In 1839, twenty thousand negroes in Jamaica gathered to begin a life of freedom. Into a coffin were put the handcuffs and shackles of slavery, relics of the whipping-post and the scourge. As the clock struck twelve at night, a preacher cried with the first stroke: “The monster is dying!” and so with every stroke until the last, when he cried: “The monster is dead!” Then all rose from their knees and sang: “Praise God from whom all blessings flow!”... “What do you do that for?” said the sick Chinaman whom the medical missionary was tucking up in bed with a care which the patient had never received since he was a baby. The missionary took the opportunity to tell him of the love of Christ.... The aged Australian mother, when told that her two daughters, missionaries in China, had both of them been murdered by a heathen mob, only replied: “This decides me; I will go to China now myself, and try to teach those poor creatures what the love of Jesus means.”... Dr. William Ashmore: “Let one missionary die, and ten come to his funeral.” A shoemaker, teaching neglected boys and girls while he worked at his cobbler's bench, gave the impulse to Thomas Guthrie's life of faith.
We must judge religions not by their ideals, but by their performances. Omar Khayyam and Mozoomdar give us beautiful thoughts, but the former is not Persia, nor is the latter India. “When the microscopic search of scepticism, which has hunted the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a Creator, has turned its attention to human society and has found on this planet a place ten miles square where a decent man can live in decency, comfort, and security, supporting and educating his children, unspoiled and unpolluted; a place where age is reverenced, infancy protected, manhood respected, womanhood honored, and human life held in due regard—when sceptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe, where the gospel of Christ has not gone and cleared the way and laid the foundations and made decency and security possible, it will then be in order for the sceptical literati to move thither and to ventilate their views. But so long as these very men are dependent upon the very religion they discard for every privilege they enjoy, they may well hesitate before they rob the Christian of his hope and humanity of its faith in that Savior who alone has given that hope of eternal life which makes life tolerable and society possible, and robs death of its terrors and the grave of its gloom.” On the beneficent influence of the gospel, see Schmidt, Social Results of Early Christianity; D. J. Hill, The Social Influence of Christianity.
Chapter III. Inspiration Of The Scriptures.
I. Definition of Inspiration.
Inspiration is that influence of the Spirit of God upon the minds of the Scripture writers which made their writings the record of a progressive divine revelation, sufficient, when taken together and interpreted by the same Spirit who inspired them, to lead every honest inquirer to Christ and to salvation.
Notice the significance of each part of this definition: 1. Inspiration is an influence of the Spirit of God. It is not a merely naturalistic phenomenon or psychological vagary, but is rather the effect of the inworking of the personal divine Spirit. 2. Yet inspiration is an influence upon the mind, and not upon the body. God secures his end by awakening man's rational powers, and not by an external or mechanical communication. 3. The writings of inspired men are the record of a revelation. They are not themselves the revelation. 4. The revelation and the record are both progressive. Neither one is complete at the beginning. 5. The Scripture writings must be taken together. Each part must be viewed in connection with what precedes and with what follows. 6. The same Holy Spirit who made the original revelations must interpret to us the record of them, if we are to come to the knowledge of the truth. 7. So used and so interpreted, these writings are sufficient, both in quantity and in quality, for their religious purpose. 8. That purpose is, not to furnish us with a model history or with the facts of science, but to lead us to Christ and to salvation.