Pike County Democrat, Volume 24, Number 45, Petersburg, Pike County, 23 March 1894 — Page 6

THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. Rev. Dr. Taira age Denies That It is Losing Power, -And Produces Figures to Demonstrate Its Cver-lncreasing Hold Uponthe People. of the World — “From Conquest to Conquest.” g The following sermon on the subject: ""From Conquest to Conquest,” was delivered by llev. T. DeWitt Ta Image in the Brooklyn tabernacle, being based on the text: Behold the days ccme. saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper.— Amos, lx.. 1& Picture of a tropical clime with a .-season so prosperous. that the harvest reaches clear over to the planting time, and the swarthy husbandman swinging the sickle in the thick grain almost feels the breath of the horses on his sliouldefs, the horses hitched to the plow preparing for a new crop. "Behold the days come,” saith the Lord, "that the plowman shall overtake the reaper!” When is that? That is now. That is the day when hardly have you done reaping one harvest before the plowman is getting ready tor another. I known that many declare that Christianity has collapsed, that the Bible is an obsolete book, that the Christian church is on the retreat. I will here and now show that the opposite of that is true. An Arab guide was leading a French . infidel across the desert, and ever and anon the Arab guide would get down In the sand and pray to the Lord. It discussed the French infidel, and after , awhile asthe Arab got up from one of his prayers the infidel said: “How do you know there is any Clod?” and the Arab guide said: “How do I know that a man and a camel passed along our tent last night? I know it by the footprints in the sand. And you want to know how I know whether there is any God? Look at the sunset. Is that the footstep of of man?” And by the same process you and 1 have come to understand that this book ,is the foot- * step of a God. . But now let us see whether the Bible . is a last year’s almanac. Let us see * whether the Church of God is in a Bull Eun retreat, muskets, canteens and haversacks strewing all the way. The great English historian, Sharon Turner, a man of vast learning and of ' .great accuracy, not a’ clergyman, but an attorney, as well as a historian, gives this overwhelming statistic in regard to Christianity and in regard to the number of Christians in the different centuries. In the first century, five hundred thousand Christians; in the second century, two mill ion Christians; in the third century, five million Christians; in the fourth century, ten million Christians; in the fifth cen- , tury, fifteen million Christians; in the sixth century, twenty million (Christians; in the seventh century, twentyfour million Christians; in the eighth century, thirty million Christians; in the ninth century, forty million Christians; in the tenth century, fifty million Christians; in the eleventh century, seventy million Christians; in the twelfth century, eighty million Christians: in the thirteenth century, seventy-five milliou Christians; in the fourteenth century, eighty million Christians; in the fifteenth century, one hundred million Christians; in the sixteenth century, one hundred aud twen-ty-five million Christians; in the seventeenth century, one hundred and fif-ty-five million Christinus; in the eiglit--eenth century, two hundred million Christians—a decadence, as you observe .in only one century, and ihore than made up in the following centuries, while it is the usual computation that there will be, when the record of the nineteenth century is made

up, at least three hundred million •Christians. Poor Christianity! what a pity it has no^friends. How lonesome it must be. Who will take it out of the poor house? Poor Christianity! One • hundred millions in one century. In a few weeks of the 3’ear 18S1 two million five hundred thousand copies of the New Testament distributed. Why, the earth is like an old castle with twenty gates and a park of artillery ready to thunder down every gate. Lay aside all Christendom and see'pow heathendom is being surrounded and houe3’eombed and attacked by this all-conquering Gospel. At the beginning of this century there were onH* one hundred and iMty missionaries; now there are twen-ty-five thousand missionaries and native helpers and evangelists. At the beginning of this centurj’ there were only fift3* thousand lieathern converts; ".mow there are one million seven hundred and fifty thousand converts from , heathendom. There is not a sea coast on the planet but the battery of the 'Gospel is planted and ready to march tin, north, south, east, west. You all know that the chief work of an army as to plant the batteries. It maj^ take many da3rs to plant the batteries, and they may do all their work in ten minutes. These batteries are being planted all along the sea coasts and in all na- • tions. It may take a good while to plant them, and they may do all their work in one day. They will. Nations are to be born in a day. But just eome Sack to Christendom and recognize the iaet that during the last ten years as man3r people have connected themselves with evangelical churches as -connected themselves with the churches in the first fifty years of this century. 80 Christianity is falling back, and the Bible, they say, is becoming an obsolete book. I go into a court, and wherever I find a judge’s beneh or a clerk’s desk, I find a Bible. Upon what book could there be uttered the solemnity of an oath? What book is . apt to be put in the trunk of the young man a6 he leaves for city life? The Jiible. What shall I find in nine put \>f every ten homes in Brooklyn? The Bible. In nine out of every ten honies in Christendom? The Bible. Voltaire 'wrote the prophecy that the Bible in the nineteenth century would become extinct. The century is netrly gone, and as there have been more Bibles 'published in the latter part of the cen

tnry, do yon thick the Bible will become extinct in the next six years. I have to tell you that Jthe room in which Voltaire wrote that prophecy not lonj? ago was crowded from floor to ceiling with Bibles from Switzerland. Suppose .the congress of the United States should pass a law that there should be no more Bibles printed in America, and no more Bibles read. If there are forty million grown people in the United States, there would be | forty million people in, an army to put | down such a law and defend their right to read the Bible. But suppose the congress of the United States should make a law against the reading of the publication of any iotlier book, how I many people would go out in such a I crusade? Could you get forty million j people to go out and risk their lives in defense of Shakespeare’s tragedies or Gladstone’s tracts 0f Macauley’s History’ of England? You know that there are a thousand men who would die in defense of this book. You try to insult my common-sense by telling me the Bible is fading out from the world. It is the most popular book ot the century. How do T know it? I know it just as I know in regard to other books. How many volumes of that book are published? Well, you say, five thou- j sand. How many copies of that book are published? A hundred thousand. Which is the more popular? Why, of course, the one that has one hundred thousand circulation. And if this book has more copies abroad in the world, [ if there are five times as many Bibles j abroad as any other book, does not j that show you that the most popular | book on the planet to-day is the Word of God? j “Oh,” say people, “the church is a collection of hypocrites* and it is losing its power, and . it is fading out from the world.” Is it? A bishop of the Methodist church told me that that denomination averages two new churches every day of the year. There are at least one thousand five hundred new churches built in America every year. Does that look us though the church was fading out. as though it were a defunct institution? Which institution stands nearest the hearts of the people of America to-day?, I do not care in what village or in what city,-or what neighborhood you go. Which institution is it? Is it the postofiice? It it the hotel? Is it the lecture hall? Ah, you know it is not. You know that the institution which stands nearest to the hearts of the American people is the Christian church. If you have ever seen a church burn down .you have seen thousands of people standing aud lbolcing at it—-peo-ple who never go into a church—the tears raining down their cheens. The whole story is told. You may talk about the church being a collection of hypocrites, but when the diphtheria sweeps your children off whom do yon send for? The postmaster? the attorney general? the hotel-keeper? alderman? No, yon send for a minister of this Bible religion. And if you have not a room in vour house for the obsequies, what building do you solicit? Do y’ou say: “Give me th'e finest room in the hotel?” Do 3*ou say: “Give me that theater?” Do 3’ou say*: “Give me a place in that public building, where I can lay my dead for a little while until we say a prayer over it?” No; you say: “Give us the house of God. ” And if there is a song to be sung at the obsequies what do 3-ou want? What does anybody want? The “Marseillaise” hymn? “God Save the Queen?” Our own grand national air?- No. They want the hymn with which they sang their old Christian mother into her last sleep, or they7 want sung the Sabbath-school hymn which their little girl sang the last Sabbath afternoon she was Out before she got that awful sickness, which broke your heart I appeal to your common sense. You know the most endearing institution on earth, the most popular institution on earth today is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The infidels say: “Infidelity shows its successes from the fact that it is everywhere accepted, and it can say what it will.” Why, my friends, infidelity is not half so blatant in our day as it was in the days of our fathers. Do you know that in the days of our fathers there were pronounced infidels in public authority and they could get any political position? Let a man today declare himself antagonistic to the Christian religion, and what city wants him for mayor, what state wants him him for governor, what nation wants him for president or for king? Let a man openly proclaim himself the enemy of our glorious Christianity, and he can not get a majority of bur votes in any state, in any city, in any county, in any ward of America. Do you think that such a scene could be enacted now as was enacted in the days of Robespierre, when a shameless woman was elevated as a goddess, and was carried in a golden chair to a cathedral, where incense was burned to her, and people bowed down before her as to a divine being, she taking the place of the Bible and God Almighty, while in the corridor of that cathedral were enacted such scenes of drunkenness, and debauchery, and obscenity as has never been witnessed. Do you believe such . a thing could possibly occur in Christendom to-day? No, sir. The police, whether of* Paris or New York, would swoop on it. I know infidelity makes a good of talk in our day. It is on the principle that if a man jump overboard from a Cunard steamer he makes more excitement than all of the five hundred people that stay on the decks. But the fact that he jumps overboard does that, stop the ship? Does that wreck the five hundred oassengers? It makes great excitement when a man jumps from the lecturing platform or from the pulpit into infidelity; but does that keep the Bible and the church from carrying their millions of passengers into the skies? * . They say, these men, that science is overcoming religion in our day. They look through the spectacles of the infidel scientists, and they say: “It is impossible thatthls book can be ti-ue; f >

people are finding- it out; the Bible has got to go overboard; science is going to throw it overboard.” Do you believe that the Bible account of the origin of li fe will be overthrown by infidel scientists who have fifty different theories about the origin of life? If they should come up in solid phalanx, all agreeing on one sentiment and one theory, perhaps Christianity might be damaged; but there are not :*> many differences of opinion inside th 3 church as outside the church. People used to say, “there are so many different denominations of Christians -that shows there is nothing in religion.” I have to tell you that all denominations agree on the two or three or four radical doctrines of the Christ ian religion. They are unanimous in regard to Jesus Christ, and they are unanimous in regard to the divinity of the Scriptures. How is it on the other side? All split up—you can not find two of them alike. Oh, it ma.kes me sick to see these literary fops j.roing along with a copy of Darwin under one arm and a case of transfixed grasshoppers and butterflies under the other arm, telling about the “survival of the fittest,” and Huxley’s protoplasm, and the nebular hypothesis. The fact is that some naturalists, just as soon as they find out the difference betwe in the feelers of a wasp and the horns of a beetle, begin to patronize the Almighty; while Agassiz, glorious Agassiz, who never made any pretention to being a Christian, puts both his feet an the doctrine of evolution, and says: “I see that many of the naturalists of our day are adopting facts which do not bear observation.” These men warring with each other; Darwin warring against Lamarche, Wallace warring against Cope, even Herschel denouncing Ferguson. They do not agree about anything. They do not agree on embryology, do not agreee on the degradation of the species. What do they agree on? Herschel writes a whole chapter on the errors of astr< nomv. La Place declares that the men n was not put in the right place. He says that if it had been put four times 'urther from the earth than it is non there would be more harmony in the universe; but Lionville comes up just in time to prove that the moon was put in tlie right places How many colors woven into the light? Seven, says Isaac Newton. Three, says David Brewster. Iiow high is the Aurora Borealis? Two and a half miles, says Lias. One hundred and sixty-eight miles, says Twining. Iiow far is the sun from the earth? Seventy-six million miles, says Humboldt. Ninety million miles, says Henderson One hundred and four million miles, says Mayer. Only a little difference of twenty-eight million miles! All split among themseives—not agreeing on anything. They come and say that the churches of Jesus Christ are leyided on the great doctrines. All united they are, in Jusus Christ, in the divinity of the Scriptures; while they come up and propose to render their verdict, no two of them agree on that verdict. “Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed on a verdict?” asks the court or the clerk of the jury as they came in after having spent the whole night in deliberating. If the jury say: “Yes, we have agreed;-’ the verdict is recorded; but suppose one of the jurymen says: “I think the man was guilty of blunder,” and another says: “I think he was guilty of manslaughter in the second degree,” and ano ther man says: “I think he was guilty of assault and battery with intent to kill,” the judge would say: “Go back to your room and bring in a verdict; agree on something; that is no verdict.”

Yonder is an aged Christian after fifty years' experience of the power of Godliness in his soul. Ask this man whether, when he buried his dead, the religion of Jesus Christ was not a consolation. Ask him if through the long years of his pilgrimage the Lord ever forsook him. Ask him when he looks forward to the future, if he has not a p.*ace and a joy and a consolation the world can not take away. Put his testimony of what he has seen and what he has felt opposite to the testimony of a man who says he has not seen anything on the subject or felt anything- on the sub* ject. Will you take the testimony of people who have not or people who have seen? You say morphia puts one to sleep. You say in time of sickness it is very useful. I deny it. Morpl ia never puts anybody to sleep, it never alleviates pain. You ask me why I say that. I have never tried it, I never took it. I deny that morphia is any soothing to the nerves, or any quiet in times of sickness. I deny that morphia ever put anybody to sleep; but here are twenty persons who say they have all felt the soothing effects of a physician’s prescribing morp line. Whose testimony will you take? Those who took the medicine, or my testimony, I never having taken the medicipe? Here is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, an anodyne for all trouble, the mightiest medicine that ever came down to earth. Here is a man who says: “I don’t believe in it, there is no power in it.’’ Here are ether people who say: “Wo have found out its power and know its soothing influence; it has cured as.” Whose testimony wi 11 you take in regard to this healing medieine? Col. Ethan Allen was a famous infidel in his day. His wife was a very consecrated woman. The motheh instructed the daughter in he truths of Christianity. The daughter sickened and was about to die, aud she said to her father: “Father, shall I take your instruction? or shall I take mother’s instruction? I am going to die now; I must have this matter decided.” That man, who had been loud in his infidelity, said to his dy iug|daughter: “My dear, you had bettert*ke your mother's religion.” My advice is the s tme to you, 0 young man* you had letter take your mother’s’fbligion. You know how it comforted her. You know what she said to you when she was dying. You had better take your i lotkdPs religion. 1 * ■

FARM AND GARDEN. MILLIONS ARE WASTED. get the Country la Too Poor to In»ngS» rate Road Reforms. * “Hard times and the people can’t afford it” This is the sober, serious verdict given by nine-tenths of our legislators when a proposition is made to spend a few dollars of public money for the improvement of its ways. A legislator is not always a statesman. Neither he nor his complaining constituency is likely to realize how large an aggregate is made up by a little “chipping in” all around. Uncle Sam has been making a few figures that may enlighten us on -this subject, and the report of Commissioner Miller of the internal revenue department shows that we spenda heap more money outBide the scope of necessary purchases than we are likely to realize. For example, as a nation we drank 6,000,000,000 glasses of whisky last year, for which we paid the barkeeper abotit 8609,000,000. or 850,000,000 more than all the appropriations of congress for government expenses. Besides this, we drank last year nearly 32,000,000 barrels of beer, or, to be a little more exact, 12,785,109,200 glasses, which represents an expenditure for this species of

CAUGHT 1>* THE MUD. An. everyday experience anywhere in the United States.] Teutqnic hilarity of over $617,000,000, which means an average of $10 for each man, woman and child in the whole population. Then we spent last year nearly $254,000,000 for cigars and cheroots, and over $22,000,000 for cigarettes! Of chewing and smoking tobacco we consumed about 280,000,000 pounds, for which we paid $139,66:3,030. Commenting on these figures, the Atlanta Constitution says: “Altogether, not taking stock of the money w'e expend for champagne, whose sparkling bubbles burst about the brimming goblet, and the other imported and native wines which drive away carking care, the people of the United States spend annually for drink and tobacco the almost incomprehensible sum of $1,641,903,460. “The mind is incapable of grasping the largeness of the total, but when it is remembered that this is more than the circulating rnediu m of the United States, that is, $27 per head more than the per capita circulation; that it proves that the head of every family, supposing he handles the purse strings, pays out $195 annually for drink and tobacco, and that every dollar in the United States goes each year over the bar or the counter of some tobacconist, some Idea of its magnitude can be obtained.” It is, of course, possible that there exists some subtle and undiscovered reason why the people should not take on some slight spirit of thrift and go about the improvement of the vilest roads and streets that ever cursed an intelligent republic, but whatever that reason may be, it certainly lias no foundation in the oft-repeated complaint “hard times and the people can ’t afford it”

RELIABLE TESTIMONY. Wide Tires Improve Public Roads and Save the Horsep. A correspondent for the Breeders’ Gazette (rives his observation and experience in regard to wide tires as follows: 1 wish to give my observation and experience. I have a lot of teams to look after, and we have on the farm but two narrow-tired wagons. In the spring of 1891, when hauling manure, the wagon with three-inch tires and the one with one and one-half inch both went to the* field together, the loads being equal. When in the field the broad-tired drove in and unloaded; the narrow stuck. Four horses were put to it to get it to a place to unload. The condition of the field was the same; broad tires on top of the ground, narrow tires in ground about eight inches. In addition to Winwood farm, Mr. Sunman also owns the largest sawmill plant in southeastern Indiana, and now his foreman there uses wide tires on all wagons, none being less than four and one-half inches. The common dirt roads (clay) have no stone on them in this country, and roads that are used by common farmers are cut to pieces—all rat and mud—while Che roads used by the log wagons are solid and fit to drive over at all times. In the spring of 1892, we had a couple of mule teams to help plow a wet piece of ground. I was in the field when they struck it; the mules—which weighed near to nine hundred and fifty pounds each—mired to their knees and were unhitched to get them out. Then I ordered one of our heavy draft teams to try to plow where mules could, not, and they completed the job in a good manner. They weighed 1,790 and 1,840 each. From ray observation and actual experience, having under my charge more horses and wagons than three or four farmers in this section of Indiana, I am led to believe that the wide tire is the road maker and the narrow tire the road breaker and horse killer. Where I cannot go with a wagon with tires four and one-half inches wide and a team of Clydes weighing from 1,500 to 1,800 pounds each, no man with narrow tires dare go with the same load, no difference What his team may be. Give us wide tires and compel farmers to use them and we will have better roads than we ever had and save ogr horses also.

—An investigation by Dr. Richter, of Hamburg1. Germany, shows that most of the fires that occur in laundries where benzine is used to wash clothes are due to electric sparks caused by friction of the benzine and the clothing as the latter is withdrawn from the bath. In Hamburg alone fifteen out of twenty-one fires were due to this cause. Experiments showed that woolen materials became positively electrK tied and the benzine negatively, and that the difference of electrical tension causes a discharge strong enough to give a painful shock, producing sparks two inches long in some instances and lighting up the room in which the experiments wereIbade. It is suggested that such fires may be prevented bv charging the air in the room with steam. _j_ —“I had let my wateh run down,” said a citizen, “and I took it to the jeweller to get it set; it had been keeping practically perfect, time, to my great satisfaction, and1 I told the jeweller so and t^iat it needed no regulating. He said, however, that probably it * would hiave to be regulated again; that when a watch wa§ permitted to run doiivn it changed the tension; that sometimes^* watch, started up, would run as well as before, but that mqre likely it would need to be readjusted.” ® —A steam engine was made perfectly automatic ,byi a lazy boy who was employed to open and close the valves. Desiring to play'iinstead of to work he tied a string fron| one part of the machine to another, thus making the engine itself attend to its own business. He was never heard of again and even his name is unknown, but a perfect engine was thq outcome of his laziness. —A man never knows that a woman has any old clothes until he has married her.—Texas Siftings. —The Egyptians, 2000 years before Christ, had hoes made of bone, with wooden handles. 4

Mr. J. £. Douglasa Hallstead.Pa. Untold Misery Dyspepsia and Catarrh of the Stomach Cured. “C. I. Hood & Co., Lowell, Hess.: “Gentlemen—I was troubled with dyspepsia and catarrh of the stomach for over a year. I could not eat the least thin* without Much Untold Misery. I took medicine of different doctors butreceiveo only slight benefit. I began taking Hood's Sarsaparilla last winter and from the second day I noticed an improvement. My stomach Hood’ssP>Cures did not sour nor my food rise nor distress me. I have taken four bottles up to this time and have gained several pounds in flesh. My friends all speak about My Improved Looks and say they never saw me looking so welL When they ask what I am taking, my reply to ill is. Hood's Sarsaparilla.” Johx R. Douglass, of the Arm of Douglass & Belknap, grocer ies and provisions, HaHstead, Pennsylvania. Hood’s Pills act easily, yet promptlyand efficiently, on the liver and bowels. 23c. WE CREDIT YOU and SHIP TOD Goods on 33 days’ time. If you want . to make £i every da v forthe next 12 mnntbs write us at one**. Address SOtTHWtSIKK.Y l’l'BUSUISS HOl'SK, SASUYUXE, TiS-V.

\ J After reading the following letters can any one longer doubt that a trustworthy remedy for that terribly fatal malady, consumption, has at last been found ? If these letters had been written by your best known and most esteemed neighbors they could be no more worthy of your confidence than they now are, coming, as they do, from well known, intelligent and trustworthy citizens, who, in their several neighborhoods, enjoy the fullest confidence and respect of all who know them. K C. McLin, Esq., of Kempsville,Princess Anne Co., Va., whose portrait heads this article, writes : “ When I commenced taking Dr. Pierce’s Golden Medical Discovery I was very low with a cough and at times Sit up much blood. I was not able to do e least work, but most of the time was in bed. I was all run-down, very weak, my head was dizzy and I was extremely despondent. The first bottle I took did not seem to do me much good, but I had faith in it and continued using it until I bad taken fifteen bottles and now I do not look nor feel like the same man I was one year ago. People are astonished and say, ‘well, last year this time I would not have thought that you would be living now.’ I can thankfully say I am entirely cured of a disease which, but for year wonderful ‘Discovery’ would have resulted in my death.” Even when the predisposition to consumption is inherited, it maybe cured, as verified by the following from a most truthful and much respected Canadian lady, Mrs. Thomas Vansicklin, of Brighton, Onfc. She writes r “ I have long felt it m3* duty to acknowledge to you what Dr. Pierce’s Golden Medical Discovery and his ‘Pleasant Pellets’ have done for me. They almost raised me from the grave. I had tiu*ee brothers and one sister die of consumption and I was speedily following after them. I had severe cough, pain, copious expectoration and other alarming symptoms^ and my friends all thought I had but a ifew months to live. At that time I was persuaded to try the ‘Golden Medical Discovery’ and the first bottle acted like magic. Of course, I continued on with the medicine and as a result I gained rapidly in strength. My friends were aston

ished. When I commenced the use of jour medicines, six years ago, I weighed but 120 pounds and was sinking rapidly. I now weigh 135, and my health continues perfect.” “Golden Medical Discovery” cures consumption (which is scrofula of the lungs), by its wonderful blood-purifying, invigorating and nutritive properties. For weak lungs, spitting of blood, shortness of breath, nasal ^tarrh, bronchitis, severe coughs, asthma| and kindred affections, it is a sovereign remedy. While it promptly cures the severest coughs, it strengthens the system and purifies the blood. “Golden Medical Discovery” does not make fat people more corpulent, but for thin, pale, puny children, as well as for adults reduced m flesh, from any cause, it is the greatest flesh-builder known to medical science. Nasty cod liver oil and its “ emulsions,” are not to be compared with it in efficacy. It rapidly builds up the system, and increases the solid Jlesh and weight of those reduced beloy the usual standard of health by “ wasting diseases,” To brace up the entire system after the grip, pneumonia, fevers, and other prostrating acute diseases ; to build up needed flesh and strength, and to restore health and vigor when you feel “ run-down ” and “ used-up ” the best thing in the world is Dr. Pierce's Golden Medical Discovery. It promotes ail the bodily functions, rouses every organ into healthful action, purifies and enriches the blood, and through it cleanses, repairs, and invigorates the entire system. A Treatise on Consumption, giving numerous testimonials with phototype, or half-tone, portraits of those cured, numerous references, containing successful Home Treatment few chronic nasal catarrh, bronchitis, asthma, and kindred diseases, will be mailed by the World’s Dispensary Medical Association of Buffalo, N. Y., on receipt of six ceut3 in stamps, to. pay postage. Or The People’s Common Sense Medical Adviser, 1,000 pages, 300 illustrations, mailed for $1.50.

m T We Offer You a Rems V IJ |1| 0* ^■“■Which Insures Safety ' *■ Life of Mother and Chi Mothers—^ “Mothers’ Friend Robs Confinement of Its Pain, Horror and Risk. ‘‘After using one bottle of «Mothers’ Friend,’ I suffered but little pain, and did riot experience that weakness afterward usual in such cases.—Mrs. Annie Gage, Baxter Springs, Kas. Sent by express, charges prepaid, on receipt of price, $1.50 per bottle. Sold by all Druggists. Book to Mothers mailed free. BRA0F1ELD REGULATOR CO., AM, 6a.