The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1903-05-17

drove the people of his kingdom into the
rivers, where, like struggling cattle, the
priests baptized them by the wholesale,
fear may have made the frightened men
and women bow and profess Christ, but
fear never made a true Christian You
cannot terrorize man into the kingdom
of God with the executioner's ak or the
slave masters lash.
The Bible is fun of the gospel invita-
lions ito come" Come, for all things
are now ready. Come Come, Gomez
But upon no page of the Bible ca. you
find anywhere the words written: Come
hate in your hearth Come with defy.hg
hate in your heart!" Come with defying
sin on your lips" Come as a trembling
murderer is led to the scaffold or to
incarceration for lifel" Thus we find
that the second great onward movement
for the worlds redemption was taken
when bigotry's swarthy limbs were man
acled when the kissing tongue of perse-
cution was stilled and when religious
liberty could lift up her smiling face to-
ward the heavens and stretch forth her
white hands to lead, as well as to pro-
tect, a free human race.
The World in Sympathy.
The next great onward movement for
the worlds redemption is to be found
brought all the five continents and the
islands of the sea into sympathetic
touch. There was time when man
rarely travelled 100 miles from the place
where he was born. His grave was dug
only short distance from where the
tree was planted out of which his cradle
was cut. The world was. not only di-
vided into nations. but the nations into
distinct and antagonistic clans. The
oh In, ba highIandc could
not understand the dialect of the low
landers But now everywhere CONNER
cialism is making of one blood all nations
that dwell upon the face of the earth.
The American sailors "Yo heave!' 10
heard by the wharfs of Tarshsh. 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 Beunos Ayres and
Cape Town are owned by foreign capt.
tai. The Russian warships are being
built in the American shipyards. great
international war is becoming more and
more an impossibility because the Tur-
ksh mortgages are held in Paris, Berlin
and London and Wall Street, and the
foreign capitalists must rise or fall to-
gether
pul a spiritual STANDPOINT why
do we say that a great battle was won
because commercialism has brought all
the world into sympathetic touch? Is
the cable sunken under the seas, the
telegraph wires strung overhead, the
railroad lines bringing New York and
San Francisco into closer communication
than were once New York and Georgia,
and the great steamboat lines turning
all oceans into ferries-are any of these
-. =. aw.k
of the millenial dawn? Is that wonder
full invention of Johannes Gutenberg
called printing, the outgrowth of which
is the modern newspaper 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 it does say that when the
gospel of the kingdom shall be preached
in all the world for a witness unto all
nations then shall the end come" And
how can that gospel be preached quicker
to all people than through the medium
of the telegraph and telephone and rail-
road train and passenger steamboat
lines and freight boats? When the revis- |
ion of the New Testament was completed |
some years ago was not the book tele- |
graphed verbatim in one night from New !
York to Chicago? And can we not, |
through the conquest of a mercenary |
scatter practically in the
twinkling of an eye the gospel of Jesus |
Christ to the farthermost parts of the |
earth, so that whole nations shall be
born in a day?
Promise of Universal Peace.
Another great preliminary battle for
the worlds redemption was fought and
won when the parliament of religions
assembled at the worlds fair in Chicago.
oil ho infa of ha
Anglo-Saxon race realized as never be-
fore that the gospel of /. esus Christ was
not only the best of all religions, but |
also that 1t is the only gospel which |
promises perfect peace this side of the
grave as well as salvation beyond.
In 1892 an American tourist was talking
in Calcutta to a high class Bengal.
During their conversation this dark col
ored native of India exultantly said:
"Ah, you are from Ameriea We are
soon going to send over our missionaries
to Chicago, and we shall convert Amer
lea to the teachings of Kali Buddha and
Mohammed." But when the oriental
missionaries began to talk we remem-
bered the burning CHATS o. the Gapges.
We could hear the death cries of the
child widows who were being sacrificed
upon the funeral pyres We could see
the superstitions and debaucheries of the
HdTtIlS anu lHe ueBIdudllOHS Va tHtll
people in the east Edwin Arnolds
"Lis.t of Asia" might burn brightly
when fed by the oil of the poetic mag
nation of the gifted English writer, who
married a dark skinned daughter of the
east. but Arnold's Light of Asia was
found to be as dark as India, with its
teeming millions In utter darkness-dark-
ness black as tfat of Africa or as dark
as the benighted human beings who. is
cannibals are banqueting off human
flesh. AS all people must believe in a
God Of some sort. so today, as never be-
fore, the intelligent civilized nations
know that the gospel of Jesus Christ Is
the only gospel which will bring true
peace and progress to the world. When
a native chief asked Queen Victoria the
source of England's strength she handed
him Bible. So. today. most of the civ
ilized races are ready to confess that the
strength of the mightiest earthly govern
ments is centered in the word of God.
Where the Bible is not, there are super
stition and ignorance and brutalizing
crime.
Thus many preliminary battles have
already been fought and won. Now
comes the practical question. What race
of people is going TO start forth to lead
in the last great battle which is to be
fought for the redemption of the world
for Christ? Has Jesus right to look
with hope toward any people more conf
IDENTIFY than to the Anglo race?
From what race came the crusaders,
Godfrey and Frederick Barbarossa and
Baldwin of Flanders and Richard the
Lion Hearted and Frederick ii. From