Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-09-22

the Brooklyn Tabernacle this forenoon,
Rev. DR.. Dewitt Talmage preached to a
vast audience on the subject of Reinforce
ment," the text being: Luke l7:5, Lord,
increase our faith "
what pity he is going there, I"
said my friend, most distinguished
general of the army, when he was told
that the reason for my not being
present on celebration day in Brook
lyu wss that on that day had sailed
for the Holy Land. "Nh nv do you say
that" inquired some one. My mill
tary friend replied: "Oh, he will be
disillusioned when he gets amid the
squalor and commonplace scenes OF
Palestine, and his faith will be shaken
in Christianity, for that is often the
result" he great general misjudged
the case. | went 10 the Holy Land
for the one purpose of having my faith
strengthened, and that was the result
which came of it. II all Our journey,
ing, in all our reading, in all our as
sociations, in all our plans augmenta-
Iion, rather than the depletion of our
faith, should be our chief desire. 1t is
easy enough to have our faith
destroyed. / can give you recipe
for its obliteration. lead intidel
books, have long and frequent CONVEX
sations with ,sceptics, attend the lect-
ures of those antagonistic TO religion,
give full swing To some bad habit,
and Your faith will be so completely
gone that YOU will laugh at the idea
that you ever had any. If you want to
ruin your faith, you can do it more
easily than you can do anything else.
After believing the bible all my
life, can see plain way by which,
III TX weeks, could enlist my voice
and pen and heart and head and en-
tire nature in the bombardmCnto of the
scriptures and the church and all |
now hold sacred. That it Is easy to
bauish soon and forever all respect for
the bible, p owe by the fact that Sc
many have done it. They were not
particular y brainy, nor had especial
force of will, but they so thoroughly
accomplished the overthrow of their
faith that they have no more idea that
the bible is true, or that Ihristianity
amounts to anything, than they have
in the truth of the Arabian Nights
Entertainments" or the existence of
Don QuiXotes Wv ndmills." They
have destroyed their faith so thor
oughly that they never will have re-
turn of it. Fifty revivals of re igion
the neigh borhood where they live, and
they will feel nothing but "a silent or
EXPRESSED disgust. There are persons
in this hou>c to-day, who, twenty
years ago, gave up their faith and
they will never resume it. The black
and deep toned bell Of doom hangs
over their head. and | take the ham
mer of that bell, and | strike it three
times with all my might, and it
sounds, Woe Woe! Woe! But my
wish, and the wish of most of You, is
the PRAYER expressed by the discip es
to Jesus Christ, in the words of my
text: Lord, increase our faith"
The first m, de of accomplishing this
is 10 study the bible itself | do not
believe there is an intidel now alive
who has read the bible through. But
as so important document needs to
be read at least twice through in order
that it may be thoroughly understoo |,
aud read in course, | now offer 500
reward to any infidcl who has read the
bible through twice and read it in
COURSE. But | cannot take such a
man own word for it, for there is no
foundation for integrity, except the
bible, and the man who rejects the
source of truth, how can ] accept his
truthfulnessp So | must have another
witness in the case before | give the
reward. must have the stimony of
some one who has seen him read it all
through twice. Infidels fish in this
bible for incoherencies and contra
dictions and absurdities, and if you
find their bible, you will see inter
lineations in the Book of Jonah and
some of the other chapters of that un-
fortunate prophet nearly worn out by
much use, and some parts Of Second
Samuel or First Kings, you will find
dim with tirger marks, hut the pages
which conta n the Ten Commandments
and the Psalms of David and the Ser
mon on the Mount and the Book of
John the Evangelist will not have a
single lead pencil stroke in the margin.
nor any hngermarks showing fire.
quent perusal. The father of one of
the Presidents of the United States
was pronounced infidel. | knew it
when many years ago accepted his
invitation to spend the night in his
home. Just before retiring at night,
he said, in jocose way: Il suppose
you are &C ustomed to read the Bible
before going to bed, and here is my
Bible from which to read" He then
have read. and he only asked for those
portions on which he could easily be
facetious
You know you can make fun about
anything. j suppose you could take
the last letter your father or mother
ever wrote and find something in the
grammar or the spelling. or the ire-
NOR of the penmanship about which
to be derisively critical The internal
evidence of the truthfulness of the
bible is so mighty that no man out of
the 900, 900, 900 of the worlds present
population, or the vaster millions Of
the past ever read the bible in course,
and read it prayerfully and carefully,
but was led to believe it. John Muir
ray, the famous book publisher of
Edin burgh and the intimate friend of
Southey, Coleridge. Walter Scott,
Canning and Washington Irving,
bought of Moore, the poet, the
memoirs of Lord Byron" and
they were to be published after By
ron sdeath. But they were not fit TO
be published, although Murray had
paid for them $4,000. That was
solemn conclave when eight of the
prominent literary people OF those
times assembled in Albermarle
street after Byron's death to decide