The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1901-07-12


But just come back to Christendom
and recognize the fact that during the
last ten years as many people have con-
nected themselves with evangelical
churches as connected themselves with
the churches in the first so years of last
century. So Christianity is falling
back, and the Bible, they say, is be-
coming an obsolete book. / go into q
court, and wherever l find a judges
bench or a clerks desk 1 find Bible.
Upon what book could there be uttered
the solemnity of an oath? What book
is apt to be put in the trunk of the
young man as he leaves for city life ?
The Bible. What shall find in nine out
of every ten homes in this city? The
Bible. In nine out of every ten homes
in Christendom? The Bible. Voltaire
wrote the prophecy that the Bible in
the nineteenth century would become
extinct. That century is gone, and 1
have to tell you that the room in which
Voltaire wrote that prophecy not long
ago was crowded from floor to ceiling
with Bibles from Switzerland.
Suppose the congress of the United
States should pass a law that there
should be no more Bibles printed in
America and no Bibles read? If
there are 6O,OOO,OOO grown people in
the United States, there would be Co.
100000 people in an army to put down
such a law and defend their right to
read the Bible. But suppose the con-
gress of the United States should
make a law against the reading or
the publication of any other book,
how many people would go out in
such a crusade? Could you get Co.,
100000 people to go out and risk their
lives in the defense of Shakespeare's
tragedies or Gladstone's tracts or
Macaulay's History of England?'
You know that there are thousand
men who would die in the defense of
this book where there is not more
than one man who would die in the
defense of any other book. You try
to insult my common sense by tell
ing me the Bible is fading out from
the world. 1t is the most popular
book of the centuries.
How do I know it? I know it just
as / know in regard to other books.
How many volumes of that history
are published? Well, you say 5000.
How many copies of another book
are published? A hundred thousand.
Which is the more popular? Why, of
course, the one that has the hundred
thousand circulation. And if this book
has more copies abroad in the world,
if there are five times as many Bibles
abroad as any other book among civ
ilized nations, does not that show you
that the most popular book on earth
to-day is the word of God?
"Oh," say people, "the church is a
collection of hypocrites, and it is los
ing it's power, and it is fading out
from the world" Is it? A bishop
of the Methodist church told me that
that denomination averages two new
churches every day. In other words,
they build $50 churches in that de-
nomination in year, and there are
at least 1,5OO 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 of the
American people to-day? l do not
care in what village or what city or
what neighborhood you go. What is
it? Is it the post office? Is it the
hotel? Is it the lecturing hall? All,
you know it is notI You know that
that which stands nearest to the
hearts of the American people is the
Chris tian church.
The infidels say: There is great
80
platform. Infidelity shows its power
from the fact that it is everywhere
tolerated, and it can say what it
WILL Why, my friends, inidelity 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 our ia
theirs there were pronounced infidels
in public authority, and they could
get any political position? Let a man
to-day declare himself antagonistic to
the Christian religion, and what city
wants him for mayor; what state
wants him for governor; what ma
ton 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 county, in any ward of
America.
1 am nightly encouraged because
1 find, among other things, that while
this Christianity has been bombarded
for centuries infidelity has not de-
stroyed one church, or crippled one
minister, or uprooted one verse of
one chapter of all the Bible. If that
has been their magnificent record for
the centuries of the past, what may
we expect for the future? The church
all the time getting the victory, and
their shot and shell all gone.
And then 1 find another most en-
couraging thought in the fact that
the secular printing press and the
pulpit seem harnessed in the same
team for the proclamation of the
Gospel. Every banker in this capital
tomorrow, every Wall street banker
tomorrow in New York, every State
street banker tomorrow in Boston,
every Third street banker tomorrow
in Philadelphia, every banker in the
United States and every merchant
will have in his pocket treatise on
ChT1SI1dnlly, ~. ~ VI ~ Po'S"S So u
Scripture in the reports of sermons
preached throughout the land to-day.
1t will be so in Chicago, so in New
Orleans, so in Charleston, so in Bos-
ton. so in Philadelphia, so in Clncin-
natl. so everywhere. / know the tract
societies are doing a grand and glo-
rious work, but 1 tell you there is no
power on earth to-day equal to the