any
other 30 authors. or any l0authors, or any
authors, and put them together. and
how long would they stay together?
Books of elegant extracts compiled
from many authors are proverbially
short lived. never knew one snch book
which. to use the publishers phrase,
had life in it for five years.
Why is it that the Bible, made up of
the writings of ut least 80 authors, has
kept together for a long line of centu-
ries when the natural tendency would
have been to flv apart like loose sheets of
paper when gust of wind blows upon
them: 1t is because God stuck them to-
1StNtr anu ht'IS 'i"ii to7'iH'l. b"' ioi
hat Joshua would have wandered uif in
,ne direction, and Paul into another. and
lzckicl into another. and Ilabakkuk into
another, and the 80 authors into ~ dircc-
lions.
Put the writings of Shakespeare and
Tcnnyson and Longfellow, or any part
Of them, together. How long would they
stay together: No book bindcry could
keep them together. But the cannon Of
Scripture is loaded now with the same
ammunition with which prophet and
apostle loaded it.
Bring me all the Bibles Of the earth
into one pile, and blindfold me SO that
cannot tell the difference between day
ami night. and put into my hand any
one of all that Alpinc mountain Of sacred