News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-09-21
INCREASE OF FAITH.
REV. DR.. TALMAGE ON REINFORCE
MENT AT THE TABERNACLE.
How to Accomplish This Desirable Result.
Science as Il Convincing Witness-How


Science as a Convincing Witness-How
to Give Gospel Life to Freezing Souls.
BROOKLYN, Sept. FIN his sermon at
the Brooklyn Tabernacle this forenoon
Rev. Dr. De Witt Talmage preached to a
vast audience on the subject of Green
forcement," the text being Luke xvii, 8,
Lord, increase our faith
"What n pity he is going therer' said
my friend, most distinguished general
of the army, when he was told that the
reason for my not being present on q
celebrated day in Brooklyn was that on
that day had sailed for the Holy Land
t'Why do you say that?" inquired some
one. My military 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 re-
suit" The great general misjudged the
Ease.
went to the Holy Land for the one
purpose of having my faith strength
ened, and that was the result which
came of it. In all our journeying, in all
our reading, in all our associations, in
all our plans, augmentation rather than
the depletion of our faith should be our
chief desire. 1t is easy enough to have
our faith destroyed. 1 can give you a
recipe for its obliteration. Read infidel
books, have long and frequent converse
tons with skeptics, attend the lectures
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, Nou can
do it more easilyathan you can ds4any-
thing else. After believing the Bib1e all
my life can see a plain way by which } in
| six weeks, l could enlist my voice and pen
and heart and head and entire nature in
the bombardment of the Scriptures and
the church and all 1 now hold sacred.
That it is easy to Danish soon and forever
allrespect for the Bible l prove by the
fact that so many have done it. They were
not particularly brainy nor had especial
force of will, but they so thoroughly &C
complished the overthrow of their faith
that they have no more idea that the
Bible is true, or that Christianity
amounts to anything, than they have in
the truth of the arabian Nights Enter
tainments" or the existence of Don Quix-
ote's ''windmills." They have destroyed
their faith so thoroughly that they never
will have return of it.
Fifty revivals of religion may sweep
over the city, the town, the neighbor-
hood where they live, and they will feel
nothing but silent or expressed dis
gust. There are persons in this house
today who 20 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 1 take the hammer
of that bell, and l strike it three times
with all my might, and it sounds, woe!
woel woe! But my wish, and the wish
of most of you, is the prayer expressed
by the disciples to Jesus Christ in the
words of my text, ''Lord, increase our
faith"
STRENGTH OF THE BIBLE.
The first mode of accomplishing this
is to study the Bible itself. 1 do not be-
lieve there is an infdel 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 understood, and read
in course, I now offer 800 reward to
any infdel who has read the Bible
through twice and read it in course. But
/ cannot take such a mans own word for
it, for there is no foundation for integri-
ty except the Bible, and the man who re-
jects the source of truth how can ac-
cept his truthfulness?
So must have another witness in the
case before I give the reward. must
have the testimony of some one who has
seen him read it all through twice. In
fidels fish in this Bible for incoherencies
and contradictions and absurdities, and
if you find their Bible you will see inter
lineations in the book of Jonah and some
of the chapters of that unfortunate
prophet nearly worn out by much use,
and some parts of II Samuel or
Kings you will find dim with finger
marks, but the pages which contain the
Ten Commandments, and the Psalms of
David, and the sermon ON the mount, and
the book of John the Evangelist, will
not have a single lead pencil stroke in the
margin nor any finger marks showing
frequent perusal.
The father of one of the presidents of
the United States was pronounced in
fdel. knew it when many years ago
accepted his invitation to spend the
night in his home. Just before retiring
at night he said in a jocose way, 81
suppose you are accustomed to read the
Bible before going to bed, and here is
my Bible from which to read" He then
told me what portions he would like to
have me read, and he only asked for
those portions on which he could easily
be facetious.
You know you can make fun about
anything. l suppose you could take the
last letter your father or mother ever
wrote and find something in the gram
mar or the spelling or the tremor of the
penmanship about which to be derisively
critical. The internal evidence of the
truthfulness of the Bible is so mighty
that no one man out of the 1000, 000, 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 Murray, the famous book pub
Usher of Edinburgh 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 Byron's death. 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 Albemarle street after By
ron's death to decide what should be
done with the Memoirs" which were
charged and surcharged with defama-
tons and indelicacies. The memoirs"
were read and pondered, and the decision
came that they must be burned, and not
until the last word of those memoirs"
went to ashes did the literary company
separate.
But suppose, now, all the best spirits of
all ages were assembled to decide the
fate of the Bible, whichis the last will and
testament of our Heavenly Father, and
these memoirs of our Lord Jesus, what
would be the verdict? Shall they burn,
Or shall they live? The unanimous YER
dict of all is, LET them live, though all
else burn" Then put together on the
other hand all the debauchees and profit
gates and assassins of the ages, and their
unanimous verdict concerning the Bible
would be, ''Let it burn"
Mind you, do not say that all infdels
are immoral, but 1 do say that all the
scrapegraces and scoundrels of the unit
verse agree with them about the Bible.
Let me vote with those who believe in
the holy Scriptures. Men believe other