Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-10-22

house Of David. 1t is Joash, the God
r-orshiping reformer. 1t is Joash, the
friend of God. 1t is Joash, the democrat
derby. nurse him gently. Athaliah, you
may kill all the other children, but you
cannot kill him. Eternal defenses are
! thrown all around him, and this clergy
mans wife, Jehosheba, will snatch him
up from the palace nursery and will
run down with him into the house of
the Lord, and there she will hide him
for six years, and at the end of that
time he will come forth for your de
throuement and obliteration.
Foes OF Religion Defeated.
Well, my friends. just as poor
botch does the world always make of
extinguishing righteousness. Supersti-
ton rises up and says, Il will just put
an end to pure religion Domitian
slew 40, 900 Christians, Diocletian slew
S44,O00 Christians. And the scythe of
persecution has been swung through
all the ages, and the flames Kissed, and
the guillotine chopped and the Bastille
groaned, but did the foes of Christian
ity eXterminate it? Did they extermi-
H,
or Zwingli the Swiss reformer, or John
Oidcastls. the Christian nobleman, or
Abdallah. the Arabian martyr, or Anne
Askew or Sanders or Cranmer? Great
work of determination they made of 1t.
Just at the time when they thought
they had slain all the royal family of
Jesus some Joash would spring up and
out and take the throne of power and
WELD a very scepter Of Christian do
miniOn.
Inlidelity says, II will exterminate
the Bible" and the Scriptures were
thrown into the street for the mob to
trample on, and they were piled up in
the public squares and set on fire, and
mountains of indignant contempt were
hurled on them. and learned universi-
ties decreed the Bible out of existence.
Thomas Paine said: "In my Age of
Reason l have annihilated the Scrip
lures. Your Washington is a pusillani-
nous Christian, but l am the foe of
Bibles and of churches Oh. how
many assaults upon that word! All the
hostilities that have ever been created
on earth are not to be compared with
the hoStilities against that one book
Said enc man in his infidel desperation
to his wife, ''You must not be reading
that Bible" and he snatched it away
from her. And though in that Bible
was a lock of hair of the dead child
the only child that God had ever given
them-he pitched the book with its
contents into the fire and stirred it
with the tongs and spat on it and ours
ed it and said. Susan. never have any
more of that damnable stuff here"
Enemies of the Bible Routed.
How many individual and organized
attempts have been made to extermi-
nate that Bible? Have its enemies
done it? Have they eXterminated the
American Bible society? Have they
eyter;ninated the British and Foreign
Eible society? Have they exterminat-
cd the thousands of Christian institu-
tons whose only object it is to multi
ply copies Of the Scriptures and spread
them broadcast around the world?
They have eXterminated until instead
OF one or two copies Of the Bible in our
houses we have eight or ten, and we
pile them up in the corners of our Sab
bath school rooms and send great box
IS Of them everywhere. If they get on
as we'll as they are now going on in the
work of determination, | do not know
hut that our children may live to see
the millennium. Yea. if there should
come time of persecution in which all
the known Bibles Of the earth should
be destroyed all these lamps of life
that blaze IN our pulpits and in our
families distinguished. in the very day
that infidclity and sin should be hold
ing jubilee over the universal eXtinc
ton there would be in some closet of a
backwoodS church a secreted copy of
the Bible, aud this .Joash of eternal lit
erature would come out and come up
and take the throne and the Athaliah
of infidelity and persecution would fly
out the back door of the palace and
drop her misera bic carcass under the
hoofs of the horses of the kings sta
bles, You cannot eXterminate Chris
tianity! You cannot kill Joash!
The second thought | hand you from
my subject is that there are opportuni-
ties in which we may save royal life.
You know that profane history is re-
piete with stories of strangled mon
archs and of young princes who have
been put out of the way. Here is the
story of a young king saved. How Je-
hosheba, the clergyman's wife. must
have trembled as she rushed into the
imperial nursery and snatched up
Joash' How she hushed him lest by
his cry he hinder the escape, Fly with
him .Jehosheba, You hold in your
arms the cause of God and good gov
eminent. Fail, and he is slain. Sue /
coed and you turn the tide Of the
worlds history in the right direction
IL SgHInS as If between that Young king