Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1893-09-14

the Judge would lose his patience and sGy
"Go back to your room now and make ur
q verdict. Agree on something"
Well, my friends, there has been 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 a verdict" 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 car agree, see if you can render
some verdict" Now, there is not the mean
est prisoner in the Tombs court who would
be condemned by jury that could not
agree, and yet you expect us to renounce
our glorious Christianity for such u mis-
cradle verdict as these men have rendered,
they themselves not having been able to
agree
ENCOURAGING THOUGHTS.
But my subject shall no longer be defen
sive--t must be aggressive l must show
you that instead of Christianity falling
back it is on the march and that the com
ing religion OF the world is to be the religion
of the Lord Jesus Christ 10000 times inten-
sifed. 1t is to take possession OF every
thing-of all laws, all manners, all Gus
toms, all cities, all nations. 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 Christianity
has gone on straight ahead notwithstand-
ing all the bombardment, and infdelity
has not destroyed church or crippled u
minister or rooted out one verse of the B-
bic, and now their ammunition seemsto be
pretty much exhausted. They cannot get
anything new against Christianity, and if
Christ ianity has gone on under the bom-
bardment of centuries and still continues
to advance may we not conclude that, AZ
the powder and shot Of the other side seem
to be exhausted, Christianity 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 in the same team for
the proclamation of the gospel. Tomorrow
there will not be a banker on Wall street or
State street or Third street who will not
have in his pocket or on his table treatises
on Christianity, calls to repentance and
Scripture passages 20 or 80 of them, in the
reports Of the Christian churches of this
city and other cities Why, that thing
would have been impossible a few years
ago Now, on Monday morning and Mon
day 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 socie
ties! We hail them and we hail these
others.
say it would have been impossible a
few years ago. Hundreds Of letters would
have come 10 the secular newspaper offices;
stop my paper. We have religion on Sun
day. Don't give US any through the week.
Stop my paper" But | have been told that
many of the secular newspapers have their
largest circulation on Monday morning,
and the whole population of this country
are becoming sermon readers. Besides
that have You not noticed that papers pro-
claiming themselves secular almost every
week have religious discussion III them?
Go back a few years, when there was not
a decent paper in the United States that
had not il discussion on the doctrine Of
eternal punishment. Small wits made
merry, ! know, but there was not an intel
lgent man in the United States that as
result Of controversy in regard to eternal
punishment did not ask himself the ques-
ton, What is to be my eternal destiny"
And 50 some years ago, when Tyndall
offered his prayer gauge, there was not u
secular paper in the United States that did
not discuss the questions Does God ever
answer prayer? May the creature impress
the CreatorT
Are not all these facts encouraging to ev-
cry Christian and every philanthropist? Be
SIDES that, the rising generation are being
saturated with gospel truth as no other
generation by this international series of
Sunday school lessons Formerly the chill
Il l,a
little infautile Scripture stories, but now
they are taken from Genesis to Revelation,
/ the strongest minds of the country explain
! ing 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 forestalled for Christianity Y.
Hear ii. Hear it!
Besides that, you must have noticed il
| you have talked on these great themes that
they are finding out that while science is
grand in secular directions, worldly phi
| losophy grand in secular directions, they
cannot give any comfort to a soul in tTou-
bic.
Talking with men on steamboats, and in
Haii cars, find they are coming back to the
comfort of the gospel. They say, Some
how human science doesn't comfort 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. Apply
the doctrine of the Survival OF the Fit
est;' tell her that her child died because
it's life was not worth as much as the life OF
one that lived Try that, if you dare. &c
TO that dying man with your transcendent
al phraseology and tell him he ought tC
have confidence in the great ito be, anG
the everlasting now" and the eterna
what is it," and 90 on with your consola
ton and see If he is cOmforted.
Go to that woman who has lost her hus
band and tell her it was a geological neces
sity that that man passed out of eXistenc,
just as the megatherium disappears in or
der to make room for higher style of Gre
alton, and 20 on with your consolation anC
tell her that there is IA possibility that 10,
100000 years from now we ourselves may b,
geological specimens on the geological
shelf, petrifed specimens of the extinct hu
man race!