Capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1893-1895, 1893-11-20

SELF sacrificing and all the ordinary pray
ers that mothers make for their children
and all have failed. She is coming TO
ward the vivid and venturesome and ter
rifle prayer of my text. She is going tc
lift her cwn eternity and set it upon that
one IF" by which she expects to decide
whether you will go up with her or she
down with you. She may be this mo.
ment looking heavenward and saving
20 Lord. reclaim him by thy grace" and
then adding that heart rending "if' of
my text, 'If not, blot me, pray thee,
out of thy book"
After three years of absence a son
wrote his mother in one of the New Eng.
land whaling villages that he was COM
ing home in a certain ship. Motherlike,
she stood watching, and the ship was in
the ofing, but fearful storm struck il
and dashed the ship on the rocks that
night. All that night the mother prayed
for the safety of the son, and Just at
dawn there was knock at the cottage
door, and the son entered, crying out,
Mother, l knew you would pray me
homer If would ask all those in this
assemblage who have been prayed home
to God by pious mothers to stand up,
there would be scores that would stand.
and if / should ask them to give testi-
mony it would be the testimony Of that
New England son coming ashore from
the split timbers of the whaling ship
my mother prayed me homel"
THE IFS" OF INcREDULITY.
Another Bible if' is the ''if'' of in
credulity. Satan used it when Christ,
vitality was depressed by 40 days absti-
nence from food and the tempter point
ed to some stones, in color and shape
like loaves of bread, and said, "If thou
be the Son of God, command that these
stones be made bread" That was ap-
propriate, for Satan is the father of
that ''if" of incredulity. Peter used that
same 'if" when, standing on the wet
and slippery deck of fishing smack on
Lake Galilee, he saw Christ walking on
the sea as though it were as solid as a
pavement of basalt from the adjoining
volcanic hills, and Peter cried out, "If
it be thou, let me come to thee on the
water"
What preposterous "if!' What hu-
man foot was ever 80 constructed as to
walk on water? In what part of the
earth did law of gravitation make excep-
ton to the rule that man will sink to
the elbows when he touches wave OF
river or lake, and will sink still farther
unless he can swim? But here Peter looks
out upon the form in the shape of man
defying the mightiest law of the uni
law of gravitation-and stand
ng erect on the top of the liquid. Yet
he incredulous Peter cries out to the
Lord, "If 1t be thou" Alas. for that in
,redulous "ifr' 1t is working as power
ully In the latter part of this nineteenth
Christian century as it did in the early
part of the first Christian century.
Though small conjunction, it is the
biggest block today in the way of the
gospel chariot. "Ifr' "Ifr We have
theological seminaries which spend most
of their time and employ their learning
and their genius in the manufacturing
of 'ifs." With that weaponry are as
sailed the Pentateuch, and the miracles,
and the divinity of Jesus Christ. AL
most everybody is chewing on an 'if."
When many man bows for prayer, ne
nuts his knee on an ''if." The door
through which people pass into infidelity
and atheism and all immoralities has
two doorposts, and the one is made upof
the letter 81" and the other of the let
ter If"
There are only four steps between
strong faith and complete unbelief; First,
surrender the idea of the verbal inspira-
tion of the Scriptures and adopt the idea
that they were all generally supervised
bv the Lord. Second, surrender the idea
that they were all generally supervised
by the Lord and adopt the theory that
tbey were not all, but partly, supervised
nv the Lord. Third. believe that they are
the gradual evolution of the age and
men wrote according to the wisdom OF
the times in which they lived. Fourth,
believe that the Bible is bad book and
not only unworthy of sredence, but per-
nicious and debasing and cruel.
Only four steps from the stout falth IN
which the martyrs died to the blatant
caricature of Christianity as the great
est sham of the centuries. But the door
10 all that precipitation and horror Is
made out of an 'if." The mother OF
rnrests in the minds of Christian people
and in those who regard sacred things
"a the "if" of incredulity. In 1879 IN
Scotland. | saw letter which had been
written many years ago by Thomas Car,
ivla TO Thomas Chalmers. Carlyle az
tbs time of writing the letter. was
voune man. The letter was not 70 DC
1ublisbed until after the death OF Car
ivle His death having taken place. tn'
letter ought to be published: o.
'' Tt nos a letter in which Thomas Car
lvIe expresses the tortures OF ms owl
1;nd while relaxing his faith IN ChriS
t;aritv while at the same time he OK
nresses his admiration for DIR. Chalhers
and in which Carlyle wishes that ne ha' M
tba same faith that the great sco1ch uuin lsn =
;ater | evidently exercised. Nothing Una
TSomas rT CARLYLE ever wrote in SarDO
pasa,fus y OF the ''French Revolution
~ his "Idfe of Cromwell, or his I'M
mortal Essays" had in 1t more wIn ~
drous power than that letter ~ic1 % ~ =,
4 uIOhS EN anH aWfOlle0 III