Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1903-05-14

ready 10 grant that no class Of men
are more willing to recognize their re-
sponsibility to God thar those who
conscientiously try to fulfill their re-
sponsibiities in family life.
Intolerance Overthrow.
The next great battle for the worlds
redemption was fought and won when
the frowning walls Of religious in
tolerance were battered down and the
forever opened to the purifying light.
All. the battle for religious liberty was
n long and bitter struggle! 1t was
not won in a day, a decade. n genera
ton or a century. 1t fought Its way
through the flying stones and the
bloody swords and the spears and the
martyrdoms Of Christians of apostolic
times. The fight for emancipation went
on among the cracking flames Of burn
ing Rome. 1t clutched by their throats
the man eating monsters that leaped
into the Roman Coliseum. 1t defled
the lowering looks and the blasphe-
nous oaths of the mobs that gathered
in the Florentlne square of beautiful
Italy TO see Savonarola die. 1t suffered
all the agonies which Fox recorded in
his History of the Lives and Suffer
ings and Triumphant Deaths of the
Primitive as Well as the Protestant
Martyrs 1t steeled the backbone Of
lion hearted Martin Luther as well as
of John Huss. 1t fought its battle I'M
til at last the opened Bible was placed
In the hand Of the common people and
every man was free to worship God sc-
cording to the dictates Of his con-
science whether in the Christian
church, the Jewish temple or the Mo-
hammedan mosque.
No man can be said to worship God
in sincerity and truth unless he bows
before the mercy seat under the i'm
pulse Of free will. When Torque-
mazda headed the inquisition and
Charles IN. was drunk with human
blood and Bloody Mary" signed the
death warrant of over 300 martyrs and
Charemagne forcibly drove the people
of his kingdom into the rivers, where,
like struggling cattle. the priests bap-
have made the frightened men and
women bow and profess Christ, but
fear never yet made true Christian.
You cannot terrorize a man into the
kingdom Of God with the executioner's
AK or the slave masters lash.
The Bible Is full of the gospel invita-
tons Ito come" Come, for all things
, ;
But upon no page of the Bible can you
find anywhere the words written:
Come to Christ against your will"
Come with hate in your heart"
Come with defying sin on your lips"
Come as q trembling murderer Is led
life" Thus we find that the second
great onward movement for the worlds
redemption was taken when bigotry's
swarthy limbs were manacled. when
the kissing tongue of persecution was
stilled and when religious liberty could
lift up her smiling face toward the
heavens and stretch forth her white
hands to lead, as well rs TO protect a
free human race.
The World In sympathy.
The next great onward movement for
the worlds redemption is TO be found
in the commercial supremacy which
has brought all the FIVE continents and
the islands of the sea into sympathetic
touch. There was time when a man
rarely Travelled 100 miles from the pla &c
where he was born. His grave was
dug only q short distance from where
the tree was planted out of which his
cradle was cut The world was not
only divided into nations but the ma
tons into distinct and antagonistic
clans. The Scotchman born in the
highlands could not understand the di-
nect of the lowlanders. But now ev-
crywhere commercial ism Is making of
one blood all nations that dwell upon
the face OF the earth. The American
sailors "Yo, heave" is heard by the
wharfs of Tarshlsh. The East Indian
merchantmen and the ships for China
and Japan and the Philippines and
Australia and New Zealand follow each
other through the Suez canal The
railroads of Brazil and the steamship
lines of Chile and Buenos Ayres and
Cape Town are owned by foreign cap
ital. The Russian warships are being
built in the American shipyards. A
great international war Is becoming
more and more an imposslbility be-
cause the Turkish mortgages are held
in Paris. Berlin and London and Wall
street and the foreign capitalists must
/ rise or fall together.
/ But from spiritual standpoint why
do we say that great battle was won
/ because commercialism has brought all
the world into sympathetic touch? IS
the cable sunkcn under the seas. the
/ telegraphic wires strung overhead, the
railroad lines bringing New York and
San Francisco into closer communica-
ton than We're once New York and
Georgia, and the great steamboat lines
turning all oceans into ferries-are any
/ OF these TO have anything to do with
/ the advent of the mllennial dawn? Is
that wonderful invention of Johannes
! Gutenberg called printing. the out
growth of which is the modern news
paper press, TO have no part in the
worlds redemption? Oh. yes. The
Bible does not say that the world shall
grow gradually better and better, but
1t does say that when the gospel OF
the kingdom shall be preached in al
the world for witness unto all ma