Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 March 1894 — CONQUEST TO CONQUEST [ARTICLE]

CONQUEST TO CONQUEST

“All Hail the Power of Jesus' ——. Name.” ■-I From Conquest to Conquest the Word of God Proceeds—Dr. Talmage’s Sermon. Dr. Talmage, having returned from his Southern tour, preached at the Brooklyn Tabernacle last Sunday. Subject, “From Conquest to Conquest,” the text being taken from Amos ix, 13, “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper. ” 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 shoulders, 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 this day when hardly havd you done reaping one harvest before the plowman is getting ready for another. 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 God. It distrusted the infidel, and after awhile as the Arab got up from one of his prayers the infidel said: “How do -you know there is any God?” And -the Arab guide said: “How do I know- that a man and a camel passgd 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 arthat sunset. Is that the footstep of man?” And by the same process you and I have come to understand that this book is the footstep 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 Run retreat, muskets, canteens and haversacks strewing all the way. The great English historian, Sharon Turner, a man of vast learning ancLoLgreat accuracy, not a clergyman. but an attorney as well us, a historian, gives this overwhelming statistic in regard to 'Christianity and in regard to the , number, of Christians in the -differ-, ep t cen to rips,:, I n the. first..century, 500,000 Christians; in the sebdnd century,’ 2,000,000 ChristihnS; iri the third century, '5,000,000 Christians; .in the,,: fo.u.rth, ypntury,;,. 10,000,000 Christians: in the fifth, century, 115,- , 100,000 ChtistianSy 'id thii Sikth .dgn,- _ tury,- 20(000, W OtifiiStians! fin j'the , jpyen th, ppp^qr.y,. 24,000,0Q(h' Cljijisin the'eighth century, 30,000,'-' ’ 900 ' Chris'tiah's; Yri thd' fiiirtH centurypGODOOjOOft jGhristidnspln (she. ; teqth, cqntuyy,fiO,ooo, poll Ch rip tian s; ’ tn the, eleventh century.l,o,ooo,ooo in ;i thb*''tW'effth k cehtu| i y,' ' 30,000,000 Christians; inmthb tHir-’ tqynth . -754100,000 Cfeiiism tiar.s: in the .fourteenth centurv r <OOO,OOOO -C'frris'tiahs;' i-fi' ! Hie fifteenth Sdentucy, • OIIJO, 000,0001 'ChrisJaaps# ..sixteenth - centqry; Christians: in thqseventdeiith ” Wttiry. 1 155'.(100.000 ’ ChtWtiarrs;in dhe decade; las you .opseryeph ope century and more thnn inhde'llp irf the 'following con’tiufies,'whilb it is the' ilsual .tatibn that there will. be when thp. record,of ,4he ; nineteenth penury is made up, at ledst dOOIOOOJIOO.Chris’-’ tians'

Poor Christianity!. What a pity i,t has ,up ; friends.l How lonesome:it must be!' Who will take i| out of. the poor hbusd? 1 Pbor Christianity! 1 Three hundred millions in'one century. In a. fe-w t weekg of .1881 1 12,qQ0, - ; DOO' copies of the Ntew 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 she how heathendom iS-beingsurtonndcd and honeypombpd -and attacked by the all? .conquering gospel. At the begijv. hmgbf this 'century 'there were only 150 misbfortaries. Now there; are 25-,poo.tnissdouaries .and native Helpers and evangelists. .At the. beginning of this century there .were paly SO.WV Hehth&rt'' converts. Now there are 1,7»U,UM1 cohver ts,f .-.am .heatliendom..; .: mi . .. There .is pot a seacoast on," the planet bift a ! battery ot" the gospel is • planted and' steady' to march l on v nortip south, east, west.; You all. know that the chief work of an army is to plant the batteries. It may take many days to plant the batteries, and they may do all their work in ten minutes. These batteries are being planted all along the seacoasts and in all nations. It may take a good while to filant them, and they> may do all their work in one day. They will. Nations are to be born in a day. But just cdpie back to Christendom and recognize the fact that during the last ten years as many people have connected themselves with evangelical churches as connected themselves with the churches in the first fifty years of this century. So 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 bench or a clerk’s desk I find a Bible. Upon what book could there be uttered the solemnity of an cath? What book is apt to be put in the trunk of the young man as he leaves for city life? The Bible. What shall I find in nine out of every ten homes in Christendom?’ The Bible. You know that there- a thousand men would die in defense of this book where .there is not more than one map; who woqid die ip. defense of any other 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 of the century. How do I know it? I knowitjuSt as I know in regard to other books. How many volumes of that book are published? Well, you say, 5,000. How many copies of that book are published? A hundred thousand. Which is the more popular? Why, of course the one that has 100,000 circulation. And if this book has more copies abroad in the world, if there are five times as many Bibles abroad as any other book, does not that show you that the most popular book on the planet to-day is the word of God? The infidel says, ‘ ‘lnfidelity shows its successes from the fact that it is everywhere accepted, and it can say what it will.” Why, my frierids, 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 ou r lathers there Were prb.nounced.infidels in public authority, and they could get any political por sition? Let a man openly declare himself antagonistic to the Christian religion, and what city wants him for mayor, whafi State wants him for Governor, what nation wantshim for President or King? Let a man openly proclaim himself the enemy of onr.glorious Christianity, and he can not get a majority of votes in any State, in any city, in any county, in any ward of America. People used to say: “There are so many different denominations of Christians. That shows tnere is nothing in religion.” I have to tell you that all denominations agree on the two or three or four radical doctrines of the Christian 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 makes me sick tp see these literary fops going along with a copy of Darwin under one arm and a case of transfixed grasshoppers and butterflies under ihe other arm, telling about the “survival of the fittest” and Huxley’s protoplasm and the nebular hypothesis! They do not agree about anything. They do - not agree on embryology; do not agree on the gradation jof thespecies-. What do they agree on? Herschel writes a whole chapter on the errors of astronomy. La Place declares that the moon .was not put in the fight place. He says t’hat if it had been, put four times fqrthei* from the earth than it is now there would.be more .harmony in the uni-, verse, but. LionvULe comes up j' .time tq prove that.the mqon was.puti in the right place. .... ~M , ; ’ How many colors woven info the light? ( ‘ Sbven, “says Isaac NeWtoh? Three, says Dayid Brewster. : How high is the aurora and a'fial'f' miles,, ",sayo, Aun'dred’arid ‘sixty'-eignt’j mjLas| bays l ■Twining.- ' Howfar ls' thA sun; freimv thfiiearth?, Sewntysslx million miles,. rsays u 1 ’miles; says Humboldt' Ninety millionl -'miles,' says' 'Hbndcrsbn.’ | fp.qr million milesj says Mayer.’ Only a little difference br 28 5 000,000-'mile^“ r ' ‘ >o Then you .notice a more significq.nl,; fact, if you havg .tailed with,, people on the subject,' thaj; thejr are getting dissatisfied with pnildsopnl audtscil ep.ee.as. a.mat ter of .comfdrt: ’ Thqy .say jt do.es, npt amount to anything when.you dead child in the

house. ’ They tell you; whep; they: were sick and the door of. the future SCemed ' opening the Ohly comfort, -they could. ,find was in the gospel! People are having demonstrated all over the land that science' afid pbil-! .osophy caninot solace, -the .trouble thq world, and.they wartt some btber religion, and they are. taking Christianity; the only sympathetic, religion that'ever came into the world. • Talk about ' the - exact' sciences; ■ there is-'only one- exact'science. It is not mathematics. ■ Taytor’b logarithms. have many, imperfections. .The on.ly,exact .science is Christianity—the only thing w.hjch yqu can appropriately write, \‘Qupd erat, 'demonstrandum."” You tell me that two arid i two make four. Ido nfit dispute it, but it is not so plain that two and two’make, lour as 'that' "the Lord God "Almighty made 'this World! and for man the sinner, ire'sent his only -begotten son' to die. ■ Here are some- men who isfiy they' have never seen Christ-browned in .tire- heart, and they, do not believe jt is ever done. There/js a group of men who say they have never heard the voice of Christ. They have never heard the voice of God. They do not believe it ever transpired or ever was heard—that anything like it ever occurred. I point to twenty, one hundred thousand or one million people who say: Christ was crowned in our heart’s affections. We have seen Him and felt Him in our soul, and we have heard His voice. We have heard it in storm and darkhess. We have heard it again and again.” Whose testimony will you take? These men who say they have not heard the voice of Christ, have not seen the coronation, or will you take the thousands and millions of Christians. who testify of what they saW with their own eyes and heard with their own cars. Yonder is an aged Christian after fifty years’ experience of the power of godliness in his soul. Ask this man whether when ho 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 thq, future if he has not a peace, and a joy, and a consolation the world cdnnpt. take away. £u,t his testimony of what he ' has seen and what ne nds felt oppo-

sita the testimony of a man who says he has not seen anything on the subject or felt anything on the subject] Will you take the testimony of people who have not seen or people who -have seen? - - • I feel that I have convinced every man in this house that it ‘is utter folly to take the testimony of those who have never tried the gospel of Jesus Christ in their own heart and life. We have tens of thousands of witnesses. I you are ready to take their testimony. Young man, do not be ashamed to be a friend of the Bible. Do not put your thumb in your vest, as young men sometimes do, and swagger about talking of the glorious light of the nineteenth century, and of there being no need of a Bible. They have the light of nature in India and China and in all the dark places on earth. Did you ever hear that the light of nature gave them comfort for their trouble? They have lancets to cut and juggernauts to crush,-but no comfort Ah, mv friends, you had better stop your skepticism. Suppose you are puffin this, crisis: Oh, father, your child is dying! What are you going to say to her?