Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1893-09-29

lures. AMI 1 resolved, as a lawyer and judge,
would try the book as I would try anything
in the courtroom, taking evidence for and
against 1t was a long and serious and pro-
found study, and using the same principles
Of evidence in this religious matter as | al
ways do in secular matters l 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 fol-
low its teachings" "Judge. that will do.
Go back again to your pillow Of dust on the
banks of the Ohio.N
Next put upon the witness stan Presi-
dent of the United States-John Quincy
Adams President Adams, what have you to
saw about the Bible and Christianity" The
President replies. 81 have for many years
made it practice to read through the Bible
once year. My custom is to read four or
five chapters 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 revelation. to his
tory or to morality, it is an invaluable and
inexhaustibIe mine of knowledge and virtue. ="
Next [ put upon the witness stand Sir
Isaac Newton, the author of the "Principia"
and the greatest natural philosopher the
world has ever seen. "5ir Isaac. what have
you to say concerning the BibleY The
philosophers reply is, "We account the
Scriptures of God TO be the most sublime
philosophy"
Next I put upon the witness stand the en-
chantment of letters, Sir Walter Scott, and
when Task him what he thinks of the place
that our great book ought to take among
other books he replies, 'There is but one
book, and that is the Bible"
- Next put upon the stand the most famous
Eeologist OF all time, Hugh Miller, an elder
of DR.. Guthries Presbyterian church in Ed
inburgh, and Faraday and Kepler, and they
all testify TO the same thing. They all say
the Bible is from God, and that the mightfest
influence for good that ever touched our
world is Christianity.
"Chancellor Kent, what do you think OF
the Bible2' Answer "No other book ever
addressed itself so authortatively and so
pathetically to the judgment and moral sense
Of mankind
Edmund Burke what do you think ofthe
Bible r Answer: "I 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. CLAD
stone. the head of the English government,
and hear him saying what he said to me IN
January of 1890, when in reply to his tele-
gram, "Pray come to Hawarden tomorrow,
| visited him. Then and there | asked him
as to whether in the passage ofyears his faith
in the Holy Scriptures and Christianity was
on the increase or decrease, and he turned
upon me with an emphasis and enthusiasm
such as no one who has not conyersed with
him can fully appreciate and expressed by
voice and gesture and illumined countenance
his ever increasing faith in Col and the Bible
and Christianity as the only hope of our
ruined world. ''That is all, Mr. Gladstone,
we will take of your time now, for, from ths
reports of what IS going on in England just
now, think you are very busy"
The next man l put upon the witness
stand is the late Earl of Kintore, and 1 ask
him what he thinks Of Christianity, and hs
replies, "Why do you ask me that? Did you
not hear me preach Christ in the Midnight
Mission of London?' ooh; yes remem-
berw But l see many witnesses present to-
day in the courtroom, and | call you to the
witness stand. hit l have only second OF
time for any one of YOU. AS you pass along
lust give me one sentence in regard to Chris
tianity. "Under God it has changed my en-
tire nature" says one. sit brought me from
drunkenness and poverty to so5riety and a
good home" says another at solaced me
L
gave me hope of future treasures when my
property was swept off by the last panic"
saws another. at has given me peace and
satisfaction more to me than all the world
beside" SAYS another. "It 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 present nave
nightly increased our faith.
Again. our belief is REINFORCED by ar
Theological exploration. We must confess
that good men at one time were afraid OF
biologists hammer and chemists crucibie
and psychologists investigation, but now
intelligent Christians are receiving and still
expecting nothing but confirmation from all
such sources. What supports the Palestine
Exploration Society? Contributions from
churches and Christian benefactors. saw
the marks of the shovels of that exploring
society amid the ruins of ancient Jericho and
all uD AM down from the Dead Sea to
Casarea Philippi. "Dig awayT says the
church of God land the deeper you dig the
better | like.
The discovered monuments of Egypt have
chiseled on them the story of the suferlngs
of the Israelites in Egyptian bondage, as we
find it in the Bible-there. in imperishable
stone, representations of the slave, OF the
whips and of the taskmasters who compelled
the making of bricks without straw. Ex-
humed Nineveh and Babylon, with their
dusty lips. declared the Bible true. Napol-
cons soldiers in the Egyptian campaign
pried up a stone, which you may find in the
British museum, q stone, as l remember 1t,
representing perhaps two feet OF letteret
surface. 1t contains words in three Ian
guages. The stone was the key that unlocked
the meaning of all the heroZyDhics oftombs
AMI o5elisks an ! tells over and over again the
same events which Moses recorded.
The sulphurous graves Of Sodom and
Gomorrah have been identified. The re-
mains of the tower of Babel have been
found. Assyran documents lifted from the
sand and Behistun inscription hundreds OF
feet high up on the rock echo and re-echo
the truth of Bible history. The signs of the
time indicate that almost every fact OF the
Bible from lid to lid will find its corrobora-
ton in ancient city disentombed, or ancient
wall cleared from the dust of ages. or ancient
document unroled by archaologist.
Before the world rolls on as far into the
twentieth century as it has already rolled
into the nineteenth an infdel will be man
who does not believe his own senses, andthe
volumes now critical and denunciatory of
the Bible, if not entirely devastated by the
pook-Worms, VIII De taken down IRON the
shelf as curiosities Of ignorance or idiocy.
All success to the pickaxes and crowbars and
powder blasting of those apostles of arch@o-
logical exploration. like the ringing de-
fiance of the old Huguenots to the assailants
OF Christianity Pound away, you rebels
Your hammers break, but the anvil of Gods
word stands"
How wonderful the old book hangs to-
gether. 1t is library made up Of &c books
and written by at least SO authors. It is
thing that they have stuck to-
gether. Take the writings Of any other 80
authors. or any 10 authors or any authors