River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1909-05-27


are full of superstitious fears caused
by ignorance, they see God behind
the material universe as plainly as
they see the sun in the heavens. 1t re-
mains for the modern atheist, be he
scientist or philosopher, to turn him.
self into an intellectual fool by predi-
eating of dead matter only what can
be predicated of intelligent mind.
The agnostic unbeliever must be-
lieve theory against facts which
have been proved by competent wit
nesses His theory is that no one
can know God. The facts are that Sir
Isaac Newton, the mathematician,
said: 81 know God" Agassiz, the
scientist, said: 81 know God" Kepler,
the astronomer, after the discovery
of his great law, fell upon his knees
and exclaimed: 20 God, I think thy
thoughts after thee" Havelock, the
soldier, said: II know Cod" and
prayed to him daily. Gladstone, the
statesman, said: IT know God" Abra-
ham Lincoln, the liberator, said: IL
know God" and spent whole nights in
prayer to him. Thousands of lawyers,
merchants, judges and physicians
have declared that they know God.
Agnosticism must believe that these
competent, trustworthy witnesses are
deceivers or deceived.
Agnosticism evidently believes that
ignorance has right to speak and in
struct knowledge. When a man con-
fesses that he knows nothing, and can
know nothing on any subject, it be-
comes him to keep quiet on that sub
ject, but agnosticism writes books and
magazine articles, parading it's ig-
norance with intellectual pride. 1t has
established sort of science of ig-
nOrance, and formed blind mans
club for the propagation of blindness.
A young man who was member of
Greek class at college was an agnos-
tic on the subject of Greek. When the
professor asked him a question he
nearly always replied: 'I don't know"
The trouble with him was that he was
too lazy to study. He might have
known, for in the text book which he
held in his hand was the knowledge
he needed. But he preferred baseball
and lounging to study. Hence his
agnosticism.
Now, God has given us a text book
called the Bible, in which he has re-
vealed himself so clearly that all who
will may know him. When the ag-
nostic says: 81 don't know" he SIM
ply proclaims the fact that he prefers
darkness to light; he turns away
from the sun that he may grope in the
dark cave of his own prejudice and
ignorance If he has looked through
his telescope at the stars and through
his microscope at the flowers without
seeing God, he has simply established
the presumption that God will reveal
himself in some other way. When he
opens the Bible the first words he
reads are: I'm the beginning God"
He ought now to be glad that God has
revealed himself in book, but he is
not glad, for his pet theory has been
destroyed.
The anti-Bible unbeliever shows
credulity that is truly marvellous. He
must admit that the Bible claims to
be inspired. God said," "Thus saith
the Lord" rings through it's pages.
He must admit also that the book was
written by bad men or by good men.
If good men wrote it, it is, of course,
inspired, for good men would not de-
ceive us by making a false claim and
they could hardly have been deceived.
If the unbeliever asserts that bad
men wrote it, then he must believe
that the book which has produced the
highest civilization on earth, and has
developed the noblest characters in
the world, was written by liars, who,
at the same time, denounced them
selves numerically for their decep-
ton.
But, says the rationalistic unbe-
lever, God has given to man a reason
as guide. Yes, but does reason guide
man Alright? Look at those monstrous
idols in pagan countries. Are they
images of the true God to whom men
without the Bible have been led by
their reason? Are they not, on the
other hand, reflections of the depravi-
ty of human nature into which man
has sunk by the aid of his reason.
which fell with his other faculties
when he sinned?
The anti-Christ unbeliever who re-
jects the deity of Jesus must believe.
if he accepts the Bible, that he
claimed to be divine, for he said:
Before Abraham was am" HE that
hath seen me hath seen the Father"
and 20 Father, glorify thou me with
the glory which / had with thee be-
fore the world was Now, all such
unbelievers admit that Jesus was a
good man. They praise him for his
stainless character. AS an unbelieyer
he must believe, too, that a good man
can at the same time be hypocritical
deceiver. Jesus Christ was either
what he claimed to be, the Divine Son
of God, or he was a wicked deceiver.
There is no middle ground. To be.
lieve that he was good is to believe
that he was God, unless we do yio-
lence to our reason by believing the
absurd proposition that a good man
can make a false claim