River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1909-08-19

! should be honest enough to accept 1t.
We are all in danger of supposing
that what we have not experinced has
never been experienced. man near
the equator would not believe mis-
sionary who told him that he lived
in a country where, in cold weather,
the water became hard enough to hold
up the weight of his elephant. Such
! is the power of experience to unfit
US to judge of experiences with which
we are not familiar. And yet the
facts of Christian experience are so
evident that we have hope Of at
least gaining a hearing from those
whose experiences do not yet verify
| them.
We have made the scientific test,
for we have been in the laboratory of
experience, and what we have learned
by such experience it is very unscien-
tific to doubt The Bible is full of
answers to prayer, and the lives of
Gods people are just as full as the
Bible. Our text book and our expert
mentS agree. And for men to doubt
the book and the experiments, who
know little of the former and abso-
lutely nothing, as they confess, of the
latter, marks their denials as unscien-
tific and unworthy of respect. If
they would know for themselves let
them come into the Christian labora-
tory of experience by trusting God
and living for him. Those who really
do that never doubt that God an
sWers prayer.
Thousands whose testimony we
would accept in court claim that by
faith in Jesus Christ they have been
made to hate what they once loved
and to love what they once hated,
and that not by a gradual process, but
suddenly. A man in Baltimore went
into the Reformed church to hear Mr..
Moody. He was at the time drunk
ard. Mr.. Moody held forth Jesus
Christ as the only Saviour from sin
and habit. The man believed, and
has told me that from that day he
has had no thirst for strong drink
His life has been a continual conse-
Grafton to Christ who delivered him.
| A live Lazarus, who was once dead,
is our test of the power of Christ.
The men whose eyes have been
opened are of age; ask them and they
will testify that once they were spir-
itually blind; faith in Christ gave
! them a new soulsight, and they have
experienced things Of which they had
never dreamed.
Need we stop to prove that Christ
ianity makes the highest manhood
and womanhood known to the world
Just in proportion as men and ma
lions follow the precepts of Christ
they are strong in character. When
an Indian prince asked Queen Vic
toria the secret of England's great
ness she handed him a Bible. 1t is
no accident that the nations who
honor the Bible are to-day foremost
in the march of civilization. A legend
says that Chiron, the centaur, who had
charge of Achilles, fed him on the
marrow of lions. Gods word is, in
deed, the marrow of lions to men or
nations who feed upon it. But for
the individual Christ has done even
more than for the nation. He sat
isles the soul. He gives peace Of
ASolA /. his CIOSS Is the cyclone S CEN
ter where there is perfect rest. He
has answered Jobs question: Can a
man be justified before God?"
Through Him we get rid of our sins.
He has taught us to look up and wor-
ship. The man who is content with
merely moral life is to be pitied.
He sees flowers about his feet, but he
has never seen the stars. Christ
bids him look up into a heaven of
consultations.
Sin has not only separated us from
God, but from one another. Christ
binds us together again. Even the
revenge of an Indians nature has
been conquered by his love. He leads
us to help the helpless. Christianity
builds asylums and homes for the
friendless. Paganism and infidelity
never did either. In building the
Hoosac tunnel two gangs of men
started to work at the same time on
opposite sides of the mountain. The
survey was so accurate and the work
so well done that when they met the
sides of their tunnels came within an
inch of tallying. So mans need is
exactly met by Gods provision in
Christ and the Bible