Newport weekly independent., 1901-07-12
all the time getting the victory. snd their shot and shell all gone.


 And then | find another most en- couraging thought in the fact that the secular printing press and the pulpit seem harnesScd 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 d treatise on Christianity, 10, 20 or 30 passages of Scripture in the reports of sermons preached throughout the land to-day. It will be so in Chicago, so in New Orleans, so in Charleston, so in Bos- ton, so in Philadelphia, so in Cincin- nati, so everywhere. l know the tract societies are doing a grand and glo- rious work, but I tell you there is no power on earth to-day equal to the fact that the American printing press is taking up the sermons which are preached to a few hundred or a few thousand people, and on Monday morning and Monday evening scatter ing that truth to the millions. What an encouragement to every Christian man.
 The fact is that intidelity and az nosticism are founded on igno- rance geological, ignorance chemical, ignorance astronomical, ignorance geographical. We have heard what the enemies of Christianity have had to testify. Now I put before you the testimony of the church on earth and the church in Heaven. Not fifty, not thousand, not a million, but all of the church on earth and all of the redeemed in Heaven. Will you take the evidence of those who have wit messed as well as felt the power of religion, or will you prefer the tes- timony of those who begin by declar- ing that they have never witnessed or fe.t it's power? You tell me that on a certain 4th of March. 20 years ago, a president of the United States was inaugurated. How do I know it? You tell me there were 20.O00 per- sons who distinctly heard his inaugu- dl 'ltili1 cps. l utuN DOtn. QtDV that he was inaugurated. I deny that his inaugural address was delivered. You ask why? I did not see it. I did not hear it. But you say there were 10000 people who did see and hear him. Is not the testimony of the 10000 who were present worth more than the testimony of one who was absent? Now, there are some men who say they have never seen Christ crowned in the heart, and they do not believe it is ever done. There is group of men who say they have never heard the voice of Christ. that they have never heard the voice of God. They do not believe that any thing like it ever occurred. I point to twenty, q hundred thousand or million people who say: "Christ was crowned in our hearts affections. we have seen Him and felt Him in our soul, and we have heard His voice; we have heard it in the storm and dark ness; we have heard it again and again" Whose testimony will you take? These men who say they have not heard the voice of Christ, have not seen the coronation, or will you believe the thousands and tens of thousands of Christians who testify of what they saw with their own eyes and heard with their own ears?
 Young man, do not be ashamed to be friend of the Bible. Do not put your thumb in your vest, as young men sometimes do, and swaeger about talking of the glorious light of nature and of there being no need of the Bible. They have the light of nature in India and China and in all the dark places of the earth. Did you ever hear that the light of nature gave them comfort for their trouble? They have lancets to cut and juggernauts to cruSh but no com fort. An, my friends, you had better stop your skepticism. Suppose you are put in a crisis like that of Col. Ethan Allen. l saw the account and at one time mentioned it in an ad- dress. A descendant of Ethan Allen, who is an infidel, said it never oc- cured. Soon after l received a let ter from a professor in one of our colleges, who is also descendant of Ethan Allen and is Christian. He wrote me that the incident is accu- rate; that my statement was authen- tic and true. The wife of Ethan AL len was very consecrated woman. The mother instructed the daughter in the truths of Christianity. The daughter sickeneds and was about to die, and she said to her father: "Fa- ther, shall l take your instruction or shall I take mothers instruction? am going to die now; l must have the matter decided" That man, who had been loud in his infidelitY said