Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-11-24

sleep because watching for his return
late at night does not choke his laugh
ter or hasten his step forward. She has
tried coaxing and kindness and self
sacrifice and all the ordinary prayers
that mothers make for their children,
and all have failed. She is coming
toward the vivid and venturesome and
terrific prayer of my text. She is going
to lift her own eternity and set it upon
that one IF" by which she expects to
decide whether you will go up with
her or she down with you. She may
be this moment looking heavenward,
and saying: 80, Lord reclaim him by
thy grace" and then adding that
heart-rending "If' of my text: IF not,
blot me, pray thee, out of thy book. "
After three years of absence a son
wrote his mother in one of the New
England whaling villages that he was
coming home in a certain ship. Moth
er-like, she stood watching, and the
ship was IN the offing, but fearful
storm struck it and dashed the ship on
the rocks that night. All that night
the mother prayed for the safety of the
son, and just at dawn there was a
knock at the cottage door, and the son
entered, crying out, Mother, knew
you would pray me homer If would
ask all those in this assemblage who
have been prayed home to God by pious
mothers to stand up, there would be
scores that would stand, and if should
ask them to give testimony of that New
England son coming ashore from the
split timbers of the whaling ship,
my mother prayed me homer
Another bible ''If'' is the "If' of in
credulity. Satan used it, when Christ,
with his vitality depressed by forty
days abstinence from food, the tempter
pointed to some stones, in color and
shape like loPves of bread, and said:
"1f you be the Son of God, command
that these stones be made bread"
That was appropriate, for Satan is the
father of that ITO incredulity. Peter
used that same 'If' when, standing
on the wet and slippery deck of fish
ing-smack of Lake Galilee, he saw
Christ walking on the sea as though it
were as solid as a pavement of basalt
from the adjoining volcanic hills, and
Peter cried out, IF it be thou, let me
come TO thee on the water" What
preposterous "If!' What human foot
was ever so constructed as to walk on
water? In what part of the earth did
law of gravitation make exception to
the rule that man will sink to the
elbows when he touches the wave of
river or lake, and will sink still
further unless he can swim? But
here Peter looks out upon the form
in the shape of man defying
the mightiest law of the universe, the
law of gravitation, and standing erect
on the top of the liquid. Yet the in
credulous Peter cries out to the Lord,
IF it be thou" Alas! for that incred-
ulous "If." 1t is working as power
fully in the latter part OF this nine
teenth Christian century as it did in
the early part of the first Christian CEN
fury. Though a small conjunction, it
is The biggest block to-day in the way
CT che gospel chariot. "If!' eff" We
have theological seminaries which
spend most of their time and employ
their learning and their genius in the
manufacturing of Ifs" With that
weaponry is assailed the Pentateuch,
and the miracles and the divinity of
Jesus Christ. Almost everybody is
chewing on an of" When many a
man bows for prayer, he puts his knee
on an IF" The door through which
he passes into infdelity and atheism
and all immoralities has two door
posts, and the one is made up of the
letter 'I' and the other of the let
ter "F"
There are only four stcps between
strong faith and complete unbelief.
First, surrender the idea of the verbal
inspiration of the scriptures, and adopt
the idea that they were all generally
supervised by the Lord. Second, sur
render the idea that they were all
generally supervised by the Lord, and
adopt the theory that they were not
all, but partly supervised by the Lord.
Third, believe that they are the gra-
dual evolution of the ages and men
wrote according to the wisdom of the
times in which they lived. Fourth, be-
lieve that the bible is bad book and
not only unworthy of credence but
pernicious and debasing and cruel.
Only four steps from the stout faith
in which the martyr died TO the
blatant caricature of Christianity
as the greatest sham of the centuries.
But the door TO all that pre-
cipation and horror is made out of an
IF. The mother of unrests in the
minds of Christian people and in those
who regard sacred things is the ''If'' of
incredulity. In 1879, in Scotland, L saw
a letter which had been written many
years ago by Thomas Carlyle to Thomas
Chalmers. Carlyle, at the time of
writing the letter, was a young man.
The letter was not TO be published
until after the death of Carlyle. His
death having taken place, the letter
ought to be published. 1t was letter
in which Thomas Carlyle expresses the
fortunes of his own mind while