Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-03-01
Sunday Night
"NTTTS FOR SIX EpTICen

What harm has the gospel OF Jesus
Christ ever don this world? What injury
has the Bible ever done? Show me the
nation that has ever crumbled into OBJ
Hvion where the people were governed by
Christian principles. History is replete.
Multitudes could arise and millions would
crawl out of the grave, II God should
give them the privilege, and all would
testify as to the benefits accruing to them
through their repentance and faith in
Jesus Christ, Therefore, let me ask you,
at the beginning of my message tonight,
is there anything grander or more noble
that can or arrest your atten-
ton or draw from YOU your generous and
liberal support and hearty cooperation
than to give your cooperation and help
to that which is and has been the most
uplifting force that has ever entered into
human history
but man was a fool and man Is a fool
today, for In the exercise of his God
given free will he ate of the forbidden
fruit and he fell, n what q fall It
was. It was like the fall of virtue into
tie arms Of vice; like the fall Of purity
into c%orruption; like the fall of a star
from heaven into hell; like the fall of a
wounded albatross from the regions of
light down into the dark, tempestuous
sea, and when man ate of the forbidden
fruit God put the angel with the drawn
sword to guard the tree of Life that
man might reach out and eat thereof and
live forever. Gods original plan was
that man should not die. His original
plan was that man should not work for a
living, and IL man hadn't sinned he never
would rave had to work, but he ate of
the forbidden fruit and God passed q
sentences: BY the sweat of your brow
shall We earn your bread II man hadn't
sinned there would have been no grave
yards, no undertakers. no crepe hanging
from tha dOOrlnnhg and no obituary no.
tees in the newspapers. Man was a fool
and man is a fool tonight to keep the
control of his life in his own hands and
refuse to submit to God and have the
life of sin and iniquity, and God put the
angel with drawn sword to guard the
tree of Life, lest man, in his tnfamy and
rot, might reach out and live forever and
~eternally perpetuate his infamy and his
sin.
There are a few people who make no
p%retentions to understand the Bible.
Why? For the simple reason that they
are too lazy to study 1t. You never could
hope to master science, or literature, or
history without scanning, reviewing,
Analysing, comparing period with period,
and the co~ntemporaneous history or the
period you will study, and II you want
to understand the divine problem as 1t
unfolds itself from the divine mind, you
have to study, for God puts no premium
on laziness.
"In John Iii. 16, it says, For God so
loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
Him should not perish, but have everlast-
ing life,' and yet how few people make
any pretense of understanding or trying
to follow the Word of God. Some people
give as their reason for not believing the
Bible the fact that they cannot under
stand it. If you only believe what you
can understand, you will be dumfounded
to find out how little you know.
"You don't need to delve into religion
and pass God up because you haven't
mind enough to comprehend. You would
have to be God yourself to know as much
as God knows. We take most things be-
cause they appear to be. 1 realize that a
creation speaks of a Creator; a design of
a designer. l hold that that chair tells
me that some mind conceived it and
brought it forth. This chair didn't evo-
Lutte simply because We dress Inherently
thai they did rs years ago simply be-
cause we plow with a steel plow instead
of a forked stick. / hold that some mind
conceived this old world and that some
mind brought it forth, and, hear me, /
don't believe that this world came about
by chemical force or the 'fortuitous con-
currence of atoms. That Is asinlne,
idiotic nonsense. I would never let any
public school teacher cram that down my
children, and when they come home and
say 'So-and-so told u.s. I say, You tell
that teacher she lies God made that
thing Just as it Is. I don't allow them to
turn the faith of my children one iota
from the fact that this old world is just
as God Almighty made it. l hold that a
design tells of a designer. / no more be-
lieve that this world was made by chemi-
cal forces than 1 believe a book on botany,
describing flowers, was made by chemical
forces.
'There was a time when I believed In
because 1 thought 1t was an
of superior intelligence. L dis
carded that long ago, because the TACT
has never been proved, and l defy you
to show me where a lower form has ever
been developed into a higher form. There
has been n is the development of the
species. Sure! We have developed the
hog, but 1t is still a hog. Burbanks de-
veloped the potato. but he hasn't de-
velc ped 1t into the plum. You can develop
the species, but you can't change one
species into another. A friend of mine
time took me out to his hog lot
paid $500 for. 1 could tie gold bells in
his ears, tie pink ribbon around his old
fat sides, put a gold collar about his neck.
Feed him on the choicest greens of the
vegetable garden and call him sweet
but l looked at him and he
SQuGdleu u sup just llhb Il Ii5 ina
was worth only 30 cents. Same old hog.
They just put another curl in his tail
and tackled on $500; that's all.
81 can go into the jungles of Africa and
catch a monkey or a chimpanzee and can
teach him to eat soup with a spoon and
drink coffee out of a cup (and that's more
than some of you folks know; and l
teach him to eat with his fork and
his bed but he's the same old
Listen. In France a hundred years
ago or more they We're printing and cir
c~ulating infidel literature TO the extent of
800, 900 pounds sterling a year. What was
the result? God was denied, the Bible
sneered at and ridieuled, and between 1882
and 1895. 1,025, 100 persons were brought to
death. The word of God stood mistaken
amidst 1t all. Josh Billings said: I would
rattle be an idiot than an infdel, be.
cause IL I am an inidel l made myself
so, but II / am an idiot somebody else
did it, oh, the wreeker's lights on the
coasts that try to allure and
drag us away from God have all gone
Que, but Gods words shine on.
1.-The inidel is always asking where do
1 come from? 1 want to know where 1
am going 10. old man; that is what is
puzzllng me. They take me to a grave
yard n dig a grave two and a half
feet wide, Ave feet deep and six feet long.
They say this is where you go TO. l don't