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Scientific and Religious Journal.
VOL. I. AUGUST, 1880. NO. 8.
THE IMPORTANCE AND NATURE OF REFORMATION FROM SIN.
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come; for men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those who are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.—2 Tim. 3: 1-5.
The Savior once began his instructions with these words, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled." They seem to be an appropriate introduction to our lesson upon this occasion. What is the religion of thousands? They were made the special objects of God's favor in their infancy (?), were christened in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (?), were dedicated to God and his service by their parents (?), who, for them, took a solemn vow to forsake the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all covetous desires, to forsake, also, all the carnal desires of the flesh, and not to follow or be led by them. It is said that the christened took this vow when they were children, and understood it not; when they became men they understood it about as well as when they were children. But in all candor, I confess that I never could believe they took this vow; their sponsors took it upon themselves to make it for them, and usually pledged themselves to see it fulfilled. What fearful responsibilities are assumed just here. It is too frequently the case that those very sponsors serve more devoutly, love more affectionately, and confide more heartily in the profits, honors and pleasures of the world than in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Survey the lives of many of these men, of all conditions, and then deny, if you can, that the profits, honors and pleasures of the world are the gods they worship. Their daily and constant employment is either a violent pursuit of the vain pomp and glory of the world, or of its power, riches and profits; or it may be that they are led on by pride, malice or revenge. Such persons live, not knowing or regarding the fact that the baptism which now saves us is "not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God." There are many such who live but little in advance of pagans in a commonwealth of Christians, and know but little more of God or of Christ than if they had been brought up in India. A great many are taught to act over this play in the name of religion, and learned to say, "Our Father who art in heaven," and "I believe in God the Father Almighty;" but do they live as though they did believe in earnest that God is their Almighty Father? Do they fear him and trust in him? Do they love and obey him? Mere pretense, or, as Paul termed it, a guise of godliness, for such is the meaning of the original term, is so common that we meet with it almost daily. Men have learned to tamper with the word of God until the world is full of theorists. How many talk about religion who set aside a great portion of the word of God as worse than useless? And that which they profess to believe they do not believe with half the simplicity which they manifest in believing the words of their earthly parents. It has been said, "He who is not industrious to obtain what he professes to desire does not desire it, and he who is not industrious to bring about that for which he prays, prays with his tongue only, and not with his heart." All such have simply a "guise" of godliness, while they deny its power.
A great many people profess to believe the Scriptures are true, and that they present the plain and only way to infinite and eternal blessedness, and yet they neglect the study of the Scriptures. How is this? If there was a book revealing a plain and easy way for all men to become rich and enjoy health and pleasure and this world's happiness, would it not be studied by all men? And why is it that the Bible is not studied by the masses and regarded more? Why are so many professors of religion negligent in this matter? May it not be because they prefer all other business and pleasures before this? If professors of religion throughout christendom heartily believed the Scriptures even as they profess, they would be more diligently studied, and in many instances treated with greater respect. The faith of many is undoubtedly very weak. If the laws of our country provided a plain way of escape from temporal death for the benefit of the condemned criminal, as plain and pointed as the great commission given to the apostles of Christ, would any condemned criminal hesitate to obey or treat the stipulations of law as men are constantly treating the precepts of the gospel of Christ? When a man believes the Bible contains the facts and truths which concern us infinitely more than all earthly matters, his care and diligence should be, to some extent, in harmony with his persuasion. At this point men seem to be most strangely careless and grossly negligent. How few people do, or will, understand that the terms of salvation are written as with the beams of the sun? Is the trouble a low degree of faith, approximating unbelief? The shadows are always the longest when the sun is lowest. Is the sun of righteousness low in your spiritual heavens? Or have you given him the uppermost seat in your affections? What think you of Christ? Whose son is he?
When I tell you that thousands received the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, even before the Holy Spirit was given, and were clean through the words spoken unto them, many are ready to cry out, "These are hard and strange sayings—who can hear them?" Yet, strange as it may seem, these facts have been upon record near nineteen hundred years. Jesus said, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." In the record of St. Luke, chapter 24, the condition of the new covenant, to which remission of sins is promised, is expressed by the term repentance: "Thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem." The word repentance, when used in the law of Christ, is always equivalent to the use which the ancient martyrs made of it, viz: "Amend your lives." We have it beautifully expressed in these words: "If the wicked turn from all the sins which he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die."
Paul summed up the whole matter of his preaching in the sentence, "Repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." In some of the best Latin translations this passage in Acts 20th is rendered, "Conversion to God;" also in Hebrews, 6th chapter, we read, "And conversion from dead works." Such is more clear and natural; but if we should read, according to modern theology, sorrow towards God, and sorrow from dead works, it would sound very unnatural, and almost ridiculous. This is a grand argument in favor of the reading of the Geneva text, which reads, "Amend your lives and turn, that your sins may be blotted out." But if heaven may be gained at an easier and cheaper rate, how is it that we are so frequently and so plainly assured that without actual newness of life, holiness and sanctification unto obedience, there is no hope, no possibility of salvation? John the Baptist, preaching repentance, said: "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire." It is not the leaves, simply, of a profession, nor the blossoms of good purposes and intentions, but the fruit, the fruit only, that will save us from the fire. "Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire."
Our Savior said, "Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doth the will of my father who is in heaven." After he had delivered all the beautiful precepts found in the lesson given upon the mount he closed up all by saying, "He that heareth these sayings of mine and doth them not I will liken him to a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand, and when the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon that house, it fell, and great was the fall of it." They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. If they have not done this, and so attained fitness of character to dwell with God, it matters not what their sorrow has been, nor their intentions, they will not enter the kingdom of God.
Paul says, "The works of the flesh are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditious, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, of which I forewarn you, as I have told you in time past, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." He does not say they who have done such things shall not be saved, but just the contrary, for he adds: "Such were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified;" but he teaches the doctrine that those who do such things and do not amend their lives shall not be excused by any pretense of sorrow and good purposes; they "shall not inherit the kingdom of God." "In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature"—a creature living by a faith, which worketh by love. It is not simply wishing you were a new creature; not simply wishing for a working faith; nor sorrowing because you are not a Christian; but "keeping the commandments of God," that will permit you to enter heaven.
In the final closing of the New Testament writings it is said: "Blessed are they who do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life and enter in through the gates into the city."
Paul says, "Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." And Peter says, "Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity"—and finally says, if ye do these things ye shall never fall, for so an abundant entrance shall be ministered unto you into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And John says, speaking of the Christian's hope, "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure;" then the impure may flatter themselves, and presume upon the favor of God without "purifying their souls in obeying the truth," but they are without hope in the world. And again he says, "Little children let no man deceive you, he that doth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous."
So all the writers and teachers of the New Testament, with one consent, proclaim the necessity of obeying the commandments of the gospel. What a vain whim it is to think that sorrow and mere intention without reformation of life will admit you into heaven. This golden dream of heaven has sent thousands out of this world unpardoned and unsaved.
A great many persons satisfy themselves with a mere confession and acknowledgement of their sins. They seem to think they have done enough, if to confession of sins they add some sorrow for it. They think all is well if, when their fit of sinning is past and they are returned to themselves, the sting remains, breeding some remorse of conscience, some complaints against their wickedness and folly for having done so, and some intentions to forsake it, though never carried into effect. There are many persons in the churches of our country who seem to think the church is a stage, whereon they must play their parts, who make a profession every day of confessing their sins with humble hearts, and yet, after having spent twenty, thirty or forty years in this manner, their hearts are as stubborn as ever, and they as impenitent and disobedient to the gospel of Jesus Christ. If giving thanks to God for the blessing received at his hands is performed with words only, with simple hosannas, and hallelujahs, and "gloria patris," and psalms, and hymns, then I presume it is done very efficiently, (?) though our lives are provoking to his majesty. It is not the office of a friend (?) to bewail a friend with vain lamentation. To be thankful to God is not to say God be praised, or God be thanked, but it is to remember what he desires and execute what he commands. A dying Roman once said, "It is not the office of a friend to bewail a dead friend with vain lamentations, but to remember what he desires and execute his commands. It is the office of the friends of Christ to remember his desires and carry out his instructions. If we do so we are thankful, and if we do not our thankfulness is nothing more than mere talk."
Jesus said to his disciples: "Ye are my friends if ye do what I command you." And again: "If a man love me he will keep my words; he that loveth me not, keepeth not my sayings." Again: "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
Those who love God love his cause. When that cause prospers they rejoice; when it declines they are hurt. When clouds and darkness are round about the church it is time to double our diligence and pray to God for help. Circumstances, over which no human being can have control, sometimes cause sluggishness in the character of a church. The hearts of God's people are often deeply affected by witnessing the indifference and carelessness of the people, and still more affected by a falling off in their numbers. When the godly man ceaseth and the faithful fail from among the children of men, it is distressing; but such is the lot of man that we are often called upon to witness the truthfulness of the prophet's statement. All true Christians love the godly because they are faithful. The term faithful implies truth, sincerity and fidelity. Christ, our great example, is called the faithful and true witness. The use of the term in our religion indicates believers in Christ—obedient believers—faithful brethren in Christ. Col. i: 2. Sometimes it is equivalent to the word true, as in 2d Tim., ii: 2—"Faithful men;" the fidelity of the persons alluded to had been tried—proven. And again, it means a Christian, in opposition to an infidel, as in 2d Cor. vi: 15—"What part hath he that believeth with an infidel?" A good man is faithful in his business transactions; faithful to his profession, adhering to the principles of the gospel and laboring to be faithful to death; faithful in the discharge of his duties; faithful in the employment of his talents; faithful in all things committed to his trust; faithful to his promises; faithful in his friendship. These men fail and cease by means of death. The fathers, where are they? And the teachers, do they live forever? The visitations of death are often mysterious to us. Sometimes the most brilliant in intellect and the most useful in talent, also the most pious and useful in the church, are cut down, while mere cumberers of the ground remain.
The profession of some is only transient; they soon disappear from the assembly of the saints. Some improper motive, some peculiar excitement may have moved them, or their goodness of heart may have left them. They have possibly been stony ground hearers or thorny ground hearers. The world allures thousands and kills the vitality of their religion.
Judas betrayed his master from the love of worldly gain; and Demas, an acceptable preacher and companion of Paul, abandoned his profession, "having loved the present world."
Many fail by endeavoring to unite the world and their religion, maintaining a good moral character, but are destitute of energy in Christianity.
When this spirit gets hold of a man, and he is disposed to secularize his religion, or subordinate it to his worldly interests, he is sure to fail sooner or later. Some fail by falling into temptations of various kinds, and disgrace their profession; and some fail through intemperance. Many fail through the influence of error and the enemies of Christianity. These frequently beguile the unwary.
There never was a time in our history when unbelief and skepticism was more determined in its opposition to the Christian religion than at the present. There is an incessant attempt to instill into the minds of the young principles in opposition to, and destructive of Christianity. Many have split upon the rocks of infidelity, and stranded upon the quicksands of doubt and skepticism, in spite of the fact that Christianity presented them an example, which is the light and life of men—a character without a blot! And this example is the only foundation upon which to build a moral and pious temple in which the Lord does, and the creature may dwell.
OUR INDEBTEDNESS TO REVELATION—THE TEN ATHEISTS IN COUNCIL—No. II.
BY P.T. RUSSEL.
A rap is heard at the door. It being opened, Christian enters. "Good morning, gentlemen. I am very glad to find you all here. Since our former interview I have been very anxious to continue our investigation of the evidence of the existence of God. I presume, as you are 'Free-thinkers' and lovers of truth, you are by this time ready to give a scientific reason for the existence of the idea of God, and, as you agree with me that we only obtain ideas through the aid of the five senses, our only idea of color by the eye, of sound by the ear, etc., I wish to ask you to account for the idea of God. Will you oblige me?"
Atheists—Certainly. We have consulted on this theme since our last interview, and now declare it to be the work or nature of the imagination. It is a scientific truth, as you will readily admit, that imagination can and does get up some singular and unreal forms. We now assume that the idea of a God is but the thought of an imaginary being.
Christian—True, gentlemen. Fancy, or imagination, does, in active moments, bring for our amusement some fantastic pictures. Her work, however, is never simple, but always complex. This that we are in search of is the idea of a simple being—a being that is single, and not duplex. I will now illustrate the extent of the power of the imagination. Taking a walk through nature's flower garden, we gather one of every variety, and examining them closely, one by one, we notice their difference in form, color and size by the eye. Their fragrance we note by the smell. Thus, by the aid of the senses, we note all their sensible properties. Now, allowing that memory is perfect, we have in store all the peculiarities of each and every individual flower. Gentlemen atheists, am I correct in this conclusion?
Atheists—Well, yes.
Christian—Very well; then I'll proceed. Having learned, by what we saw, the art of combining, we can and will imagine all these single flowers blended in one large conglomerated flower, containing all the peculiarities of each and every single flower. Now, gentlemen, is not this all that the imagination can do?
Atheists—It is.
Christian—Very well. Is this a simple or compound idea?
Atheists—It is a compound idea. It is simply the blending of the idea of each single flower.
Christian—And this is all the imagination can do? Then, gentlemen, do you not see that as the idea of God is the idea of a single person, it would be utterly impossible for imagination to be its author? It is not a conglomerate idea, but a single one. Now, if there is no God, we have a clear, definite idea of nothing. How will you account for this? Are you not now unable to give a reason for your premises? Is it not the truth that fools are wiser in their own conceit than men who can give a reason?
Atheists—Mr. Christian, we did not think that you would thus call us all fools, and as our investigation has taken such an unlooked for turn, we must ask time for consultation before we proceed further.
Christian—Very well. When will you be ready to resume? this I am anxious to know; as you are "liberalists" and "free-thinkers," you will be equally anxious to reach the truth in the premises?
Atheists—At two P.M.
It is two o'clock, and all are present.
Mr. Reason, who was an atheist, opens the discussion as follows:
"Mr. Christian, we have held a council on the subject under discussion, and our conclusion is that you are right. There must be, and is, such a being as God. Were this not so, we never could have had the idea of him. We are now deists. We deny that he has ever imparted knowledge to man by revelation."
Christian—Gentlemen, do you think your present position is a scientific one?
Deists—We think it is both scientific and invulnerable, and we also think that if you continue this investigation with us you will find it so. How did you obtain this idea? Have you seen God? No. Have you heard him speak? No. If we had we could not be honest without being Christians?
Christian—Gentlemen, have you not contraband goods in your warehouse? As your eyes have not seen, nor your ears heard, nor your powers of observation perceived him, and as you acknowledge that every one of your ideas entered the mind through the aid of one or another of the five senses, now, I ask, are you logically any better off than before you found yourselves obliged to relinquish your atheism? Do you not now, as well as then, occupy unreasonable ground? Having rather conceded that atheists are fools, and turned deists, are you really any better off? Can you give a reason for your present infidelity? Out of your own mouths you stand condemned as unreasonable and foolish. You pretend to venerate reason, while you discard her first principles. You need not try to evade me at this point by an appeal to nature. Here you can find no aid, for nature tells us of no first cause. The apple tree, before this window, now so richly laden with fruit, tells not of its first cause. If you say it came from an apple-seed, and that from an apple, and that from another tree, another seed, and another tree, and so on, in a circle you may always go, for nature does not tell you of a first tree as a cause uncaused, nor of a Creator, a God. She does not go behind herself. Gentlemen, have you any reply? If you have, I would like to hear it.
Reason timidly says: "Mr. C., in your very severe strictures on the deists, are you not condemning yourself? You pretend to place full confidence in the teachings of your Bible, and does it not say: 'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork?' Can nature thus declare and not make known?"
Christian—Yes, your quotation tells the truth; yet in this also you have taken too much for granted. There stands a clock; it keeps correct time, but does it declare the glory of any one?
Deists—Yes, that of its maker.
Christian—But who was its maker. You say you do not know. That is true, and, for ought you know, or can learn from its mechanism there might have been several makers connected with its origin. If you had stood by and seen it made, then you might have told me all about it. In that which you call the works of nature, neither you, nor I, nor any of our fellows, are instructed by actual observation consequent upon being present when they were made—we were not standing by when the heavens were made; so that source of information is closed up. There is now but one resort left to us—but one reasonable means of information. That is, the maker of all things must, necessarily, have told man that he created all these things. Then, with David, he could sing, "The heavens declare the glory of God." Man first learned from God that he was the creator of all things, for God alone could tell it. Gentlemen, the Christian is the only reasonable being upon the earth, and the only fearless free-thinker. The atheist, you see, is proved a fool, and the deist is no better. Think this over, then call again.
Deists—We will. Good evening.
THOMAS PAINE
WAS NOT AN INFIDEL WHEN HE WROTE HIS WORK CALLED COMMON SENSE.
"In the early ages of the world, according to the Scripture chronology, there were no kings, the consequence of which was there were no wars. It is the pride of kings which throws mankind into confusion. Holland, without a king, hath enjoyed more peace for the last century than any of the monarchical governments of Europe. Antiquity favors the same remark, for the quiet and rural lives of the first patriarchs have a happy something in them which vanishes when we come to the history of Jewish royalty." (Common Sense, p. 12.)
Mr. Paine, did the God of the Bible approve of the Jewish royalty?
Ans. "As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest can not be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of Scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings." * * * Near three thousand years passed away, from the Mosaic account of the creation, until the Jews, under the national delusion, requested a king. Till then their form of government (except in extraordinary cases, where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of republic, administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. King they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under the title but Lord of Hosts. * * * Monarchy is ranked in Scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them. The history of that transaction is worth attending to. The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched against them with a small army, and victory, through the divine interposition, decided in his favor. The Jews, elate with success, and attributing it to the generalship of Gideon, proposed making him a king, saying, "Rule thou over us, thou and thy son, and thy son's son." Here was temptation in its fullest extent; not a kingdom only, but an hereditary one. But Gideon, in the piety of his soul, replied, "I will not rule over you; neither shall my son rule over you. THE LORD SHALL RULE OVER YOU." (Common Sense, pp. 13 and 14.)
How many Gideons are there among leading infidels whose soul-piety would resist such a temptation as that? Say, was Thomas Paine an infidel when he wrote that?
"In short, monarchy and succession have laid, not this or that kingdom only, but the world in blood and ashes. 'Tis a form of government which the word of God bears testimony against, and blood will attend it." (Common Sense, p. 19.) "'But where,' say some, 'is the king of America?' I'll tell you, friend; he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the royal brute of Britain. Yet, that we may not appear to be defective in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth, placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king." (Common Sense, p. 33.)
After quoting sundry passages of Scripture against a kingly form of government, Thomas Paine says:
"These portions of Scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the Scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to believe that there is as much of kingcraft as priestcraft in withholding the Scripture from the public in popish countries." (Common Sense, p. 15.)
From the foregoing verbatim quotations it will be seen that Thomas Paine was no infidel until he PARTED WITH "COMMON SENSE," which bears date of February 14, 1776. Common Sense is of noble worth. We cheerfully concede to Thomas Paine all the honor due him for services rendered in behalf of our country while he was Thomas Paine the Quaker. He did nothing for our country after he avowed his infidelity that deserves being mentioned by any intelligent Christian.
A CLUSTER OF THOUGHTS,
GATHERED FROM JENYN'S INTERNAL EVIDENCES, WITH ADDITIONS AND MODIFICATIONS.
When the religion of Christ made its appearance it was entirely new, infinitely above, and altogether different from any other which had at any time entered into the mind of man. Its object was new. It was to prepare us with fitness of character, through a state of trial, for mutual association with the pure and lovely in the kingdom of heaven. This is presented in all the gospel, as the chief end of the Christian's life. Until Christ, no such reward was offered to mankind, nor means provided for its attainment.
Many of the philosophers in old times had ideas of a future state, but they were mixed with a great deal of uncertainty and misgivings.
Ancient legislators endeavored to inculcate the idea of rewards and punishments after death, to give sanction to their laws. This was the sole end in view, and when their laws were virtuous, it was a noble, a praiseworthy end. But the religion of Christ is related to the same object, brings it about; and, also, has a nobler end in view, and that is to prepare us here for a more noble society among the citizens of the kingdom of God in the great hereafter.
In all the older religions the good of the present was the direct, and the first object, but in the religion of Christ it is the second. The first great object of the gospel of Christ is to prepare us for the realities of eternity.
There is a great contrast between adhering to morality from the motive of present profit, in expectation of future reward, and living such a life as to qualify us for the realization of future happiness.
The character of those who are governed by these different principles is not the same. On the first principle, present utility, we may have mere moralists, men practicing simple justice, temperance and sobriety. On the second, we must add to those graces of moral nature faith in God, resignation to his will, and habitual piety. The first will make us very good citizens in a civil government, but will never be sufficient to make us Christians. So the religion of Christ insists upon purity of heart and benevolence, or charity, because these are essential to the end proposed.
"That the present existence is one of trial with reference to another state of being, is confirmed by all that we know in what is termed the course of nature. Probation is the only key that unfolds to us the designs of God in the history of human affairs, the only clue that guides us through the pathless wilderness, and the only plan upon which this world could possibly have been formed, or upon which its history can be explained."
This world was not formed upon a plan of unconditioned happiness, because it is overspread with miseries. Neither was it formed upon a plan of unconditioned misery, for there are many joys interspersed throughout the whole. It was not formed for the unconditional existence of both vice and virtue, for that is no plan at all, the two elements being, as we know, destructive of each other. By the way, in this very fact we find the grand necessity for the remedial scheme.
The mixture of vice and virtue, of happiness and misery, is a necessary result of a state of probation, trials and sufferings consequent upon offending or violating the will of heaven.
The doctrine of the religion of Christ, with its ultimate object and its ideas of God and man, of the present and the future life, and of the relations which these all bear to each other, was and is wholly unheard of until you come to the teachings of Christ. No other religion ever drew such pictures of the worthlessness of earthly-mindedness and of living merely for this present world. And no other ever set out such beautiful, lively and glorious pictures of heavenly-mindedness, along with the joys of a future world, nor such pictures of victory over death and the grave, nor of the last judgment, nor of the triumphs of the redeemed in that tremendous day. The personal character of the great author, Christ, is as new and peculiar to this religion as anything else that we can possibly name—"He spake as never man spake."
He is the only founder of a religion which is "unconnected with all human policy and government," and, as such, should not be prostituted to any mere worldly purposes whatever. Numa, Mohammed, and even Moses, blended their religious institutions with their civil, and by such means controlled their adherents. Christ neither exercised nor accepted such power. He rejected every motive which controlled other leaders, and chose those which others avoided. Power, honor, riches and pleasure were alike disregarded. He seemed to court poverty, sufferings and death.
Many impostors and enthusiasts have tried to impose upon the world with pretended communications from the world of spirits—some of them have died rather than recant; but no history is found to show one who made his own sufferings and death a necessary part of his plan and essential elements in his mission. This distinguishes the Savior of the world from all mere enthusiasts and imposters. He declared his death in all its minutia; with a prophet's vision he saw it, declared it was necessary, and voluntarily endured it; and he was neither a madman nor idiot. Look at his lessons, his precepts and his wonderful conduct, and then imagine him insane if you can. Still, if he was not what he pretended to be, he can be viewed in no other light; and yet under the character of a madman he deserves much attention on account of such sublime and rational insanity. There is no other person known in the world's history so rationally and sublimely mad.
In what madman's career can you find such a beautiful lesson as his instructions given upon the mount. What other leader enforced his precepts and lessons upon men's credulity with such assurances of reward as, "Come, ye blessed of my father! Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; I was naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee; or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in; or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick and in prison, and came unto thee? Then shall he answer and say unto them, Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
Before the appearance of Christ there existed nothing like the faith of Christ and Christianity upon the face of the earth. The Jews alone had a few of its types and shadows, but the great mystery of Christ had been kept hid since the world began. All the Gentile nations were wrapped up in the very worst idolatry, having little or no connection whatever with morality, except to corrupt it with the infamous examples of their gods. "They all worshiped a multitude of gods and demons, whose favor they sought by obscene and ridiculous ceremonies, and whose anger they tried to appease with the most abominable cruelties." With them, heaven was open only to legislators and conquerors, the civilizers and destroyers of mankind. This was the summit of their religion, and even this was limited to a few prodigies of genius and learning, which was but little regarded and understood by the great masses. One common cloud of ignorance and superstition involved them. At this time Christ came as a teacher; his appearance was like a rising sun, dispelling the darkness and blessing the earth with light and heat.
If any man can believe that the son of a carpenter, together with twelve of the meanest and most illiterate mechanics, unassisted by any superhuman wisdom and power, should be able to invent and promulgate a system of theology and ethics the most sublime and perfect, which all such men as Plato, Aristotle and Cicero had overlooked, and that they, by their own wisdom, repudiated every false virtue, though universally admired, and that they admitted every true virtue, though despised and ridiculed by all the rest of the world—if any man can believe that they were impostors for no other purpose than the promulgation of truth, villains for no purpose but to teach honesty, and martyrs with no prospect of honor or advantage; or that they, as false witnesses, should have been able, in the course of a few years, to have spread this religion over the most of the known world, in opposition to the interests, ambition and prejudices of mankind; that they triumphed over the power of princes, the intrigues of states, the forces of custom, the blindness of zeal, the influence of priests, the arguments of orators, and the philosophy of the world, without any assistance from God, he must be in possession of more faith than is necessary to make him a Christian and continues an unbeliever from mere credulity. If the credulous infidel, whose convictions are without evidence and against evidence, should, after all, be in the right, and Christianity prove to be a fable, what harm could ensue from being a Christian? Are Christian rulers more tyrannical and their Christian subjects more ungovernable? Are the rich more insolent when Christianized? Are poor Christians most insolent and disorderly? Does Christianity make worse parents and worse children? Does it make husbands and wives, friends and neighbors less trustworthy? Does it not make men and women more virtuous and happy in every situation in life? If Christianity is a fable, it is one the belief of which retains men and women in a regular and uniform life of virtue, piety and devotion to truth. It gives support in the hour of distress, of sickness and death.
"If there were a few more Christians in the world it would be very beneficial to themselves and by no means detrimental to the public."
THE RESURRECTION OF THE CHRIST.
"He, who gave life to man at first, Can restore it when it is lost."
Our Savior claimed to be the Son of God, and put the validity of his claim on this, that he should die openly by crucifixion, be buried, and rise from the dead upon the third day. Among all the impostors known in earth's history there is not one instance of a plot like this fact. A mere plot of this nature would be hard to manage. That the first part of this prophesy was fulfilled even our enemies admit. It has not been alleged by infidels of any note that the crucifixion was a fraud, and did not take place, and that Jesus, as a consequence, did not die.
The chief priests seem to have had considerable concern about the prediction of the resurrection. Why this? Was it because they had discovered in the person of Christ an impostor, a mere cheat? No; this alone would have caused them to utterly disregard the prediction of his resurrection. Those priests saw something in the character of Christ which caused them to fear the fulfillment of his prediction. What other person ever created such a concern about such an event? There is not a similar case in the world's history. What other dead person was ever known to create such a feeling as that which moved his enemies to confront him, if possible, in his rising power. Those priests had, doubtless, witnessed his miracles again and again. It is beyond all question true that they feared him in his death. If they had seen no wonderful power exerted during his life they certainly would have feared none after he was dead. The fear of the chief priests over the Savior's dead body is an insurmountable evidence of the mighty works which he accomplished during his life. Those priests addressed themselves to the Roman governor, and requested a guard placed around the tomb; three days and nights would settle the question, for the prediction would terminate on the third day. Pilate granted the request, and a guard was set to watch; they sealed the door of the sepulcher, placing the seal of the state upon the great stone. The object of the seal was, doubtless, for the satisfaction of all parties concerned in this matter.
It was a precaution against fraud. If the seal upon a door or box is broken we know at once that it has been meddled with. When Darius thrust Daniel among the lions he put his seal upon the door of the den, to satisfy himself and his court that no human hand had interfered for Daniel's delivery. When he came to the den and found his seal unbroken, he was satisfied. A seal thus used is of the nature of a covenant. If you deliver sealed writings to an individual his acceptance amounts to a covenant between you that the same shall be delivered just as they were received. If the seal is broken, it is a manifestation of attempted fraud. There is no special agreement needed in order to the existence of covenants by seals; it is an agreement which men are placed under by the laws of nations. The sealing of the sepulcher where the body of Jesus lay was to impose, by all the solemnities of the Roman state, obligations upon all the parties interested in the person of Christ. It was a grand effort on the part of the authorities to prevent any interference with the dead body.
When impostors are known they become odious, and are but little noticed. How was it with Christ? When the popular sentiment was that he was a prophet the priests and scribes sought his life, believing that his death would end his cause? When they and the people learned that he was an impostor (?) they thought him unsafe after he was dead.
The prediction of Christ that he would rise the third day was publicly known throughout Jerusalem; but why the chief priests should concern themselves so much about it as to take all the steps to prevent its fulfillment, is a puzzling question with infidels. Was it because they had detected him as a cheat and an impostor? No, this is an unreasonable conclusion. It must have been a secret conviction touching his mighty power. The seal was a proper check upon the guards; the Jews could have no other object in having it placed there. They were not so foolish as to think, that by this contrivance they would outstrip Providence.
Guards were set to watch, and, doubtless, did their whole duty. But what are sentinels when the power of Omnipotence is put forth? An angel of the Lord makes his appearance. The keepers saw him, and fell down like dead men. The angel rolled away the stone, and the conqueror came forth to live in the hearts of millions, and to live forevermore.
The disciples, receiving power from on high, soon make their appearance in Jerusalem, and boldly assert the fact of the resurrection. The murderers of the Savior were there. What do the priests do next? They had bribed the soldiers to tell a lie which was so base that it only needed to be told in order to be known as a lie. Next, they arrest the apostles; they beat them, they scourge them, and bid them shut their mouths, and insist that they shall say no more about this matter. They did not seem to regard them as liars and impostors, else they would doubtless have charged them with the fraud. They try to assassinate and murder these witnesses of the resurrection. They prevailed with Herod to put one of them to death; but they never seemed to think of charging them with stealing the body away. Their orator, Tertullus, could not have missed such a topic as imposition and fraud if any had been practiced. He did not seem to think of anything of the sort, but contented himself with the charge of sedition, heresy, and the profanation of the temple. Yet the very question of the resurrection was under consideration; for Festus tells Agrippa, that the Jews had "certain questions against Paul of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive." After this Agrippa heard Paul's testimony, and so far was he from suspecting imposition, that he said, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian."
Not long after the resurrection the apostles were taken before the council and sanhedrim of the Children of Israel. They make their own defense, a part of which is in these words: "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree." The first impulse of the council was to slay them all; but Gamaliel, one of the council, stood up and related the history of several impostors who perished in former days, and said: "If this work be of men it will come to nought, but if it be of God ye can not overthrow it." He advised them to refrain from the men and let time tell the story. The tree shall be known by its fruits. The council acquiesced; they gave the apostles a whipping and let them go.
A resurrection is a thing to be ascertained by men's senses. We all know whether a man is dead by the same means by which we know whether a man is alive. There are those who claim that "a resurrection could not be proven by any amount of testimony, because of its being contrary to the course of nature." But this is mere prejudice and ignorance. First: Who can measure the extent of natural possibilities? Are they generally known? Is it a greater thing to give life to a body once dead than to a body that never was alive? The objection rests upon the thought that testimony should be respected only in such cases as seem to us possible, or in the ordinary course of nature. According to this, no amount of evidence could establish the fact that water freezes and becomes solid in a country where such is not the ordinary course of nature. Does a man's ability in discerning and his truthfulness in reporting depend upon the skill or ignorance of those who hear? We know facts that seem to be as much contrary to the course of nature as anything could possibly be. But, in all candor, I must claim that in appealing to the settled course of nature, in a case like the one under consideration, the question is referred not to the laws of evidence or maxims of reason, but to the prejudices of men and to their mistakes, which are many. Men form a notion of nature from what they see; so, under different surroundings, their notions about the course of nature will differ. The objection falls worthless at the feet of the INFINITE ONE. There is no greater difficulty in accounting for the fact that the dead live again than there is in accounting for the fact that they did live.
PUBLIC NOTORIETY OF THE SCRIPTURES.
Origen was born in the year one hundred and eighty-five of the Christian dispensation, and lived sixty-eight years. He gives in his writings five thousand seven hundred and sixty-five quotations from the New Testament. Tertullian gives eighteen hundred and two quotations from the New Testament. Clemens, of Alexandria, labored in the year one hundred and ninety-four. He gives us three hundred and eighty-four quotations from the New Testament. Ireneus lived in the year one hundred and seventy-eight. He gives us seven hundred and sixty-seven quotations from the New Testament, making a grand total of eight thousand seven hundred and twenty-three quotations, given by four ancient writers.
If all the copies of the New Testament in the world were destroyed, the whole, with the exception of eleven verses, could be reproduced from the writings of men who lived prior to the Nicene Council. Unbelievers quote from all ancient heathen authors as though they were books of yesterday, without manifesting the least doubt in reference to their authenticity or authorship. The evidences necessary to establish genuineness of authorship are ten-fold greater in the case of the New Testament Scriptures than in the case of the histories of Alexander, Julius Caesar and Cyrus, as given by ancient writers.
The notoriety of the New Testament writings during the first centuries is without a parallel among all ancient writings. Their effect upon society during those centuries can never be explained in harmony with unbelief. But this is not all that is to be considered. Their notoriety extends over the centuries between us and the times of the apostles. Such notoriety is the grand support upon which the New Testament stands. All other ancient writings stand upon the same kind of evidence, but this kind of evidence is more than ten-fold greater in the support of our religion than it is in the support of any other ancient documents.
We may obtain some idea of the influence of the New Testament Scriptures during the first centuries from the statements of Gibbon. He says there were "six millions of Christians in existence in the year three hundred and thirteen." It is reasonable to allow that there were three millions in the year one hundred and seventy-five. Under the best emperors of the second century books were cheap. Thousands of persons engaged in writing histories for a livelihood. It is allowed that there were as many as fifteen thousand copies of the four gospels in circulation among the people in the last quarter of the second century. This state of things seems to convey the idea that it would be hard work to introduce successfully any corruption into the text after this period of time. It would be too easily detected.
There is also a grand argument in favor of the genuineness of our religion, which is in the fact that it was in deathly opposition to both Judaism and Paganism, its success being the destruction of both. If Christianity was an imposition, its success during the first three centuries of our era is utterly inexplicable.
WHAT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN AND DONE WITHOUT THE BIBLE.
Our ancestors complained of the reign of wickedness; we complain of it and our posterity will complain of it. I sometimes think we are all a set of complainers and grumblers.
Of ancient pagans it is said: "They worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator." Of their idols Persius, who was a Roman satirical poet, born A.D. 34, said:
"O, cares of men! O, world all fraught With vanities! O, minds inclined Towards earth, all void of heavenly thought!"
Sedulius, an ancient Christian poet, and by nativity a Scotchman, says of the same:
"Ah! wretched they that worship vanities, And consecrate dumb idols in their heart— Who their own Maker, God on high, despise, And fear the works of their own hands and art! What fury, what great madness doth beguile Men's minds that man should ugly shapes adore Of birds, or bulls, or dragons, or the vile Half-dog, half-man, on knees for aid implore."
One of their own poets jests them thus:
"Even now I was the stock of an old fig tree, The workman doubting what I then should be, A bench or god, at last a god made me."
The Romans, for a time, were without images for any religious use, but afterwards they received into their city the idols of all the nations they conquered; and as they became the lords of the whole earth, they became slaves to the idols of all the world. Seneca says: "The images of the gods they worship, those they pray unto with bended knees, those they admire and adore, and contemn the artificers who made them."
The character and condition of their gods was worse than their own. The common opinion touching their god of gods, Jupiter, was that he was entombed in Crete, and his monument was there to be seen. Lactantius wittily says: "Tell me, I beseech you, how can the same god be alive in one place and dead in another; have a temple dedicated to him in one place and a tomb erected in another?" Callimachus, in his hymn on Jupiter, calls the Cretians liars in this very respect. He says:
"The Cretians always lyars are, who raised unto thy name A sepulchre, that never dyest, but ever art the same."
Lactantius informs us in book 10, chapter 20, that they gave divine honor to notorious common prostitutes, as unto goddesses, to Venus, or Faula, to Lapa, the nurse of Romulus, so called among the shepherds for her common prostitution, and to Flora, who enriched herself by her crime, and then, by will, made the people of Rome her heir, and, also left a sum of money by which her birthday was yearly celebrated with games, which, in memory of her, they called Floralia. They claimed that their great goddess, Juno, was both the wife and sister of Jupiter; and Jupiter, and the other gods, they held, were no better that adulterers, sodomites, murderers and thieves. Such was not held in private but published to the world. They were described by their painters in their tables, by their poets in their verses, and acted by their players upon their stages. (Lactantius, b. 5, ch. 21.)
As respects the manner in which they worshiped their gods, Alexander, in his Dierum Genialium, b. 6, ch. 26, insists that the most odious thing in their history was the effusion of human blood in the service of their gods. This same author says, "This unnatural, barbarous practice spread itself well nigh over the known world; it was in use among the Trojans, as it seems from Virgil's lines touching AEneas:
"Their hands behind their backs he bound whom he had destined A sacrifice unto the ghosts, and on whose flames to shed Their blood he purposed."—AEnead.
Some ignorant infidels seem at a great loss to understand why the Lord should order the groves and altars of the heathen destroyed. (Again and again their groves were cut down.) The children of Israel were to make no offerings in the groves. If infidels will only exercise common sense inside of the history of the worship of Priapus and Berecynthia, they will cease fretting over the destruction of those beautiful forests. Those groves were the most corrupt places upon the earth, places of retirement from the altar into prostitution, carried on as a matter of worship pleasing to Priapus. Here, on account of becoming modesty, the half can not be told. The removal of nuisances in our own country is conducted upon the same principles upon which groves were destroyed by the Israelites.
Lycurgus dedicated an image to laughter, to be worshiped as a god, and this is said to be "the only law he ever made pertaining to religion." While his great object was to make warriors, he ordained some things noted for the education of youth. He ordained other laws so much in favor of lust and all carnality of the worst kind, that it might justly be said he made his entire commonwealth ludicrous. He instituted wrestlings, dances and other exercises of boys and girls naked, to be done in public at divers times of the year, in the presence both of young and old men. Adultery was also approved and permitted by the laws of Lycurgus. Plato and Aristotle advocated community of women, of goods and possessions, to the end that no man should have anything peculiar to himself, or know his own children. This was ordained by Plato, in order to establish in the commonwealth such a perfect unity that no man might be able to say, that is thine, or this is mine.
Aristotle, in the second book of his "Politiques," sets forth many other detestable things. Lactantius, in the third of his Divine Institutions, shows that Plato's community of property and women took away frugality, abstinence, shamefacedness, modesty and justice itself.
Plato, like Lycurgus, ordained that young men should, for the increase of their physical strength and agility of body, at certain times exercise themselves naked; that girls and servant-maids should dance naked among the young men; that women in the flower of their youth should dance, run, wrestle and ride with young men naked as well as they, which, says Plato, "whosoever misliketh understandeth not how profitable it is for the commonwealth."
The morality of ancient times may be clearly seen in the fact that all manner of debasing things were brought to the front. How could men be persuaded that adultery should be punished when they were taught from infancy that it was a virtue among the gods? Lucian gives his experience thus, "When I was yet a boy, and heard out of Homer and Hesiod of the adulteries, fornications, rapes and seditions of the gods, truly I thought that those things were very excellent, and began even then to be greatly affected towards them, for I could not imagine that the gods themselves would ever have committed adultery if they had not esteemed the same lawful and good." To all this it may be added that the opinions of the ancient philosophers concerning virtue, vice, the final happiness, and the state of the spirit after death, were diverse and contradictory. The Epicurean doctrine was, that sovereign happiness consisted in pleasure. They granted a God, but denied his Providence; so virtue was without a spur, and vice without a bridle.
The Stoics also granted a Divine Providence, but they maintained such a fatal necessity that they blunted the edge of all virtuous efforts and excused themselves in vicious conduct. Both Stoics and Epicureans doubted the immortality of the human spirit, and thereby opened the way to all manner of licentiousness.
I am persuaded that eternity alone will fully reveal the consequences of a denial of a future life and retribution; it is a physical leprosy which removes all the most powerful incentives to virtue and loosens up the soul to all manner of lustful gratifications.
A man once remarked: "I have lived four years an avowed infidel. I have boasted that I would live a good man and die an infidel. I have formed the acquaintance of all the leading infidels of my country, and I am now prepared to candidly confess that I do not believe any man can keep a good heart without the fear of God. Such is my observation and experience."
THE LATEST EVOLUTIONARY CONFLICT.
THEY FIRST WISH IT TO BE SO, THEN SOON, WITHOUT PROOF, THEY ASSERT THAT IT IS SO!
(From the Cincinnati Gazette, of June 26, 1880.)
"Prof. Huxley is assured that the doctrine of evolution, so far as the animal world is concerned, is no longer a speculation, but a statement of historical fact, taking its place along side of those accepted truths which must be taken into account by philosophers of all schools."
This statement was the summing up of an address delivered at the Royal Institution on the 19th of March. The address was specifically an account of "The Coming of Age of the Origin of Species"—it being nearly twenty-one years since Darwin's work bearing that name was first published.
The lecturer glanced at the general replacement of the catastrophic theory of geology by the uniformitarian hypothesis, claimed that many of the most important breaks in the line of the descent of plants and animals had been filled, noticed the great advance made in the science of embryology, and held that the amount of our knowledge respecting the mammalia of the Tertiary epoch had increased fifty-fold since Darwin's work appeared, and in some directions even approaches completeness. The lecture closed with these words: "Thus when, on the first of October next, 'The Origin of Species' comes of age, the promise of its youth will be amply fulfilled and we shall be prepared to congratulate the venerated author of the book, not only that the greatness of his achievement and its enduring influence upon the progress of knowledge have won him a place beside Harvey, but, still more, that, like Harvey, he has lived long enough to outlast detraction and opposition, and to see the stone that the builders rejected become the head-stone of the corner."
This is plain and emphatic speaking, but it has not been suffered to pass unchallenged.
Dr. Charles Elam, a writer who has already more than once measured swords with the school of naturalists of which Professor Huxley is a foremost champion, has been moved to respond to this latest utterance. He has contributed to the Contemporary Review a paper entitled "The Gospel of Evolution," which, whatever may be its conclusiveness, is one of the sharpest attacks recently sustained by the opposing party. Acknowledging at the start Mr. Darwin's pre-eminence as a naturalist, and Prof. Huxley's equal accomplishments in the department of biology, he yet ventures to continue his doubt regarding the evidence of their peculiar doctrines. He first cites Darwin's admissions that it would be fatal to his theory if any organs existed which could not have been evolved by minute selective modifications, and his further concession that "man, as well as every other animal, presents structures which, as far as we can judge, are not now of any service to him, nor have been so during any former part of his existence. Such structures can not be accounted for by any form of selection or by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts."
Having contrasted Darwinism proper with its exaggerations, in the system of Haeckel, who regards Darwin's admissions of an original creation as contemptible, and recognizes only one force in the universe—the mechanical, Dr. Elam compares Huxley's statement in his American addresses that belief which is not based upon evidence is not only illogical but immoral, with his last assertion that evolution is a fact, doubted only by persons "who have not reached the stage of emergence from ignorance." In 1862 Huxley also said—republishing the statements as late as 1874:
"Obviously, if the earliest fossiliferous rocks now known are coeval with the commencement of life, and if their contents give us any just conception of the nature and the extent of the earliest fauna and flora, the insignificant amount of modification which can be demonstrated to have taken place in any one group of animals or plants is quite incompatible with the hypothesis that all living forms are the results of a necessary process of a progressive development, entirely comprised within the time represented by the fossiliferous rocks."
Since this confession was uttered, whatever discoveries may have been made, there has not been the faintest indication of the development of any new species by artificial selection, the individuals of which are fertile among themselves and infertile with the parent stock. It may properly be alleged that there has not been time enough for such a slow process, but it yet remains as true as ever that there is no direct evidence in nature of what the Darwinians call favorable variation. It is the unwritten law of nature that one race must die that another may live, this other, in its turn, subserving the same end. Without this law nature would be a chaotic impossibility. If natural selection were a real agency, we ought to meet with frequent, if not constant, evidences of transition, and a slow and gradual, but perceptible improvement in species, especially marked in those whose generations succeed each other rapidly. But we see nothing of the kind. But did selection really exist, it would be incompetent to account for a multitude of structures and functions to which any efficient cause should be applicable, notably to the earliest rudiments of useful organs. Such organs as the eye and the internal ear are quite out of reach of any explanation by natural selection. Since the development of the eyes, due to the simultaneous growth of parts from within and without, the organ itself would be absolutely useless until it had attained such a degree of development as to admit of these separate parts meeting, and so the principle of preserving any useful variety would be quite inapplicable. The same is true of the internal ear.
Dr. Elam next passes in review Haeckel's Geneology of Man from the Lowest Monera to his Present Station as Lord of Creation. What the Germans call invention of species to fill troublesome gaps is illustrated in many ways, but we have room only for a single example:
"The vertebrata must be developed from something, and as yet there has been no smallest indication of anything like a spine or a rudiment of anything that could represent or be converted into one. It costs our author nothing but a stroke of his pen to invent the 'Chordonia,' and whence did they come? They were developed from the worms by the formation of a spinal marrow and a chorda dorsulis. Nothing more—the most trifling modification!—and we are at once provided with the root and stem of the whole vertebrata divisions. It is scarcely any drawback to this stroke of genius to say that there is no evidence whatever that such an order of living beings ever existed; that no one has the least conception of what they were like, or of any of their attributes. Prof. Huxley's responsibility for this imaginative science is evidenced by his declaration that the conception of geological time is the only point upon which he fundamentally and entirely disagrees with Haeckel."
It still remains true that all our positive and direct knowledge as to species contradicts the evolution hypothesis. Its evidence is purely inferential, and, as Dr. Elam quietly says, "As a psychological study it is interesting to observe how many things are deemed impossible to the infinite wisdom and power (which by the terms of the supposition, presided over the arrangements of our world) which are perfectly clear and comprehensible when considered as the result of blind chance and the operation of mechanical causes only." Omitting for lack of space his keen analysis of Huxley's claim of the evidence of evolution from the orchippus to the modern horse, we follow our author from his array of what is not proved to what is actually taught by geology. We quote:
"THE SUCCESSION OF FORMS OF LIFE ON OUR GLOBE IS DEMONSTRABLY NOT SUCH AS OUGHT TO BE THE CASE ON THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION." It was not the small and feeble species or most generalized forms that first appeared, either among mollusks, fish, reptiles or mammalia. We look in vain now for the representatives of the gigantic fishes of the Old Red Sandstone. And where are the mighty reptile tyrants of air, earth and water of the Oolite? * * * These races appeared in the plenitude of their development and power; and, as their dynasty grew old, it was not that the race was improved or preserved in consequence, but they dwindled, and were, so to speak, degraded, as if to make room in the economy of nature for their successors.
Next follows a closely linked argument that will not bear abridgement, showing the physical improbability that man, a walking animal, was descended from a climbing one, and the deplorable consequences which obliterate free will and necessitate the secularization of morals, as elaborated by Prof. Huxley's friend, Mr. Herbert Spencer. This part of the subject has a special interest to Americans, since the work in which Mr. Spencer's views are inculcated has been introduced as a manual in one of our oldest colleges, but its reproduction would widely lengthen our article. It is sufficient to say that Dr. Elam concludes that Mr. Spencer's doctrine, that "actions are completely right only when, besides being conducive to future happiness, they are immediately pleasurable," would justify him in concealing any injury done by him to a friend's scientific apparatus, provided he could attribute it to the weather, or the intrusion of a dog.
Such, in brief, are the points of an essay which, as a whole, is one of the most brilliant responses that the declarations of leading evolutionists have called forth. Of course, all its points are not new, but old objections have been skillfully refurbished and new ones brought into play.
* * * * *
To mourn for the dead, is to mourn for the lost casket when you still retain the jewel it held. The memories of the dead one's virtues are the jewels, and the cold clay but the casket.
AUTHORSHIPS OF THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
I have a few questions to put to every man who says Christianity is not true. They are these: If Christianity is not true, where did it come from? How came it into the world? What is its origin? These questions are not trifling ones. Infidels have given as many different answers to them as there are days in the week. There is no agreement among them that amounts to a settlement of the questions among themselves. The Scriptures are ancient. Porphyry, born at Tyre in 233, wrote a book against them, which was burned by order of Theodosius the Great, in the year 304. (Zell's Encyclopedia.)
The Emperor Julian, born in the year 331, and Hierocles, who lived in the fourth century, both wrote against Christianity, against the Scriptures, but did not call in question the existence of Christ, nor the fact that he wrought miracles.
Celsus, an Epicurean philosopher who lived in the second century, was the author of a work written against Christianity, entitled "Logos Aleethees," that is, "Word of Truth." To this work Origen replied. Celsus, in this work, quotes from the gospels by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and does this over and over, and shows that the Christians valued the books very highly; they suffered death rather than repudiate them.
A TABLE OF THE ANCIENT TIMES OF TRIAL AND OF PEACE.
DATE—
A.D. 64 to 68—Persecution under Nero. 95 to 96—Persecution under Domitian. Banishment of John. 96 to 104—Time of peace. 104 to 117—Persecution under Trajan. Martyrdom of Ignatius. 117 to 161—Time of peace. Apologies of Aristides, Quadratus and Justin Martyr were written. 161 to 180—Persecution under Marcus Aurelius. Martyrdom of Polycarp and the martyrs of Lyons. 164—Justin Martyr was put to death.
Statistics concerning the sufferings of the first Christians show that they were in great earnest. Eternity alone will reveal the true number of the martyrs. They all suffered and died just as we would expect, in case they knew the facts of our religion. Twenty-two books of the New Testament were written before the martyrdom of the Apostles Paul and Peter. Infidels often boast, in their ignorance, that the books of the gospels were not written by those whose names they bear.
If Matthew, Mark, Luke and John did not write those books which bear their names, then are they false in fact? and if so, what did the authors die for? The sufferings of primitive Christians were great; the persecutions which they endured were outrageous, cruel and inhuman in their character. Such is the universal verdict of ancient history. Of the persecution under Nero, Tacitus, a celebrated Roman historian, who was born in the year 56, just twenty-three years after Pentecost, writes, that Nero "laid upon the Christians the charge of that terrible conflagration at Rome of which he himself was the cause." He says, "A vast multitude were apprehended. And many were disguised in the skins of wild beasts and worried to death by dogs, some were crucified, and others were wrapped in pitched shirts and set on fire when the day closed, that they might serve as lights to illuminate the night. Nero lent his own garden for these executions, and celebrated at the same time a public entertainment in the circus, being a spectator of the whole in the dress of a charioteer, sometimes mingling with the crowd on foot, and sometimes viewing the spectacle from his car." (Annals of Tacitus, 15: 44.)
Juvenal, the coarse and bitter satirist of the same time, writes of the martyred Christians as "those who stand burning in their own flame and smoke, their head being held up by a stake fixed to their chin, till they make a long stream of blood and sulphur on the ground." (Juv. Sat., 1: 155.)
Seneca also refers to their fearful sufferings: "Imagine here a prison, crosses and racks and the hook, and a stake thrust through the body and coming out at the mouth, and the limbs torn by chariots pulling adverse ways, and the coat besmeared and interwoven with inflammable materials, nutriment for fire, and whatever else beside these cruelty has invented." (Seneca's Epistles, 14.)
One of Diocletian's coins commemorates the blotting out of the very name of Christian: "Nomine Christianorum deleto." But the age of martyrdoms ended with the accession of Constantine to the Roman empire, and to-day there are more Christians in the world than ever before. Skeptic, take one long look at the unbelieving, bloody, persecuting hosts, and choose your future associates.
Strauss says: "No man knows who wrote the Gospels." Can he mean that they are anonymous books? Does he mean that they are not biographies—books containing, in their historic matter, an account of the authors themselves? Who does not know that those books are and have been called the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? And who has, in all the past centuries, produced evidence showing that those are the wrong names. No one. Insane men might say such a thing. Infidels don't like to say that; they just say you can't prove your religion, nor show that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote those books. Will any sensible man affirm that they are the wrong names? How do we judge and believe respecting the authorship of other ancient books? Why do we believe that Caesar wrote the Commentaries on the Gallic War? And why do we believe that Virgil wrote the AEneid? No sane man ever doubted the authorship of those writings. Preoccupancy during the ages past is considered by infidels themselves a sufficient ground for belief. The fact that those books exist has certainly been known from the age of the apostles to the present time, for men quoted extensively from them in the second century. The names they bear were in the possessive case then, and it is but fair to consider them the true owners.
Why are skeptics and infidels so partial among ancient books? They doubt the authorship of no ancient books unless they are written in favor of the religion of Christ. Will some wise one tell us why this strange inconsistency? O, it is an evidence of a wicked heart—that's all! all!!—ALL THERE IS OF IT!!!
Here are the dates of the books of the New Testaments, along with contemporary landmarks:
- BOOKS. AFTER CONTEMPORARY LANDMARKS. PENTECOST. - 1 Peter 16 Claudius Caesar ruled from A.D. 41 to 54. Galatians 18 1 Thess 19 Romans settled in England between 41 and 54. 2 Thess 20 1 Cor 24 Nero ruled from 54 to 68. 2 Cor 25 1 Timothy 25 Paul and Peter were martyred at Rome in or Romans 25 about the year 63; 30 years after Pentecost. James 28 Matthew 28 Persecution continues under Nero until the Mark 28 year 68. The satirist Juvenal, who lived Philemon 29 under Nero, and his brother satirist Martial, Collosians 29 both allude to the burnings of the Christians Ephesians 29 in pitched shirts. Philippians 29 Luke 30 Suetoneus, writing of what took place under Acts 30 Emperor Claudius, in 53, makes mention of Hebrews 30 Christ. 2 Peter 34 2 Timothy 34 Galba, Otho and Vitelleus rule from 68 to 69. Titus, about 34 Jude, about 34 Christians have peace from 68 to 95. Epistles of St. John 1, 2, 3 40 Jerusalem was destroyed in the year 70. Revelations of Jesus Christ to John 64 Vespasian rules from 69 to 79. -
CARLYLE'S ESTIMATE OF THE BOOK OF JOB, IN HIS OWN WORDS.
"I call the book of Job, apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest books ever written with a pen. One feels, indeed, as if it were not Hebrew—such a noble universality, different from noble patriotism or sectarianism, reigns in it. A noble book! All men's book! It is our first, oldest statement of the never-ending problem of man's destiny and God's ways with him here on this earth, and all in such free, flowing outlines, grand in its simplicity and its epic melody and repose of reconcilement! There is the seeing eye, the mildly understanding heart. So true every way; true eye-sight and vision for all things—material things no less than spiritual; the horse—'thou hast clothed his neck with thunder;' 'he laughs at the shaking of the spear!' Such living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow! Sublime reconciliation! Oldest choral melody, as of the heart of mankind! So soft and great, as the summer midnight, as the world with its seas and stars! There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit." (Dr. Cotton's Scrap-Book.)
WHAT I LIVE FOR.
"I live to hold communion With all that is divine, To feel there is a union Between God's will and mine; For the cause that lacks assistance, For the future, in the distance, For what'er is good and true, For all human hearts that bind me, For the task by God assigned me, And the good that I can do."
THE MOLECULE GOD.
AIR—The Fine Old English Gentleman.
[To be sung at all gatherings of advanced "siolists" and "scientists."]
We will sing you a grand new song evolved from a 'cute young pate, Of a fine old Atom-Molecule of prehistoric date; In size infinitesimal, in potencies though great, And self-formed for developing at a prodigious rate— Like a fine old Atom-Molecule, Of the young world's proto-prime!
In it slept all the forces in our cosmos that run rife, To stir creation's giants or its microscopic life; Harmonious in discord and co-operant in strife, To this small cell committed the world lived with his wife— In this fine old Atom-Molecule, Of the young world's proto-prime!
In this autoplastic archetype of protean protein clay All the human's space has room for, for whom time makes a day, From the sage whose words of wisdom prince or parliament obey, To the parrots who but prattle, and the asses who but bray— So full was this Atom-Molecule, Of the young world's proto-prime!
All brute life, from lamb to lion, from the serpent to the dove, All that pains the sense or pleasure, all the heart can loathe or love; All instincts that drag downwards, all desires that upwards move Were caged, a "happy family," cheek-by-jowl, and hand-in-glove, In this fine old Atom-Molecule, Of the young world's proto-prime!
In it order grew from chaos, light out of darkness shined, Design sprang by accident, law's rule from hazard blind; The soul-less soul evolving—against, not after kind, As the life-less life developed, and the mind-less ripened mind, In this fine old Atom-Molecule, Of the young world's proto-prime!
Then bow down mind to matter; from brain fiber, will, withdraw; Fall man's heart to cell ascidian, sink man's hand to monkey's paw; And bend the knee to Protoplast in philosophic awe— Both Creator and created, at once work and source of law. And our Lord be the Atom-Molecule, Of the young world's proto-prime!
PUNCH.
Transcriber's Note
The punctuation and spelling from the original text have been faithfully preserved. Only obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
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