Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1893-09-18

OF Genesis and let me know it, and
ran tell you what is on the next page
namely, the first chapter of Exodus; or
while thus blindfolded put my finger on
the last chapter of Matthew and let me
know it, and I will tell you what is on
The next page-namely, the first chapter
Of Mark. In the pile of 500 100000
Bibles there will be no exception. In
other words. the book gives me conf
dence by it's supernatural adhesion of
writing to writing.
Even the stoutest ship sometimes shifts
it's cargo, and that is what made our
peril the greater in the ship Greece of
the National line when the cyclone
struck us off the coast of Newfoundland,
and the cargo of iron had shifted as the
ship swung from 1arboard to starboard,
and from starboard to larboard. But,
thanks be to God, this old Bible ship,
though it has been in thousands of years
of tempest, has kept its cargo of gold
and precious stones compact and sure,
and in all the centuries nothing about
it has shifted. There they stand,
shoulder to shoulder, David and Solo
mon and Isaiah and jeremiah and
Ezekiel and Daniel and Hosea and Joel
and Amos and Obadiah and Jonah and
Micah and Nahum and Habakkuk and
Zephaniah and Haggai and Zechariah
and Malachi and Matthew and Mark
and Luke and John and Paul and Peter,
all there, and with certainty of being
there until the heavens and the earth,
the creation of which is described in the
first book Of the Bible, shall have Col
| lapsed, and the white horse of the con-
queror, described in the last book of the
/ Bible, shall paw the dust in universal de-
molition. By that tremendous fact my
faith is REINFORCED.
The discussion is abroad as to who
wrote those books of the Bible called
the Pentateuch, whether Moses or
Hilkiah or Ezra or Samuel or jeremiah
or another group of ancients. None of
! them wrote it. God wrote the Penta-
touch, and in this day of stenography
and typewriting that ought not to be
! difficult thing to understand. The great
merchants and lawyers and editors and
business men of our towns and cities
dictate nearly all their letters; they only
sign them after they are dictated. The
prophet and evangelist and apostle were
Jehovah's stenographers or typewriters.
| They put down only what God dictated;
he signed it afterward. He has been
writing his name upon it all through the
vicissitudes Of centuries.
THE PRAYER OF FAITH.
But 1 come to the height of my sub
iect when say the way to reinforce
our faith is to pray for it. So the disci-
pies in my text got their Astounding
faith ''Lord, increase our faith" Some
one suggests, "Do you really think that
prayer amounts to anything?' 1 might
as we'll ask you, is there line of tele-
graphic poles from New York to Wash
ington, is there line of telegraphic
wires from Manchester to London, from
Cologne to Berlin? All the people who
have sent and received messages on those
lines know of their existence. So there
are millions of souls who have been in
constant communication with the cap
ital of the universe, with the throne of
the Almighty, with the great God him.
self, for years and years and years.
There has not been day when sup
plications did not flash up and blessings
did not flash down. Will some ignO-
ramus. who has never received a tele-
gram or sent one, come and tell us that
there is no such thing as telegraphic
communications!
has never offered a prayer that was
heard and answered come and tell us
that there is nothing in prayer? 1t may
not come as we expect it, but as sure as
an honest prayer goes up a merc1ful
answer will come down.
During the blizzard Of four or five
years ago, you know that many of the
telegraph wires were Frustrated, and
telegraphed to Chicago by the way oil
Liverpool, and the answer after awhile
came round by another wide circuit
and so the prayer we offer may come
back in O. way we never imagined, anC
if we ask to have our faith increased
although it may come by widely diff
ferent process than that which we ex
pected, our confidence will surely bt
J augmented.
Oh, put it in every prayer you evel
. mako between your next breath anC
your last gasp, Lord, increase oul
, faith'-faitl in Christ as our persona
ransom from present guilt and eterna
catastrophe: faith in the omnipoten
Holy Gaost faith in the Bible, the
, truest volume ever dictated or writer
, or printed or read; faith in adverse
providences, harmonized for our bes
welfare; faith in judgment day tina
will set all things right which have fol
ages been wrong.
!, Increase our faith, not by fragile ad
dstion, but by an infnitude of recupera
) ton. Let us do as we saw it done in tn
: country while we were yet in our teens
? at the old farmhouse after a long
| drought, and the we'll had been dried
? and the cattle irIoaned with thirst at tn
| bars, and the meadow brook had ceases
? to run, and the grass withered, AM
: H. <.o,.,, woe Cl, mn an6 Ona Ia