Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-10-16
OLD-TINE RELIGION
p w. 4. GAMBLER

coarse and ignorant men who in former days
resorted to saloons and gambling dens to
pour forth such ri6aldry. Even such infidels
as FOItaire and Paine, were they living now,
would decry and disoWn such stuff. 1t is
amazing that a respectable magazine will lay
such offaI before it's readers
Men of UNNECESSARILY greater force than
this frivolous playwright have attacked
Christianity and the Christian Church since
the days Of CELSIUS and Porphyry; but their
efforts have aFailed nothing more than their
own damage and discredit His coarse talk
will be no more effectuaI.
Why have all such attacks upon the Bible
and Christianity failed so ANONYMOUSLY in
the past? Why must they always fail in the
future? Let Mr.. Matthew Arnold, who was
l1berallstic but never vulgar, in his writings
answer these questions. He SAYS: 9"The Ri
bic has such power Of teaching riehteOus-
ness that even to those who come to it with
all sorts Of false notions about the God of
the Bible, it yet teaches righteousness. and
fills them with the love of it, How
much more those who come to it with true
notion about the God Of the Bible?
"To the Bible men viii return, and why?
Because they cannot do without it. Be
cause happiness is our beings and aim, and
happiness belongs to righteousness, and
righteousness is revealed in the Bible. For
this simple reason men will return to the
Bible, just as a man who tried to give up
could do without it, would return to food;
or man who tried to give UP sleep, think
ing it was a vain thing and he could do
without it, would return to sleep"
Writing of the French Revolution, rugged
old Thomas Carlyle says, "The period Of the
Reformation was Judgment Day for hu-
rope, when all the nations were presented
with an emancipation of heart and life
which an open Bible involves. England,
North Germany and OtherT powers accepted
the boon, and they have been steadily grow
ms in national greatness and moral influ-
ence ever since. France rejected it. and
in it's place has had the gospel of VoItaire
with all the anarchy, misery and boodshed
OF those ceaseIess revolutions Of which that
gospel is parent
by their fruits" religions may be tested.
as well as individual lives Judged Thus
tried, Christianity has indicated it's claim to
be teacher sent from God; for the mira
cles of good which it has wrought would
have been impossible to any system in which
and with which God was not.
Out of it has come the purest and Ioftiest
civilization in the world. Out of it has aris-
en- churches and schools and colleges and
hospitals and Orphanages and a thousand
other institutions Of blessed benevolence 1t
has inspired the noblest heroisms which glo-
rlty the pages of human history. 1t has en-
abled unnumbered millions of men and WON
en- to bear with fortitude the ills Of life and
uISCHdI S6 Win unIdII6fnS I1Qellty It's duties.
1t has been the safeguard of social order
wherever it has prevailed. 1t has dispersed
the gloom of death and made the grave
gate that opens on immortality
What can take its place, if we all follow
the lead of such men as Mr., Rupert Hughes,
quit going to church, and \alIow Christian
ity to perish from our own land and from
all countries? Can the moral and spiritual
life of mankind be nourished by such prod
ucts as the plays novels, and magazine arti-
cles which he writes?
Years ago DR.. j. G.. Holland wrote an ar
ticle for a magazine of far higher character
than that through which Mr.. Rupert Hughes
blows his blast about quitting church-going
and in the close of it DR.. Holland uttered
these Weighty words, %aWhether true or
false, the Bible is our all-the one regener-
atiye, redemptiVe agency in the world-the
only word that ever sounds as if it came
from the other side of the wave, If we lose
it. We are lost"
No, notwithstanding all suggestions to the
contrary, the Wisest and best people of our
country will cling to the Bible and Christi
anity They will not quit going to church
Some day, perhaps, Mr. Rupert Hughes
himself, having tried in vain to live on the
husks that swine do eat, will come to him
self, and return to the sensible habit of at
tending the services Of the church IF so
he will then lament his folly, and rejoice
that others refused to play the fool-as he
now shouts he is doing.