Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1893 — RE-ENFORCEMENT. [ARTICLE]

RE-ENFORCEMENT .

The Great Need of Doubting Christians. The Conflict Between Science and the Seeming: Discrepancies of the Scriptures—Dr. Tannage** Sermon. In his sermon at the Brooklyn Tabernacle, Sunday forenoon, the Rev. Dr. DeWitt Talmage preached to a vast audience on the subject of “Re-enforcement,” the text being kvike svii; ft- increase our faith.” :IjS€nt to the Holy Land for the - one purpose of having my faith strengthened and that was the result which came of it. In all our journeying, In all our reading,-in all our associations, in all our plans, augmentation, rather than the depletion of our faith, should be our chief defare. It is easy enough to have our faith destroyed. I can give you a recipe for its obliteration. Read infidel books, have long and frequent conversations with skeptics, attend the lectures of those antagonistic to religion, give full swing to some bad habit and your faith will be so completely gone that you will laugh at the idea that you ever had any. If you want to ruin your faith you can (Ip it yore than you can do any thing else. But my wish, and the wish of most qf you, is the prayer expressed by the disciples to Jesus Christ in the words of my text, ‘’Lord, increase our faith.” The first mode of accomplishing this is to. study the bible itself. I do not believe there is an infidel now alive who has read the bible through. But as so important a document needs to be read at least twice through in order that it may be thoroughly understood, and read in course, I now offer SIOO reward to any infidel who has read the bible through twice and read it in course. But I cannot take such a man’s own word for it, for there is no foundation'for integrity except the bible, and the man who rejects the soui’ee of truth, how can I accept his truthfulness? So I must have another witness in, the case, before I give the reward. I must have the testimony of some one who has seen him read it through twice. Infidels fish in this bible for incoherencies and contradictions and absurdities, and if you find their bible you will see interlineations in the book of Jonah and some of the chapters of that unfortunate prophet nearly worn out by much use and some parts of II Samuel or I Kings you will find dim with fingermarks, but the pages which contain the ten commandments, and the psalms of David, and the sermon on the mount, and the book of John, the evangelist, will not have a single lead pencil stroke on the margin nor any fingermarks showing frequent perusal. But suppose now all the best spirits brail ages were assembled to decide the fate of the Bible, the last will and testament of our Heavenly Father. and those memoirs of our Lord Jesus, what would be the verdict? Shall they burn, or shall they live? The unanimous verdict of ail is, “let them live, though all else burn.” Then put together on the other hand all the debauchees and profligates and assassins of the ages and their unanimous verdict concerning the Bible would bo, “Let it burn.” Mind you, I do not sav that all infidels are immdral, but I do sav that all the scapegraces and scoundrels of the universe agree with them about the Bible. Let me vote with those who believe in the holy scripture. Men believe other things with half the evidence required to believe the Bible. The distinguished Abner Kneeland rejected the scriptures and then put all his money into an enterprise for the recovery of that hocus pocus, “Capt. Kidd’s treasures.” Kneeland's faith for so doing being founded on a man’s statement that he could tell where those treasures were buried from the looks of a glass of water dipped from the Hudson river. The internal evidence of the authenticity of the scriptures is so exact and so vivid that no man honest and sane can thoroughly and continuously and prayerfully read them without entering their discipleship. Again our belief is reinforced by archaeological exploration. We must confess that good men at one time were afraid of the geologist's hammer and chemist’s crucible and archuealogist’s investigation, but now intelligent Christians are receiving and expecting nothing but confirmation from all such sources. What supports the Palestine exploration society? Contributions from the churches and Christian benefactors. I saw the marks of the shovels of that exploring society amid the ruins of Jericho and all up and down from the Dead Sea to Caesarea Philippi. “Dig away.” says the church of God, “and the deeper you dig the better I like it.” The discovered monuments of Egypt have Chiseled on them the story of the sufferings of the Israelites in Egyptian bondage, as we find" it in the Bible; there, in imperishable stone, representations of the slave, of the whips .and the taskmasters who compelled the making of bricks without straw. Exhumed Nineveh and Babylon, with their dusty lips, declare the Bible Napoleon’s soldiers in the Egyptian campaign pried yj> a stone, which you may find iii the British museum; a stone. retamlttr vit, ; presenting perhaps two-feet of. lettered surface. It contains words in three languages. That stone was the key

that unlocked the meaning of all tht hieroglyphics of tombs and obelisks and tells us over and over again the same events which Moses recorded. The sulphurous graves of Sodom and Oomorrah have been identified. The remains of the tower of Babel have been found/ Assyrian documents lifted frgm the sand and Behisfum inscription, hundreds of feet high on the ropk, ecijd ftnd re-echo the t ruth of bibio history. The signs of the time indicate that aljnosi every fact of the toible from lid to Ru \vilT find its corroboration in ancient city disentombed, or ancient wall cleared from the dust of ages, or' ancient document unrolled by archtcolo^ist. Sy ny ts it that the bible, made up of the writing of at least thirty authors, has kept together for a long line of centuries when the natural tendency would” have' been to flv apart like loose sheets of paper when a gust of wind blows upon them? It is because God stuck them together and keeps them together. But for that Joshua would have wandered off in one direct ion,, and Paul into another, and Ezekiel into another, ,and Luke into another, and Habakuk into another, and the thirty-nine authors into thirty-nine directions. Put the writings of Shakspeare and Tennyson ancf Longfellow', or any part of the together? How long would they stay-togetherbook bindery could-keepuieihtogether. But the cannon of scriptures is loaded how with the same ammunition with which prophet and apostle loaded it. Bring me all the Bibles of the earth into one pile and blind; fold me so that I cau not tell the difference between day and night, and put into my hand any one of all that Alpine mountain of sacred books, and put my fingers on the last page of Genesis, and let me know it, and I can tell you what is on the next page—namely, the first chapter of Exodus, or while thus blindfolded, put my finger on the last chapter of Matthew, and let me know it, and I will tell. you what is on the next page—namely, the first chapter of Mark. In the pile of 500,000,000 Bibles there will beTio exception. But I come to the height of rfiy subject when I say the way to reinforce our faith is to pray for it. So the disciples in my text got their abounding faith. ‘‘Lord, increase our faith.” Some one suggests, “Do you really think that prayer amounts to anything?” I might as well ask you is there a line of telegraph poles from New York to Washington? Is there a line of telegraph wires from Manchester to London, from Cologne to Berlin? All people who have sent and received messages on these lines know of their existence. So there are millions of souls who have been in constant communication with the capital of the universe, with the throne of the Almighty, with the great God himself, for years and years and years. There not been a day when supplications did not flash up and blessings did not flash down. Will some ignoramus who has never received a telegram or sent one come and tell us that there is no such thing as telegraphic communication? Will some who has never offered a prayer that was heard and answered come and tell us that there is nothing in prayer? It may not occur as we expect it, but as sure as an honest prayer goes up a merciful answer will come down. Oh, put it *in every prayer you ever make between your next breath and your last gasp, “Lord, increase our faith” —faith in Christ as our personal ransom from present grief and eternal catastrophe; faith in the xmanipotent Holy Ghost: faith in the BiblJT the truest volume ever dictated br written or printed or read; faith in adverse providences, harmonized for our best welfare; faith in a judgment day that will set all things right which have Tor ages been wrong.