News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-09-21

| Furthermore, as l have already init
mated, we may increase our faith by the
testimony of others. Perhaps we of less
er brain may have been overcome by
superstition or cajoled into an acceptance
Of hollow pretension. So will this
morning turn this house into court |
room and summon witnesses, and you
shall be the jury, and l now impanel you
for that purpose, and will put upon the |
witness stand men whom all the world |
| acknowledge to be strong intellectually |
and whose evidence in any other court
room would be incontrovertible. will
not call to the witness stand any min
! lister of the gospel, for he might be pref |
udiced.
There are two ways of taking an oath
in courtroom. One is by putting the
| lips to the Bible and the other is by |
( holding up the right hand toward heav-.
en-. Now, as in this case it is the Bible |
! that is on trial, we will not ask the wit
ness to put the book to his lips, for that |
would imply that the sanctity and divin-
ity of the book is settled, and that would |
be begging the question. So | shall ask |
each witness to lift his hand toward |
heaven in affirmation.
Salmon P. Chase, chief justice of the
supreme court of the United States, ap-
pointed by President Lincoln, will take
the witness stand. "Chief Justice
Chase, upon your oath, please state what |
you have to say about the book common
| ly called the Bible" The witness re-
plies: "There came a time in my life
when 1 doubted the divinity of the
Scriptures, and 1 resolved, as lawyer
and judge, l would try the book as l
would try anything in the courtroom,
taking evidence for and against. 1t
was long and serious and profound
study, and using the same principles of
evidence in this religious matter as l
always do in secular matters I have
come to the decision that the Bible is a
supernatural book, that it has come |
from God, and that the only safety for
the human race is to follow its teach |
ings." Judge, that will do. Go back |
again to your pillow of dust on the |
banks of the Ohio"
Next I put upon the witness stand a
president of the United States-John |
Quincy Adams. President Adams, what |
have you to say about the Bible and |
have for many years made it practice |
to read through the Bible once a year. |
NV custom is to read four or five chap |
tiers every morning Immediately after
arising from my bed. 1t employs about |
an hour of my time and seems to me the |
most suitable manner of beginning the |
day. In what light soever we regard |
the Bible, whether with reference to rev. (
elation, to history or to morality, it is |
an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of |
knowledge and virtue"
Next put upon the witness stand Sir
Isaac Newton, the author of the "Prin- |
cipia" and the greatest natural philoso-
pher the world has ever seen. ''Sir |
Isaac, what have you to say concerning |
the Bible!" The philosophers reply is,
eve account the Scriptures of God to be
the most sublime philosophy"
Next put upon the witness stand the |
enchantment of letters, Sir Walter |
Scott, and when 1 ask him what he |
thinks of the place that our great book |
ought to take among other books he re-
plies, There is but one book, and that |
Is the Bible"
Next put upon the stand the most |
famous geologist of all time, Hugh Mil
Ter, an elder of DR.. Guthrie's Presby-
terrain church in Edinburgh, and Fara-
day and Kepler, and they all testify to
the same thing. They all say the Bible |
is from God, and that the mightiest in
fiuence for good that ever touched our
world is Christianity.
Chancellor Kent, what do you think |
of the Bible?' Answer: mo other book |
ever addressed itself so authoritatively |
and so pathetically to the Judgment and |
moral sense of mankind"
Edmund Burke, what do you think |
of the BibIe?" Answer: II have read |
The Bible morning, noon and night, and |
have ever since been the happier and the
better man for such reading"
Next put upon the stand William E.
Gladstone, the head of the English gov
eminent, and l hear him saying what
he said to me in January of 1890, when
in reply to his telegram, ''Pray come to
Hawarden tomorrow" / visited him.
Then and there 1 asked him as to wheth- |
er in the passage of years his faith in the |
holy Scriptures and Christianity was on |
Sle increase or decrease, and he turned |
Upon me with an emphasis and enthusi- |
asm such as no one who has not con-
versed with him can fully appreciate
Ind expressed by voice and gesture and |
Gllumined countenance his ever increas- I
ing faith in God and the Bible and Chris
iianity as the only hope of our ruined
world. THAT is all, Mr.. Gladstone, we !
will take Of your time now, for, from
the reports of what is going on in Eng
land just now, 1 think you are very
busy"
The next man put upon the witness
stand is the late Earl of Kintore, and
ask him VIII. he thinks of Christianity,
and he replies, why do you ask ne
that? Did you not hear me preach Christ
in the Midnight Mission of London?"
ooh, yes! l remember" But 1 see
many witnesses present today in the
courtroom, and l call you to the witness
stand, but fave only a second of time
for any one Of you. AS you pass along
just give one sentence in regard to
Christianity. under God it has
changed my entire nature" says
one. 1T brought me from drunken
ness and poverty to sobriety and
good home," says another. ut solaced
me when lost my child" says another.
sit gave me hope of future treasures
when my property was swept off by the !
last panic" says another. sit has given
me a peace and a satisfaction more to me J
than all the world beside" says another.
ut has been to me light and music and
fragrance and radiant anticipation"
says another. All! stop the procession
of witnesses. Enough! Enough All
those voices of the past and the present
have nightly increased our faith.
TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS.
Again. our belief is REINFORCED by ar
theological exploration. We must con-
fess that good men at one time were afraid
Of biologists hammer and chemists cru
chile and psychologists investigation,
but now intelligent Christians are re-
ceiving and still expecting nothing but
confirmation from all such sources. What
supports tho Palestine Exploration soci-
ETY.? Contributions from churches a.-d
Christian benefactors. | saw the marks
of the shovels of that exploring society
amid the ruins of ancient Jericho ai.d
all up and down from the Dead sea to
Cesarea Philippi. "Dig awayr' says the
church of God, ''and the deeper you dig
the better l like"
The discovered monuments of Egypt
have chiseled on them the story of the
sufferings of the Israelites in Egyptian
bondage, as we find it in the Bible
there, in imperishable stone, representa-
tons of the slave, of the whips and