Connecticut western news., 1901-07-11

Isaac Newton. Three. says David Brewster. How high is the aurora borealis? Two and half miles, says Lias. Ninety miles, say other scien- lists. How far Is the sun from the earth? Seventy-six million miles. says Lacalle. Eighty-two million miles, says Humboldt. Ninety million miles. says Henderson. One hundred and four million miles. says Mayer. Only little difference of 2S,O00,0O0 miles! All split up among themselves-not agreeing on | anything.
 The Church Advancing.
 Here these infidel scientists have i'm | paneled themselves as jury to decide this trial between Infidelity, the plain I tiff, and Christianity, the defendant, | and after being out for centuries they | come in to render their verdict. Gen. ] tlemen of the jury, have you agreed on | a verdict? No, no. Then go back for | another 300 years and deliberate and agree on something. There is not poor miserable wretch in the city prls- l on tomorrow that could be condemned | by jury that did not agree on the yer | dict, and yet you expect us to give up our glorious Christianity to please 1 these men who cannot agree on any | thing. Ah, my friends, the church of l Jesus Christ, instead of falling back, is | on the advance.
 I am nightly encouraged because l | find, among other things, that while | this Christianity has been bombarded | for centuries infidelity has not destroy cd one church or crippled one minister l or uprooted one verse of one chapter of | all the Bible. If that has been their l magnificent record for the centuries of l the past, what may we expect for the l future? The church all the time get ting the victory, and their shot and l shell all gone.
 And then find another most encour- | aging thought in the fact that the sec ular printing press and the pulpit seem | harnessed in the same team for the l proclamation of the gospel. Every | banker in this capital tomorrow, every l Wall street banker tomorrow in New | York, every State street banker tomor- row in Boston, every Third street bank CT tomorrow in Philadelphia, every | banker in the United States and every merchant will have In his pocket a | treatise on Christianity, 10, 20 or 30 passages of Scripture in the reports of sermons preached throughout the land | today. It will be so in Chicago, so in | New Orleans, so in Charleston, so in | Boston, so in Philadelphia, so in Gin | cinnati, so everywhere. I know the | tract societies are doing a grand and | glorious work, but I tell you there is
 no power on earth today 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 morn ! ing and Monday evening scattering that truth to the millions What an en- ! couragement for every Christian man! Significant Facts.
 Then you have noticed a more sig
 nificant fact if you have talked with | people on the subject-that they are | getting dissatisfied with worldly phi | losophy as a matter of comfort. They I say 1t does not amount to anything
 when you have a dead child in the
 house. They tell you when they were l
 opening the only comfort they could find was the gospel. People are hay | ing demonstrated all over the land that
 science and philosophy cannot solace | they want some other religion, and
 they are taking Christianity, the only l sympathetic religion that ever came in
 to the world. You just take scientif- ic consolation into that room where a mother has lost her child. Try In that
 case your splendid doctrine of the ''sur- | yival of the Attest" Tell her that | child died because it was not worth as
 much as the other children. That is your survival of the Attest" Just try , your transc.ndentalism, your philoso-
 phy, your science, on that widowed l soul and tell her 1t was a>geological 1 necessity that her companion should be i taken away from her, just as in the i course of the worlds history the mega i therium and the ichthyosaurus had to ! pass out of existence, and then you go i on in your scientific consolation until : you get to the sublime fact that 50,O00,- : GOO years from now we ourselves may !, be scientific specimens on the geologic shelf, petriied specimens of an extinct | human race, and after you have got all through with your consolation, if the , poor afflicted soul Is not craZed by 1t,
 we will send forth from any of our i churches the plainest Christian wa 1 have, and with one half hour of braves
 and reading of Scripture promises tho ! tears will be wiped away, and the house from floor to cupola will he flooded with the calmness of an Indian summer sunset. There is where I see the triumph of Christianity. People are dissatisfied with everything else. They want God; they want Jesus Christ.
 The fact is that inf1delity and agnosti-
 cism are founded on ignorance geolog-
 ical ignorance chemical, ignorance as-
 tronomical, ignorance geographical. We
 have heard what the enemies of Chris
 tianity have had to testify. Now l 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 ! '
 evidence of those who have witnessed as well as felt the power of religion, or
 will you prefer the testimony of those
 who begin by declaring that they have
 never witnessed or felt it's power? You
 tell me that on certain 4th of March, 20 years ago, president of the United
 States was inaugurated. How do l
 know it? You tell me there were 20,-
 GOO persons who distinctly heard his
 inaugural address. I deny both. I de-
 ny that he was inaugurated. I deny
 that his inaugural address was deliv-
 cred. You ask why? I did not see 1t.
 I did not hear 1t. But you say that
 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 1t Is ever done. There is a
 group of men who say they have never