Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1903-05-15

lion hearted Martin Luther as well as
of John IIUss. 1t fought its battle UNI
Ill at last the opened Bible was placed
In the hand OF the common people and
every man was free TO worship God ac-
cording 10 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
I'm sincerity ana-truth unless he bows
before the mercy seat under the i'm
pulse of free will. When Torque-
mazda headed the inquisition and
Charles lX. was drunk with human
blood and Bloody Mary signed the
death warrant of over 800 martyrs and
Charlemagne forcibly drove the people
OF his kingdom into the rivers, where.
like struggling cattle the priests bap-
TIED them by the wholesale, fear may
have made the frightened men and
women bow and profess Christ, but
fear never yet made a true Christian.
You cannot terrorize a man into the
kingdom of God with the executoner's
AK or the slave masters lash.
The Bible is full OF the gospel invita-
tons "to come" Come, for all things
are now ready. Come. come, Gomez
But upon no page of the Bible can you
find anywhere the words written:
Come to Christ against your willr'
"COme with hate i'm your hearth
Come with defying sin on your lipsv'
Come as trembling murderer is led
to the scaffold or to incarceration for
life," Thus we find that the second
great onward movement for the worlds
! redemption was taken when bigotry's
| swarthy limbs were mauacled. 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 as 10 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 Il time when q 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 divided into nations, but the ma
| tons into distinct and antagonistic
clans. The Scotchman born in the
highlands could not understand the di-
alect of the lowlanders. But now ev-
erywhere commercialism is making of
one blood all nations that dwell upon
the face of the earth. The American
sailors "Yo. HEAVIER IS heard by the
wlfarfs 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 Buenos Ayres and
Cape Town are owned by foreign cap
ital. The Russian warships are being
built in the American shipyards.
great international war is becoming
more and more an impossibility 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 Il spiritual standpoint why
do we say that Il great battle was won
because commcrcialism has brought all
the world into sympathetic touch? Is
the cable sunlen under the seas, the
Geographic wires strung overhead, tile
railroad lines bringing New York and
San Francisco into closer communion
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 millennial 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 all
the world for witness unto all ma
tons then shall the end come" And
how can hat gospel be preached quick
CIR to all people than through the me-
dunn of the telegraph and telephone
and railroad train and passenger
steamboat lines and frcights boats?
When the revision of the New Tesla
mcnt was completed some years ago
was not the book telegraphed verbatim
in one night from New York to Chi
cagog And can we not, through the
conquest of mercenary commercial |
ism, scatter practically in the twin |
king of an eye the gospel of Jesus |
Christ TO the farthermost parts OF the |
laf hnl IL |
born in a day?
Promise OF Universal Peace.
Another great preliminary battle for |
the worlds redemption was fought and |
won when tie parliament of religions /
assembled at the worlds fair in Chi |
caSo. Then all the intelligent members
or the Anglo-SaNon race realized as
never before that the gospel of Jesus
Christ was not only the best of all re-
liSions, but also that ii is the only Cos
pei which promises perfect peace this
side of the grave as well as salvation
beyond.
In 1882 an American tourist was
talking in Calcutta TO a high class Ben
gall. During their conversation this
dark colored native of India exultantly |
said: "Ah, you are from America! We
are soon going 10 send over our mis-
sionaries to- Chicago, and we shall con-
vert America TO the teachings Of Kali,
Buddha and Mohammed." But when
the oriental missionaries began to talk
we remembered the burning CHATS of
the Gauges. We could hear the death
cries of the child widows who were
being sacrificed upon the funeral pyres.
We could see the superstitions and de-
baucheries OF the harems and the deg
radations of their people in the east.
Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia" might [
burn brightly when fed by the oil of
the poetic Imagination of the gifted
English writer, who married a dark
skinned daughter of the east. but Ar
noids Light of Asia" was found to be
as dark as India, with it's teeming mil
lions in utter darkness-darkness black
as that of Africa or as dark as the be-
nighted human beings who, as canni-
Dals, are banqueting off human flesh