Democratic messenger., 1893-09-23

ran tell you what is on the next page
namely. the first chapter Of Exodus; or
while thus hlindfolded put my finger on
the last chapter Of Matthew and let me
know it. and will tell you what is on
the next page-namely. the first chapter
of Mark. In the pile of 1900, 900
Bibles there will be no exception. In
other words, the book gives me conf
dence by its supernatural adhesion of
writing to writing.
Even the stoutest shipsometimes shifts
Its cargo, and that is what made our
peril the greater in the ship Greece of
the National line when tho cyclone
struck MS off the coast of Newfoundland,
and the cargo of iron had shifted as the
ship swung from larboard to starboard,
and from starboard to larboard. But,
thanks be to God. this old Bible ship,
though it has been in thousands of years
of tempest, has kept its cargo Of gold
and precions stones compact and sure,
and in all the centuries nothing about
it has shifted. There they stand,
shoulder to shoulder. David and Solo
mon and Isaiah and Jeremiah and
Ezekiel and Daniel and Hosea and Joel
and Amos and Obadiah and Jonah and
Micah and Nahum and Habakkuk and
Zephaniah and Iaggai and Zechariah
and Malachi and Matthew and Mark
and Luke and John and Paul and Peter,
all there. and with a certainty Of being
there until the heavens and the earth,
the creation of which is described in the
first book OF the Bible. shall have Col
lapsed. and the white horse of the con-
qucror. described in the last book of the
Bible. shall paw the dust in universal de-
molition. BY that tremendous fact my
faith is re-enforced.
The discussion is abroad as to who
wrote those books of the Bible called
the Pentateuch, whether Moses or
Hilkiah or Ezra or Samuel or jeremiah
or another group Of ancients. None Of
them wrote ii. God wrote the Penta-
teuch. and in this day of stenography
and typewriting that ought not to be a
difficult thing to understand. The great
merchants and lawyers and editors and
business men of our towns and cities
dictate nearly all their letters; they only
sign them after they are dictated. The
prophet and evangelist and apostle were
Jehovah's stenographers or typewriters.
They put down only what God dictatcd;
he signed it afterward He has been
writing his name upon it all through the
vicissitudes of centuries.
TIE PRAYER OF FAITH.
But / come TO the height of my sub
ject when say the way 10 re-enforce
our faith is to pray for it. So the disci-
pies in my text got their aboundng
faith. Lord. increase our faith" Some
one suggests. DO you really think that
prayer amounts to anything:' l might
rs well ask you, is there a line of tele-
graphic poles from New York to Wash
ington. is there a line of telegraphic
wires from Manchester to London, from
Cologne to Berlin: All the people who
have sent and received messages on those
lines know of their existence. So there
are millions Of souls who have been in
constant communication with the cap
ital OF the universe. with the throne of
the Almighty, with the great God him.
self, for years and years and years
There has not been day when sup
plications did not fash up and blessings
did not flash down. Will some igno-
ramus, who has never received tele-
gram or sent one. come and tell us that
there is no such thing as telegraphic
communication? Will some one who
has never offered a prayer that was
heard and answered come and tell us
that there is nothing in prayer? 1t may
not come as we expect it. but as sure rs
an honest prayer goes mp a merciful
answer will come down.
During the blizzard of four or five
years ago. you know that many of the
telegraph wires Were Frustrated. and l
telegraphed to Chicago by the way of
Liverpool, and the answer after awhile
came round by another wide circuit
and so the prayer we offer may come
back i'll n way we never imagined, and
if we ask to have our faith increased,
although it may come by widely diff
ferent process than that which we ex-
pected. our confidence will surely be
augmented.
Oh, put it in every prayer you ever
make between your next breath and
your last gasp, Lord. increase our
faith"-faith in Christ as our personal
ransom from present guilt and eternal
catastrophe; faith in the omnipotent
Holy Ghost; faith in the Bible. the
truest volume ever dictated or written
or printed or read: faith in adverse
providences. harmonized for our best
welfare; faith in Judgment day that
will set all things right which have for
ages been wrong.
Increase our faith. not by fragile ad-
dition. but by an infinitudc of recupera-
ton. Let us do as we saw il done in the
country while we were yet in our teens,
at the old farmhouse after a long
drought, and the we'll had been dried,
and the cattle moaEed with thirst at the
bars, and the meadow brook had ceased
10 run, and the grass withercd, and
the corn was shriveled up. and one day
there was 4 growl of thunder, and
then congregation of clouds ON the
sky, and then startling flash. and then
n drenching rain, and father and mother
Iut WV. SlNht a. tiit VI
ncrs of the house and set pals and buck
cts and tubs and pans and pitchers to
catch as much rs they could of the show
or. For i'll many of our souls there has
been long drought of confidence and
in many no faith at all. Let us set ont
all our affections, all our hopes. all our
contcmplations. all our prayers. to catch
u mighty shower. Lord. increase our
faith"
like the way that the ministers Wild
NV lid in Elisha's time. when. after the
family being very unfortunate. her two
sons were about TO be sold for debt, and
she had nothing in the house but pot
Of oil. and at Elisha's direction she bor-
rowcd from her neighhors all the vessels
she could borrow, and then began to
pplr ont the oil into those vessels and
kept on pouring until they were all full
and she became an oil merchant with
more assets than liabilities. and when
Sba .,riaI ssRrinC naa vnt =: vessel " tha