The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1901-07-12


may do all their work in one day. They
will. Nations are to be born in day.
But Just come back to Christendom
and recognize the fact that during the
last ten years as many people have cone
nected themselves with evangelical
churches as connected themselves with
the churches in he first so years of last
century. So Christianity is falling
back, and the Bible, they say. is be
coming an obsolete book | go into
court. and wherever | find judges
bench or a clerks desk / find a Bible.
Upon what book could there be uttered
the sulemnity 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
i'm Christendom? The Bible. Noltaire
wrote the prophecy that the Bible in
the nineteenth century would become
extinct. That century is gone. and
have to tell you that the room in which
Noltaire 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 he no more Bibles printed in
America and no Bibles read? If
there are 6O.O0O.OOO grown people in
the United States, there would be co.
600. 900 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 crusade? Could you get CO.
| 600. 900 people to go out and risk their
! lives in the defense of Shakespeare $
tragedies or Gladstone's tracts or
Macaulay's "IIistory of England|'
You know that there are a 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. IT is the most popular
book of the centuries.
How do / know it? l 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
ilizcd nations, does not that show you
that the most popular book on earth
to-day is the word of God?
oh" say people, 1.-The church is "a
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 denomination averages two new
churches every day. In other words,
they build $50 churches in that de.
nomination in year, ana there are
at least 1900 new Christian churches
built in America every year. Does
that look AS though the Christian
church were fading OUT, as though ii
| were u utlNlNl lllSlll NllDl W lltl
stands nearest to the hearts of the
American people to-day? / do not
care 1T 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 not! You know that
that which stands nearest to the
hearts of the American people is the
Christian church.
The infidels say: There is great
liberty now for infdels; freedom OF
platform. Infidelity shows its power
from the fact that it is everywhere
tolerated, and it can say what il
will Why, my friends, iRfdelity is
not half so blatant in our day as II
was in the days of our fathers. Dc
you know that in, the days of our ia
theirs there we're pronounced infidel,
in public authority, and they coulC
get any political position? Let mar
to-day declare himself antagonistic tC
the Christian religion, and what city
wants him for mayor; what stat,
wants him for governor; what ma
ton wants him for president or fol
king? Let man openly proclaim
himself the enemy of our glorious
Christianity, and he cannot get a ma
iority of votes in any state, in any
city, in any county, in any ward o
America.
am nightly encouraged because
find, among other things, that while
this Christianity has been bombardcC
for centuries infdelity has not de
stroyed one church, or crippled on,
minister, or uprooted one verse o
one chapter of all the Bible. If Ina
has been their magnificent record fo
the centuries of the past, what ma,
we expect for the future? The churcl
all the time getting the victory, an,
their Shot and shell all gone.
/ And then / find another most en-
couraging thought in the fact tina
the secular printing press and tn
pulpit seem harnessed in the SAM
team for the proclamation of tn
Gospel. Every banker in this capita
tomorrow, every Wall street banlSe