Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1901-02-16

If inns discourse Ilr, 1almage calls
for more demonstrative religion and
hearty speaking out on the right
side Of everything: text Mark tx, %,
Thou dumb and deaf spirit, l charge
thee, come out of him
Here was a case of great. domestic an
guish. The son of the household was
possessed of an evil spirit. which, among
other things, paralyzcd his tongue and
made him speeches.. When the infu-
eIlee was on the patient, he could not say
q word-articulation was impossible. The
spirit that captured this member of the
household was a dumb spirit-so called
by Christ-a spirit abroad to-day and as
lively and potent as in New Testament
times. Yet in all the realms Of sermon
oiogy / cannot find discourse concern
ing this dumb devil which Christ charg-
ed upon in my text, saying, Come out of
him"
There has been much destructive super
stition abroad in the world concerning
possession by evil spirits. Under the form
of belief in witchcraft this delusion swept
the continents. Persons were supposed
TO be possessed with some evil spirit.
which made them able to destroy others.
AL Alt clAtStllAll century III NftutNd LOW
persons were burned to death as witches.
In one neighborh0od of France 1000 per-
sons were burned. In two centuries 200,-
GOO persons were slain as witches. So
mighty was the delusion that it included
among its victims some of the greatest
intellects of all time, such as Chief JUS
tee Matthew Hale and Sir Edward Coke,
and such renowned ministers of religion
as Cotton Mather, one of whose books,
Benjamin Franklin said, shaped his life
and Richard Baxter, and Archbishop
Cranmer and Martin Luther: and, among
writers and philosophers Lord Bacon.
That belief, which has become the laugh
ing stock of all sensible people, counted
IFS disciples among the wiSest and best
people Of Sweden, Germany, England,
France, Spain and New England. But
while we reject witchcraft. any man who
believes the Bible must believe that there
are diabolical agencies abroad in the
world. While there are ministcrinG spir-
its to bless there are Internal spirits to
hinder, to poison and to destroy Christ
was speaking to spiritual existence
when, standing before the afflicted one of
the text, ne said, Thou dumb and deaf
spirit, come out of him"
Dumb aud Deaf Spirit.
Against this dumb devil of the text
put you on your guard. Do not think that
this agent of evil has put his blight on
those who, by omission of the vocal or
gans, have had the golden gates Of speech
bolted and barred. Among those who
have never spoken n word are the most
gracious and lovely and talented souls
that We're ever incarnated. The chap
lains Of the asylums for the dumb can
tell you enchanting stories of those who
never called the name Of father or moth
er or child, and many Of the most deyout
and prayerful souls will never in this
world speak the name Of God or Christ.
Many deaf mute have ! seen with the
angel of intelligence seated at the win
dow of the eye, who never came forth
from the door of the mouth. What
miracle of loneliness and knowledge was
Laura Bridgman of New Hampshire,
mot only without faculty of speech, but
without hearing and without sight. all
these faculties removed by sickness when
2 years of age, yet. becoming a wonder
at needlework, at the piano, at the sew
ing machine and an intelligent student
losophers, who came from ali parts of the
world to study the phenomenon. Thanks
to Christianity for what it has done for
the amelioration Of the condition of the
deaf and the dumb. Back IN the ages
they were put to death as wing NJ right
with such paucty of equip!1.., 10 live,
and for centuries they were Chased among
the idi0tic and unsafe But in the six
teenth century came Pedro Ponce, the
Spanish monk, and in the seventeenth
century came Juan Pablo BOnet, another
Spanish monk, with dachylology, or the
finger alphabet. and in our own century
we have had John Braidwo0d and Drs.
Mitchell and Ackerly and Peet and Gal
laudet, who have given to amounted
thousands of those whose tongues were
forever silent the power to spell out on
the air by a manual alphabet their
thoughts about this world and their
hopes for the next We rejoice in the
brilliant inventions in behalf Of those
who were born dumb. But we are not
speaking of cOneenital mutes. We mean
those who are born with all the faculties
Of yocahzation and yet have beet struck
by the evil one mentioned in the text
the dumb devil TO whom Christ called,
when he said. Thou dumb and deaf
spirit, + charge thee, come out Of him"
Silence Som etimes a Crime.
There has been apotheosization Of 81
lence. Some one has said silence is gold
en-, and sometimes the greatest triumph
is to keep your mouth shut. But some
times silence is a crime and the direct
result Of the balefnl influence Of the
dumb devil Of our text. There is hardly
a man or woman who has not been pres
ent on some occasion when the Christian
religion became a target for raillery.
Perhaps it was over in the store some
day when there was not much going on
and the clerks were in a group, or it was
in the factory at the noon spell, or it
was out on the farm under the trees
while you were resting, or it was i'll the
club room, or it was in a social circle, or
II was in the street on the way home
from business, or il was on some occa-
sion which You remember without my
describing it. Some one got the laugh on
the Bible and caricatured the profession
Of religion as hypocrisy, or made pun