What ability, knowledge or learning does it require, to deny everything? The most ignorant, illiterate and stupid, can deny as stoutly, as the most learned, enlightened, and talented. It requires no strength of mind to stand and deny—to declare in the most pertinacious manner, disbelief, want of confidence, doubts, distrusts and uncertainties in everything. A man who never read the Bible once through in his life, nor ten other books, who has the most corrupt character, can talk of inconsistencies, incongruities, contradictions and absurdities, in the Bible, as stoutly as anybody. Any blockhead could leap over the Falls of Niagara, or from the Suspension Bridge below. In the same way, any man with or without much mind, learning or talent, can leap into the dark abyss of unbelief, rejecting, contemning and despising all evidence; but, would it not be the part of prudence, of wisdom and discretion in such, to look before they leap? It is a fearful experiment they are making. If the step is a mistaken one, it can never be retraced beyond this life. He who makes the experiment, obtains nothing now, only the unbridled privilege of declaring the Bible false—religion priest-craft—that man will never be called to account, hence all men can do as they list.
The mission of infidels is to risk, and induce all men to risk the loss of everything, without the possibility of gaining anything in this world, or the world to come. They have no worthy object—they can have no worthy object in opposing the Bible. They have no reason for opposing it, for they do not propose to make the world any better. They have no proposition to make the world more true, kind, affectionate or happy. Indeed, the very fact of their malignity towards the Bible, shows that it is no fable. The land abounds with acknowledged fables; why are they not enraged at these? They are read by the million; but, sceptics are no more enraged at them than other men. If they are satisfied the Bible is all fiction, false or human, why trouble us about it? Why not let it pass? We hear thousands contending about the “signs in the moon,” but we care nothing about them, and do not even trouble those who believe in them; the reason is, we are well and fully satisfied, that there is nothing in them. Why do they not let the believers in the Bible pass in the same way? The reason is obvious; they are in doubt, not fully satisfied, and feel that there is uncertainty in their position. They see and are constantly impressed with the fact, that if the Christian could be mistaken that his mistake amounts to nothing—that he is as happy now, and has as high assurance in regard to all beyond this life, to say the least of it, as they; and that if the sceptic should prove mistaken, his mistake will be an irreparable one. They see that a mistake on the part of a Christian involves no danger, no serious consequences in this world or the world to come; while a mistake on their part involves eternal consequences. They are not constantly impressed, too, with the fact, that they are relying upon that which amounts to anything like certainty; for a large proportion who have occupied their position, before death have repudiated and renounced it,—many of them in the immediate expectation of death,—and warned all their friends against it. They find on the other hand, that all who believed the Bible when in health, also believed it when approaching death, and that no man who has contended for its truth till he was in the immediate expectation of death, has then denied it. They must, then, see that their mission is simply to fill the world with doubts and distrusts, involving all in darkness and uncertainty.
[IS IT POSSIBLE TO AROUSE THE PEOPLE?]
IS it not possible to rescue the people from the pernicious and blinding influences of speculative theories and theorists, and induce them to receive the simple faith of Christ, become his disciples, love him and serve him? Have the leaders of the people, in these times, as they did in the days of the Lord’s pilgrimage on earth, stolen away the key of knowledge, and fastened them down with such an impenetrable spell of thick darkness that they are unwilling to be rescued from this servile slavery to human speculation to the rejection of the sun of righteousness? Or is the world so lost, the mind of the people so bewitched, the delusions around us so enchanting, that it is impossible to attract the attention of the people, arrest their affections or impress their hearts, by the love of God to man, by the sufferings of Christ, by all the divine sanctions of the blood of the everlasting covenant, by the glories of heaven, or the terrors of hell, to turn to the Lord and follow him who loved us and gave himself for us? Is the public mind so distracted, and are the people so confused and lost to all that God has said and done, that they can not be induced to love Christ better than all human theories, regard him and feel the force of all his love to our lost and ruined world? Are the people so set upon gnawing the bone of contention, keeping up sectarian feuds; disputing upon the lifeless, soulless and profitless controversies thrust upon them, that they will neither hear the Lord nor be interested in the word of his grace? Must the public mind be wholly occupied with the useless distinctions between the views of men, the useless comparisons of doctrines and commandments of men, the comparative merits of different human systems, and an eternal train of customs unknown to the primitive church, thus bewildering the people and blinding their minds that they may neither see the Lord nor regard his authority? Is it impossible to bring the authority of the Almighty again to bear upon the world, to lift up the Lord before the people, that he may draw all men unto him, convert them to the Lord and place them under him? Is it impossible to rescue the people from the blinding influences of these times—from being merely followers of men, and believing human theories, which have no power to save, in the place of believing the great truth, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures—that he was buried, and that he rose from the dead? Is it impossible to interest the public mind with the things of God—with the revelation from God to man, with the religion of Christ itself? Is the love of God gone from the world? Has the Holy Spirit of God abandoned the church? Is the human race mad, insane and ruined, so that all pleadings and entreaties to turn to God must fail? Must the holy religion of Christ be set aside for the silly disputes of these times? Shall that holy religion that saved such vast multitudes in the days of the apostles, fired the hearts of the missionaries of the cross and supported the holy martyrs in passing through all the cruel scourgings, tortures and privations for the name of the Lord, be contemned, despised and rejected by the people of our day? O, that God would enable us to arouse the people of this generation from the awful stupor and deep slumbers of carnal security to prepare to meet God!
[A MOTHER’S GRAVE.]
EARTH has some sacred spots where we feel like looseing the shoes from our feet, and treading with holy reverence; where common words of social converse seem rude, and the smile of pleasure unfitting; places where friendship’s hands have lingered in each other’s; where vows have been plighted, prayers offered, and tears of parting shed. Oh, how the thoughts hover around such places, and travel back through unmeasured space to visit them. But, of all the spots on this green earth, none is so sacred as that where rest, waiting the resurrection, those we once cherished and loved—our brothers, our sisters, or our children. Hence, in all ages, the better part of mankind have chosen and loved spots for the burial of their dead; and on these spots they have loved to wander at eventide, to meditate and weep. But, of all places, even among the charnel-houses of the dead, none is so sacred as a mother’s grave.