The Washington times., 1894-09-10
Its Development and Spread Throughout the
World a Never-ceasing Wonder-Singu-
lar Fact That 1t Is Rejected by Those
Whom II Is Intended to Benefit Most.

the fact that there were in existence at that
time in Athens, four schools of philosophy,
| the Academy of Socrates and Plato, the Ly-
ceum OF Aristotle, the Porch where Zsus
favored the stole school, and the Aesthetic
Garden of Epicurean philosophy.
Athens was thronged with scholars and all
the learned sages of the age and it was in this
company and in these environments that
| Paul first preached to Athenian ears. Dr.
| Sunderland said:
Here the stoics and enicureans encoun-
tered him. Some called him babbler-we,
in our day, should say crank; some thought
he was introducing strange gods and knew
not what to make OF him. Curiousity was
kindled to high pitch. They concluded to
take him to the Areopagus, bare rock,
where sat at night the supreme GRIM
inal court of Athens, and so named from
! the legend that there Mars, the god of war,
! was once tried on a charge of murder. In
English we call it Mars Hill For they said
10 him: May We know what this new doc
| trine whereof thou speakestis, for thou bring
] est certain strange things TO our ears; we
would know therefore what these things
meant For he had been talking about Jesus
and the resurrection.
STRANGE WAS THE GOSPELS COMING.
'And surely the strangest thing that ever
happened in this world was the coming of the
Gospel Of Christ. 1t was proclaimed long be-
fore by prophets and seers; it was heralded
| by angels; twas solemnized by the crucifxion
| when darkness covered the earth and the sun
refused to look upon the great sacrifice. 1t
| is thing into which the heavenly host de-
sire to look, that God should actually dwell
among men in human form; that He should
! proclaim pardon and peace to guilty men;'
| that He should destroy death and hell and
make the grave the pathway TO eternal life;
! that He should be the Morning Star of resur-
| rectton, aud that He, as with the voice OF a
| clarion, should commission His church to pro-
| claim salvation to a lost and perishing world
| providence is working out the meaning of
| these things. One age succeeds another, and
| the great problem is being solved England
taxes tea, and this mighty republic is the re-
| suit. Louis Napoleon pretends to be insulted
| by the gesture of A man one day at a Euro
| pean summer resort and the German Empire
| is the consequence. A council at Rome de-
| clares the Pope infalible and in less than a
month his temporal sovereignty is swept
| away forever. Korea is a little corner of the
/ globe given autonomy by treaty of the
greater powers, and this is the bone over
| which war now wages between a nation of
| -, 900, 900 on one side and a nation of
| $50 O0O, 900 on the other. The hand of God is
| in II ALL opening 70 mankind more and more
! the meaning of these strange things. Ii is all
subsidiary to the victory of the Gospel.
Christ must triumph over Confueius in the
| end.
"some of you may have seen a recent inter-
view with the French novelist Zola, whose
notions about the moral conditions of society
at this time are very much in keeping with
those OF the Greek philosophers. He is i'm
| pressed by the fact that while physical science
Is seeking to shatter every vestige of proof
| for the supernatural, there never has been a
| time in the history of the world when a SIM
pie positive faith in the supernatural was
| more prevalent or persistent than it is now
| And yet for the last half century the literature
| inspired by this pseudo-science has been hold
! ing up to our generation this simple faith in
! the unseen and eternal as the superstitious
credulity of low stage of intellectual devel-
| opment"
And this boasted science of our day like
| that of Greece is more than half of it, mere
human speculation upon matters where
there is and can be no certain knowledge by
mans unaided efforts al comprehension OF
| course, there are and will be, rs there have al
ways been, counterfeits and shams. pretenses
aud simulacra, which claim to be supernat-
ural, but this no more disproves the real than
| counterfeit coin disproves the existence and
value Of a genuine currency.
but the strangest thing of all is that the
| would-be leaders of mankind, our distn-
guished Frenchmen, who is said to be the
| greatest living delineator of the current hu-
| manity, looks upon reviyals of religion as "a
| disease of the imagination produced by un-
| healthy social conditions and the poisonous
remedies tried for their amelioration.' He
| thinks thar the revival of religious faith is
only an emotional, feverish excitement, which
| will pass away and be succeeded by the calm
I ma ma nf saia 40 la,,,
TRAvEsTY on HUMAN HISTORY.
"But what travesty is all this upon the
plain facts of human history 1t is simply
the old epicurianism which met and mocked
at the Gospel of Christ on Mars Hill eighteen
centuries ago. Nol unless we are all most
grossly deceived there will be no such out
come as he predicts. Science, as he terms it.
has had its day as a kicker against Christ
! Henceforth it WILL like a wild horse, be
broken to the traces and harnessed to the
| chariots of salvation in which Christ is bound
to ride to the conquest of this world.
! 1.-The religious revival has come to Stay
| And to US who hold by the old faith once de-
lfvered to the saints, it is pitiable TO see our
| scientists and philosophers fioundering in the
morass where they have sought to plunge the
chur IN of God. and trying to account on
scientific principles for the unrest to which
their vain theories have so largely contrib
| uted by telling us that the world is only
weary and resting awhile, and when it gets
breath it will push on againl
lit Is infdeity that belittles the intellect and
hardens the heart 1t is self-assumption that
makes man In his ignorance and helpless
ness ridiculous. Who were the puppits on
Mars Hill that day, and who was the mighty
| soul that lowered above them in his speech as
| the heavens are above the earth, as eternity
| outreaches time? The snickering crowd that
Knocked him as a babbler chose their own fate
and were doomed to destruction. When a
man has once heard the Gospel and rejects it,
deliberately puts il away from him, he thus
brings himself under a condemnation from
which he can never escape. Call it ordina-
ton, predestination, liberty OF choice or what
| you will, his destiny is fixed by his own act
And among all the things which are
strange in and about the Gospel nothing is
| half so strange as the deliberate rejection of
1t by those to whom 1t is preached. We do
not believe tnat God ever made anybody on
| purpose to down him, but we do believe that
any man who knowingly and deliberately re-
! jects the Gospel deserves il. And it is a
| strange thing that this Gospel, which men
] have vainly heard all their lives will be the
| judge of them in the last day. OF course
| they do not fear it now: they do not realize
| it; perhaps they do not believe it, but for
myself | would not dare to run the risk any
more than | would dare to take my own life
''You will remember this and when the day
| Of account arrives you will remember with
the bitterness of despair that we told you of
i ~ nd mill 20