Connecticut western news., 1901-07-11

five times as many Bibles abroad as any other book among civilized na- tions, does not that show you that the most popular book on earth today is the word of God?
 "Oh," say people, 'the church is collection of hypocrites, and it Is los ing its power, and it is fading out from the world. Is it? A bishop of the Methodist church told me that that de- nomination averages two new churches every day. In other words, they build t30 churches in that denomination in a year. and there are at least 1000 new Christian churches built in America every year. Does that look as though the Christian church were fading out, as though it were a defunct institution? What stands nearest to the hearts or the American people today? 1 do not care in what village or what city or what neighborhoOd you go. What is 1t? Is it the postoffice? Is it the hotel? Is it the lecture hall? An, you know it is not. You know that that which stands nearest to the hearts of the American people is the Christian church.
 InfdeIity Decreasing.
 You may talk about the church being q collection of hypocrites, but when the diphtheria sweeps your children off, whom do you send for? The postmas- ter? The attorney general? The hotel keeper? Alderman? No. You send for a minister of this Bible religion. And if you have not a room in your house for the obsequies, what building do you solicit? Do you say, Give me the finest room in the hotel?" Do you say, Give me that theater?" Do you say, Give me that public building, where can lay my dead for little while until we say prayer over it?' No. You say, "Giye us the house of God" And if there is a song to be sung at the obsequios, what do you want? What does anybody want? The "Marseillaise Hymn?" God Save the Queen?' Our own grand national air? No. They want the hymn with which they sang tl.eir old Christian mother into her last sleep or they want sung the Sabbath school hymn which their little girl sang the last Sabbath afternoon she was out before she got that awful sickness which broke your heart. I appeal to your common sense. You know the most endearing institution on earth, the most popular institution on earth to- day, is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ A man is fool that does not recognize it.
 The infdels say: '"There is great lib erty now for infidels-freedom of plat form. Inhdelity shows it's power from the fact that it is everywhere tolerat- ed, and 1t can say what it will" Why, my friends, inhdelity is not half so blatant in our day as it was in the days of our fathers. Do you know that in the days Of OUT fathers there were pro nounced infidels in public authority, and they could get any political posi- ton? Let d man today declare himself antagonstic to the Christian religion, and what city wants him for mayor, what state wants him for governor, what nation wants him for president or for king? Let a man openly proclaim himself the enemy of our glorious Christianity, and he cannot get ma jority of votes in any state, in any city, in any country, in any ward of Amer ca.
 A distinguished infidel years ago, riding in a rail car in Illinois, said, What has Christianity ever done" An old Christian woman said: Tt has done one good thing anyhow. It has i'm 1ol Of Illinois" As I stood in the side room of the opera house of Peoria, Ills, a prominent gentleman of that city said, T can tell you the secret of that tre- mendous bitterness against Christian ity." Said I, What is it?" Why" said he, sin this very house there was q great convention to nominate gov ernor and there were three or four can didates. At the same time there was in a church in this city a Sabbath school convention, and 1t happened that one of the men who was in the Sabbath school convention was also a member of the political convention. In the po- litical convention the name highest on the roll at that time and about to be nominated was the name of the great champion infidel. There was an ad- journment between ballots, and in the afternoon when the nominations were being made a plain farmer got up and said: MT. Chairman, that nomination must not be made. The Sunday schools of Illinois will defeat him. That end ed all prospect of his nomination"
 The Christian religion is mightier to- day than 1t ever was. Do you think that such a scene could be enacted now as was enacted in the days of Robes
 pierre, when a shameless woman was elevated to the dignity of a goddess
 nlG carried in a golden chair to a cathedral, where incense was burned t0 her and people bowed down before her as a divine being, she taking the place of the Bible and God, while in
 The corridor of that cathedral were enacted such scenes of drunkenness and debauchery as had never before been witnessed? Do you think that
 such a thing could possibly occur in Christendom today? No. The police
 If Washington or of New York or of Paris would swoop upon 1t.
 Science and Religion.
 These opponents say that science is overcoming religion in our day. They look through the spectacIes of the in fidel scientists, and they say: 'It is Impossible that this book be true Peo- pie are finding it out. The Bible has got to go overheard. Science Is going to throw it overboard." Do you be. lieve that the Bible account of the ori gin of life will be overthrown by infidel scientists who have 50 different theo rles about the origin of life? If they should all come up in solid phalanx, all agreeing on one sentiment and one the ory, perhaps Christianity might be dam aged, but there are not so many differ ences of opinion inside the church as outside the church. Oh, it makes me sick to see these literary fops going along with q copy of Darwin under one arm and a case of transfixed grasshop pers and butterflies under the other arm. telling about the survival of the | fittest" and HuXleys protoplasm and the nebular hypothesis. The fact is |