CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library BT1210 .N42 1841 Cause and cure of infidelity : including oiin 3 1924 029 322 991 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029322991 THE CAUSE AND CURE or INFIDELITY; I. NOTICE OF THE A.UTHOR'S UNBELIEI Ain> THE MEANS OF HIS RESCUE. BY EKV. DAVID NELSON, M. D BECOKD nBRBOTYPE EI>tTiq|I) COHRSCTED BT TBB AVTHOB. AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, ISO NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK. Entered, according to Act of Congrem, in the year 1841, by Datid ITslsoh, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of die Southern Districtof Nsw Yokk Right of pabllihlns trsnalerrcd tu the An-erlcfto Tiact Bodety. The President of Centre College, Kentucky, has well said m reference to this work, that " after all the learned, eloquent, and argumentative treatises which have been published, on diiTerent branches of the. Christian evidences, something was still needed— something adapted to the peculiar tastes and condition of our commvmity," especially to many vigorous minds of the West, where the author's life has been chiefly spent, "to excite curi- osity, awaken attention, and stimulate inquiry — something which should bring down abstruse argument to the apprehension of men in general, and present striking facts to arrest the attention of the indifferent and the sceptical. Facts drawn from history, science, and observation,, are here placed in a strong and often startling light, and there is an earnestness, a personality, a warm lifeblood of reality running through the whole, which gives to the written argument much of the interest and power of an oral address." CONTENTS. CHAPTEB I. CAUSE OF INFIDELITY, 13 CHAPTER II. Han a fallen being : hatred of God ; examples ; loving datkness, 14 CHAPTEB III. A trifling falsehood influences human belief against the Bible mors than gigantic truth in favor of it : Etna and Vesuvius ; strata of lava ; Chinese records of antiquity, . 19 CHAPTEB IV. Facts such as unbelievers do not learn, 26 CHAPTEB V. Hen receive truth slowly, but error promptly: conversation with > statesman, ... 29 CHAPTEB VI. Scofiers shall come, ..... . ... ... 31 CHAPTEB VII. Scofiers are unacquainted vrith the facts of the Bible : predictions in the epistles to the seven churches in Asia, 34 CHAPTEB VIII. The subject continued: conversation with a senator; predictions of Babylon, 39 CHAPTEB IX. The subject continued : Tyre, 47 6 CONTENTS CHAPTER X. The subject continued : Damascus ; important inc^uiries ; the plough- man, 49 CHAPTEE XI. T)i.e great and the learned do not acquaint themselves with Bible facts : prophecies of Egypt, ...OS CHAPTER XII. The subject continued: prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem, 59 CHAPTER XIII. Scoffers of the last days are wilfully ignorant of Bible language: an aged Xentuckian 68 CHAPTER XIV. The subject continued : prediction of Nineveh, 71 CHAPTER XV. The subject continued : the volcano . 73 CHAPTER XVI. The subject continued : the lodge, 7S CHAPTER XVII. Men have loved darkness rather than light: conversation between a member of Congress and a physician 76 CHAPTER XVIII. The subject continued : the resurrection, 80 CHAPTER XIX The subject continued : testimony of Pagan writers 88 CHAPTER XX Inconsistency of uubelievers : testimony overlooked; Acts of Pilate, 93 CHAPTER XXI. Unceasing cause of Infidelity in its various forms : testimony of Cel. 8U8, . ■ ... 95 CHAPTER XXII. The subject continued, 100 CONTBNTS. 7 CHAPTER XXIII, Inconsistency and credulity of the rejecters of the gospel : the aged school-teacher; pagan testimony to the character and number ol the early Christians; their patience under suffering; lyere they either deceived or deceivers ? 103 CHAPTER XXIV. Mer. iflrho cast away the Bible are credulous in the extreme : the sceptical moralist ; influence of Christianity upon morals, . 1 14 CHAPTER XXV. lien alopt false opinions without inquiry : a citizen of New York, 121 CHAPTER XXVI. CURE Of INFIDELITY, 123 CHAPTER XXVIl. A remedy proposed : honest and thorough investigation, . . 135 CHAPTER XXVIII. An example: a young man in Kentucky, .128 CHAPTER XXIX. A second example : a gentleman of the bar, 135 CHAPTER XXX. Aversion to commentaries ■ we may avail ourselves of the iacts they record; predictions of Rome, . 133 CHAPTER XXXI. Case of an infidel who began to read : a merchant of Tennessee, 151 CHAPTER XXXII. Use of commentaries'; prophecy of the locusts, . . 157 CHAPTER XXXIII. Value of historical knowledge : a merchant of Kentucky ; the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream ; a history of the world, . . 166 CHAPTER XXXIV. The subject continued : the stone out out without hands, . . 170 CHAPTER XXXV. All exarcple an educated young gentleman 177 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTEB, XXXVI. Works «ji the evidences of Christianity recommended, . 179 CHAPTEB XXXVII. Testimony resisted : concluding remarks on the remedy proposed ; a wealthy agriculturist of the West, ... . . 182 CHAPTEB XXXVIII A further remedy : the all-powerful ; evidence of experience, 188 CHAPTEB XXXIX. Illustrations : a man of middle age • . . 192 CHAPTEB XL. Illustrations : a professor of religion, 196 CHAPTEB XLI, Illustrations : family worship 193 CHAPTEB XLII. rUuatrations : divine influence ; power of prayer, 202 CHAPTEB XLIII The lemedy denied to none, ... 206 CHAPTEB XLIV Atheism, . 214 CHAPTEB XLV. The subject continued : the doctrine of chance ; the atmosphere ; effects of electricity ; heat and cold ; evaporation ; density of the soil, wa- ter, air, etc. ; iron ; proofs of design ; the Andes : the Nile ; Green- land ; the solar system ; the moon ; questions ; inquiries answered ; farewell, . '. . . . 316 CHAPTEB XLVI THE ATJTHOB'S UNBELIEF AND MEANS OF BESCUE : mode of descent, , . , 251 CHAPTEB XLVII. False statements . glass, , 2S4 CHAPTEB XLVIII. False statements : eunuchs . 256 C0NIENT8. 9 CHAPTER XLIX. Beeming truth, but actual falsehood, . 309 CHAPTER L. Ihe subject 3ontin-ied, 363 CHAPTER LI, Ihe subject coalinued : sneers of infidels S6S CHAPTER LII. Examples of apparent truth but actual falsehood in infidols ; Vohiey's Ruins, 270 CHAPTER LIII. Further examples : claims of various religions, 279 CHAPTER LIV. The subject continued : counterfeits, 283 CHAPTER LV. Further discoreries : a New Euglander in Illinois ; a few signs m religion, 287 CHAPTER LVI. Further inquiry: the Age of Reason; Scott's Commentary; further investigation, 293 CHAPTER LVII. The influence of religious belief at the time of death : observations on man's departure, 299 CHAPTER LVIII. The dying compared with those who think themselves dying, . 300 CHAPTER LIX. The subject continued : a revolutionary officer, 308 CHAPTER LX. The subject continued : dying fancies, 31 1 CHAPTER LXI. Disposition of unbelievers to credit accusations against Christians ; prejudices against the Jews; character of the Mosaic law D14 1* 10 CONTENTS. CHAPTEJl LXII. lufiiisnce of an early acquaintance with the Bible : what induced the people to receive the law of Moses; fidelity imd humility of the writers, 327 CHAPTER LXIII. Commemorative institutions • fourth of July, . . . 339 CHAPTER LXIV. Evidence of prophecy : fifty-third of Isaiah, ...... 344 CHAPTER LXV. Evidence of prophecy : Baniel's seventy weeks, .... 349 CHAPTER LXVI. Evidence of prophecy : Daniel's four beasts ; an outline of history, 356 CHAPTER LXVII. Prevalent ignorance of the Bible : examples ; predictions of Egypt and Syria, . 377 CHAPTER LXVin. The last resort: appeal to reason; the goodness of God; doctrines inquired after, 384 CHAPTER LXIX. The last resort : testimony of enemies, . . 389 CHAPTER LXX. Concluding summary, 391 Brief sketch of the author's life, ....... , 895 PREFACE. The following work is not a compilation of the evideuces of Clmstiani'y. It was written with the hope of exciting those who need suih research, to read many authors on that subject. A book which does not contain a summary of arguments against infidelity, may provoke an appetite to read volumes where those arguments are found. The evidences of Christianity are not fully contained in any half-score of volumes now existing. The most of those who have written, have aimed at nothing more than an abridgment of this subject, because of its unusual extent. We may present reasons for investigation, and we may persuade others to read, in a shorter space than that which is required to contain a full array of facts in support of revelation. The following pages were written with the design of urging the multitude to become informed concerning the book of books, the Bible. The call for such an attempt — the necessity for it at the present time — we think fairly inferrible from the following facts. First fact. It is true, that in almost every congregation there are some more or less imbued with infidelity, who do not avow it. They are not confirmed sceptics; but Satan's grand effort to prevent their commencing the work of repentance, or seeking the pardon of sin, is made by suggesting unbelieving doubts. The minister who has been long hoping and looking with unceasing anxiety for their conversion to God, never was thus harassed himself, and does not dream of their real condition, Again, there are countless thousands of the youthful and the nmnformed, who are thus kept inactive. Temptations of unbe- lief cripple or prevent their exertions. Books on this subject are found, for the most part, only in ministers' libraries, and they are scarce there ; and, moreover, those found there are not cal- culated altogether to fit the cases we are now noticing. Those authors aim at cavils the most plausible 3nly, and strike at infi- del objections most worthy of answer ; whereas the youth thus injured are very often influenced by arguments pfterile in the extreme, and so feeble that the better informed would never be- Ucve they could be used. 12 PREFACE. Second fact. The adversary of souls would not liare young professors and possessors of religion grow in grace. To prevent it, he injects into their minds cold, unbelieving cavils, ■which embarrass and retard their march. They read on the subject authors that arc pjwerful and unanswerable in the truths they present ; but they have no effect on the young inquirers, for they are not sufficiently simplified and extended. They are invincible in the view of those who are familiar with chronology and his- tory, but they suit the educated alone. It has been long true with the author of the following pages, that after trying to speak on the subject, he has been addressed by young persons, who have told him that they rejoiced he had noticed a certain infidel quibble — ^that it had long harassed them — ^that they knew it was weak and puerile, but had still been annoyed without having heard the proper answer given. Third fact. Infidelity is now growing and spreading to an extent the blindness of the church does not suspect : pocket vol- umes of false statements, infidel manuals, painted perversions of history, etc., are spreading profusely; while opposite publica- tions are growing more rare. There are many thousands more in our land now growing up in the darkest unbelief, than is known or suspected by any except those who once themselves fought in that division of Satan's army. Fourth fact. Those who read on this subject in the church are few, and Christians are, to a great extent, but poorly quali- fied to instruct, or to answer the objections of sceptics against their holy religion. L has a bad influence on the youthful spectator who notices a leader in society, " a grey-headed professor," unable to answer the cavil of an uninformed mocker. It has a bad influence on a youthful inquirer, who applies for assistance against some soph- .\sm of infidelity to one of God's people, and does not receive it. And more. Is not the age of infidelity approaching, along with the time of terrible judgments ? In a great part of Catholic Europe, are not large masses of the population almost total atheists ? In Great Britain, do not multitudes of the people openly reno'3nce God's holy volume ? Is not our own nation walking down the same track i THE CAUSE AND CURE OF mFIDELITY CHAPTER I. CAUSE OP INFIDELITY. Infidelity is produced by two causes, acting con- jtiintly. The primary, or more remote cause, is man's" depravity ; the second, or approximate cause, is man's want of knowledge. As it regards the first or origi- nal cause, mavUs wicked nature, we can readily see how it would bend his belief towards the side of false- hood. It must incline him to reject the sacred vol- ume, which enjoins every thing that is righteous, self- denying, pure, and holy. Again, we can easily under- stand how this first cause of unbelief, man's sinful- ness, must tend towards the production of the second cause, his lack of information. It retards his labors in searching after truth ; it aids in continuing his want of knowledge ; it prevents his activity in search after facts which sustain the truth. As it regards the secondary, or proximate cause, want of know- ledge, it sounds strange to speak of the ignorance of the learned. This seeming contradiction will be fully explained after a time. For the present, we must begin with the original cause, man's depravity. 11 CAUSE AND CURE OF INPIDELITIT. CHAPTER II. MAN A FALLEN BEINO. Thk Bible is not true, if man is not prone tc evil, l.'lie holy page has two modes of expression in hold- ing up the fact of man's depravity. The first is his hatred towards God ; the second is his love for false- hood. Let us look at each of these assertions. 1. The carnal mind is enmity against God. This seems to the unconverted man as though it must be false. He is not conscious of any enmity against God. He thinks usually that he loves his Creator. Of course, if we talk of his hatred, we do not gain his assent. The reason it seems to him that he loves where he really hates, is simply this : he does not hate that which he calls God. He well approves the character which he himself has given to the Creator ; but this character always differs in one or more traits from that which is drawn of God in the Bible. It always resembles, more or less, the character of the individual who has drawn it. A part of the character accords with the sacred page ; but a portion of it, more or less, belongs to the man who draws it ; of course he does not hate it. This has been true in every age ; and is now a fact, wher- evei lOen are living. Examples. Could you have asked the ancient Scandinavian, as he stood before you with a purse in one hand and a snear in the other, " Do you lovo MAN A FALLEN BEING. 15 Grid ?" he would have answered you in the affirma- tive. Then had you inquired, " Who is God ?" ha would have replied, " Thor, the god of battles and of plunder." The warrior loved such a deity — a part of the character belonged to the barbarian. Om- nipotence and other traits were correct, and were received from true tradition ; but holiness and purity the man did not love, and therefore did not receive into his creed as belonging to heaven. Could you have asked the Greek, at Athens, two thousand years ago, if he loved God, -he would have replied, Yes. "Who is God?" Answer, "Bacchus, Venus, or Mars." A deity of wine, or revelry, or sensuality, or war, he did not hate ; but if you had placed before him the full character of the God of the Bible, as the apostles did, he would have turned away in anger. Go, now, and converse with the enfeebled Asiatic con- cerning his enmity to God, and he will look aston- ished at your assertion. He is willing to give up hia life in the service of his god. But ask after this deity, and he will name one of lust, cruelty, and pol- lution; one resembling, to a great extent, the man who stands before you. If you claim his notice tc the God who loves justice and humility, purity and peace, he cannot bear to hear you. Just so it is in the land of Bibles and of light, so it is in England oi America. Go to that Universalist, and ask him if he hates God. He is indignant at the question. He thinks ho loves his kind Creator ardently ; he thinks he never did hate God. And it is true that he does love a god whose character resembles that of the man before you, in some prominent traits. But 16 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIJJELIT JT. place before him the God of the Bible — one who will say, Depart, to the wicked ; one who will not take pollution and the rejecters of mercy into heaven ; one who will see the smoke of their torment ascend up for ever and ever ; and the Universalist will tell you earnestly that he hates such a God as that. Just so it is with the Deist. He gives to God a character which he thinks rational ; he loves that character ; it resembles, in some main points, the man who frames it. He cannot think that " the carnal mind is enmity against God," for he esteems God a being who has done, and will do very much, in accordance with a plan which he himself esteems rational and proper. It is true, we cannot exhibit the case of deists, as to what they love or hate, as plainly as the case of others, because there is such an unending variety in their creed. Go to one hundred deists, and you will rarely find two of them believing alike. They all agree in rejecting the Bible; but on many very important considerations — whether God will or will not punish the wicked — whether the soul goes out, or certainly lives on after death — whether the world is to meet ruin, or continue for ever — if the wicked are to be chastised, what sins are most danger- ous — they have no sameness in their plans. Many deists, on questions of breathless interest, will refuse to give you any answer : they will tell you they do not know ; they have no belief on the point, however interesting. At other times, you will find them main- taining that man's reason was given him as a lamp to enlighten, and as a guide to direct him in these MAN A FALLEN BEING. 17 matters. But ask them what kind of conduct here will most add to, or detract from happiness here- after, or what kind of life we may certainly look for in the next existence, and no two of them will give you the same replies to these inquiries. The reason of a thousand of them seems to have led in as many different directions. That Christian denomi- nations should differ, appears to them exceedingly absurd and reproachful ; but that reason, which they say Grod has given as our only teacher, should give either no opinions, or very different opinions among their own number, does not call forth a bitter remark. If the Bible is disclaimed, thus far they all agree ; further than this they do not ask after agreement, or regret it should there be a thousand different creeds. A God according to the Bible, they do not love ; one conformed to their own vague ideas, they do not hate. 2. Man's love of falsehood. " Men have loved darkness rather than light." In this assertion, light stands for truth; and the word darkness means falsehood. It does not seem to any one that he prefers falsehood to truth. The most prejudiced man thinks himself impartial. It is 80 on any subject. The most vehement politician thinks himself unbiassed in his judgment ; the most deadly enemy, in speaking of the one he hates, will tell you that his views are not the offspring of pas- sion, yet he certainly would believe evil of his neigh- bor more readily than good, even when this good is true. We might then very certainly expect, that the man who wishes to live for ever* to whom anni~ 18 CADES ANU CURE OF INFIDELITY. hilation has no pleasing look, and who even wishes strongly to believe the Bible, would be far from feel- ing, or believing, that on this subject he would cherish darkness rather than light. Nevertheless it is true. Although not in a situation as deplorable as the man who gnashes his teeth on religion, still it is true, that one small cunningly devised falsehood will influence him further than one hundred plain and forcible arguments in favor of revelation. A man may stand on the side of a precipitous mouniain, and long for the top, yet the impetus of an oimce will push him further down than many times that force will cast him up. One who desires the valley below, can go there without a struggle. The man who has sinned may desire the summit of truth, but he stands on the declivity of a sinful nature. Every transgression or sensual indulgence has added to the darkness of his soul without his knowing it. Some examples of this must be given in the following chapter, to make the fact easily understood. FALSEHOOD READILY RECEIVED. 19 CHAPTER III A TRIFLING FALSEHOOD INFLUENCES HUMAN BELIEF AGAINST THE BIBLE MORE THAN GIGANTIC TRUTH IN FAVOR OF IT. Example 1. An English traveller, Brydone, wrote and published a description of mount Etna. He describes her craters and her extended slope, covered occasionally for twenty miles or more, along the side of the mountain, with vines, villages, and luxurianca These are sometimes destroyed by the river of melted lava which issues from the mountain above, many feet deep, and a mile — perhaps more, sometimes less — in width, bearing all before it, until it reaches the sea and drives back its boiling waves. After this burning stream has cooled, there is seen, instead of blooming gardens, a naked, dreary, metallic rock. Sometimes many eruptions occur in the course of a year, breaking out at different parts of the moun- tain, and sometimes none for half a century. The traveller found a stream of lava congealed on the side of the mountain, which attracted his notice ' more than others. He thought it must have been thrown out by an eruption, which was mentioned by perhaps Polybius, as occurring nearly seventeen hundred years since. There was no soil on it. It was as naked as when first arrested there. The particles of dust float- ing through the air had not fallen there, so as to fur- nish hold for vegetation, and these vegetables had not 20 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITT. grown and decayed again and again, thus adding to the depth of the soil. Such a work had not even commenced. He tells us that on some part of that mountain, near the foot, if you will sink a pit, you must pass through seven different strata of lava, with two feet of soil between them. Upon the supposition that two thousand years are requisite for the increase of earth just named, he asks how seven different layers could be formed in less than fourteen thousand years. The chronology of Moses makes the world not half as old. The Englishman was jocular at this discovery, and his admirers were delighted at what seemed to them a confutation of the book of heaven. How many thousands through Europe renounced their belief of revelation with this discovery for their prop, the author of this treatise is unable even to conjec- ture. It seems that many parts of Europe almost rang at the news of the analogical theory. True, the traveller only conjectured that he had found the lava mentioned by the ancient writer ; but no mat- ter, supposition only was strong enough to rivet their unbelief. The author has conversed with those in America, and on her western plains, who would de- clare they believed not a word of the Bible, because there "was no soil on a stratum of lava, which, in all probability, had been there long. Another learned Englishman, an admirer of the books of Moses, wrote to those who seemed to joy so greatly in their new system. He told them, that inasmuch as they seemed fond of arguing from anal- ugies, he would give them an additional one. He reminded them that the cities of Herculaneum and FALSEHOOD READILY RECEIVED. 21 Pompeii were buried by the eruption in which the elder Pliny lost his life, near seventeen hundred yeara since. Those cities have lately been discovered ; and in digging down to search their streets, six different strata of lava are passed through, with two feet of earth between them. And the famous Watson tells them, that if six different soils near Vesuvius could be formed in seventeen hundred years, perhaps seven might be made elsewhere in five thousand years. Might we not suppose, that those who had re- nounced their belief of Christianity, after reading some conjectures concerning Etna, would have re- sumed their faith as soon as these Vesuvian facts were placed before them? No, it was not so. It was easy to descend, but they never reasoended. ' Men love darkness rather than light. Thousands who snatched at the objection with joyful avidity never read the confutation. They never inquired for an answer. Those who read were afterwards silent, but remain unaltered. A lavryer who 'stood so high with his fellow-citizens, for worth and intelligence, that he filled many offices of trust, had his credence of the sacred page shaken by reading the imaginary system built on the surface of Etna's lava streams. He took the book to a friend, to show him what rea- son we have for casting off our reverence for the Bible. This friend turned over a few pages of the book, where this same traveller, after telling how many eruptions sometimes happen in the course of a month, goes on to narrate the following history : "Our landlord at Nicolasi," he says, "gave us an account of the singular fate of the beautiful coun- 22 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. try near Hybla, at no great distance from hence It was so celebrated for its fertility, and particularly for its honey, that it was called Mel Passi, the Honey Land, till it was overwhelmed by the lava of Etna ; and having then become totally barren, by a kind of pun its name was changed to Mai Passi, the Mean Land. In a second eruption, by a shower of ashes from the mountain, it soon reassumed its ancient beauty and fertility, and for many years was called Bel Passi, the Beautiful Land. Last of all, in the unfor- tunate era of 1669, it was again laid under an ocean of fire, and reduced to the most wretched sterility, since which time it is known again by its second appellation of Mai Passi." The lawyer was asked if his difficulties were in any way obviated by this rapidity of change from ' soil to nakedness, and from nudity to soil again, narrated by the same original discoverer of the whole theory. He answered in the negative, and continued obstinately to cast away the book of God. Thou- sands of cases happen continually, where the indi- vidual is as readily and as speedily turned into the path of infidelity, and when once there, continues to trace it with invincible pertinacity. Men, without knowing it, love darkness rather than light. Example 2. "When some travellers in Asia wrote back that the Chinese record made the world many thousand years older than the Mosaic history does, how it rejoiced a host of listeners. Oh, how they clapped their hands ! We thought, said they, that the Bible was a fabrication, unworthy of belief. If any wrote, or said to those who were thus becoming FALSEHOOD READILY RECEIVED. 2'6 Booffers at revelation, " Do not be too hasty in your conclusions: how can you tell but that national vanity may have had some share in exciting those who speak of their celestial empire, to claim a spurious antiquity?" they turned away, or closed their ears with satisfied confidence. They seemed to wish for no further information. After a time, some additional items were published from Chinese history, such as the following: They tell the name of their first king, which would sound in the ear of some as a corruption of the word Noah. The time they assign for his reign corresponds with the age of Noah. They speak of this king as being without father ; of his mother being encircled with the rainbow ; of his pre- serving seven clean animals to sacrifice to the great Spirit ; that in his day the sky fell on the earth and destroyed the race of men, etc. When we remember that the waters of the sky did this in the days of Noah ; that Noah was the first of the postdiluvian race, and thus without father ; that the rainbow is interest- ingly connected with his history; that he did take into the ark clean animals by sevens, part of which were offered in sacrifice — we begin to discover that the Chinese account is nothing more nor less than a blotted copy of the truth. See Stackhouse's History of the Bible. We gather from Moses, that between the creation and the deluge there were ten generations of men, surpassing us greatly in longevity. It would be no ♦.ortured inference to suppose them vastly our superi- ors, both in strength and stature. This kind of men, the heathen in ages past were in the habit of calling 24 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. gods, after their death. The Chinese account speaks of ten dynasties of superior beings, who ruled in their country a thousand years each, before the sky fell on the earth. It is not hard to see that this is only a different and a singular manner of relating the same facts. But why did — and do now — many of the seemingly learned choose to suppose that each father ended his race before the son began to live ? It was for the purpose of stretching out the time, between the deluge and the creation, to ten thousand years. Moses informs us that each of these ten gen. erations did extend near a thousand years; but he lets us know that a son and his father walked much of their earthly race together. The journey of each was long, but it was a simultaneous travel. Fox the purpose, if possible, of extending the earth's chronology beyond the dates of revelation, multitudes have taken partial extracts from hearsay records; and then, to prevent these fragments from agreeing with, or upholding the history they hate, have twisted them with labor and ingenuity — failing even then to construct a passable cavil against the truth. What is the reason of this strange hungering and thirsting after mean falsehood, rather than the wonders of glo- rious truth ? It is because men love darkness rather than light. Those who had oast away all reverence for holy writ, as soon as some one said in their hear- ing that the Chinese record contradicted Moses, never seemed to inquire further. They asked not after any additional account; or if they were shown that all these heathen traditions were simply the truth, pro- served in a dress more or less awkward, they were VALSEHOOD READILY RECEIVED. 25 Silent ; but they did not return to the place whore they once stood. They continued scoffers at Chris- tianity. The author has been in the habit of conversing with unbelievers whenever he could obtain the privi- lege, during the last eighteen years. Having once been of their number, he has since felt for them a kindly solicitude, as he hopes, moving him, at a pru- dent opportunity, to speak of heavenly things, although at times even at the risk of their displeasure. He has found that certain items of history or tradition, such as might seem to militate against holy writ, they receive readily, and remember long. Out of the ten thousand facts of a different description, they treas- ure none. They seem either not to hear, or they understand slowly, or forget very soon. We have been naming some of the kind which secure their attention and their recollection. We will now notice a few out of the mass of items, such as they either do not learn or do not hold. 26 CAU&fi AND dUUE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER IV. FACTS SUCH AS UNBELIEVERS DO NOT LEAUN. Undpr this head it matters not where we begin. There is no necessity that we should quit the record already before us. If you will go to that opposer ai Christianity who appeals loudly to the part of Chi iiese chronology already discussed, and ask him a few questions, you will find that part of Asiatic history with which he is utterly unacquainted. Ask him what he thinks, when the Chinese history speaks of Yao, their king, declaring that in his reign the sun stood so long above the horizon that it wag feared the world would have been set on fire ; and fixes the reign of Yao at a given date, which corresponds with the age of Joshua the son of Nun. See Stackhouse You will find, in nine cases out of ten, the objector knows nothing of that part of the Chinese record, Out of the countless items of this character, which if compiled, would fill so many cumbrous volumes, he has treasured scarcely one : his taste has not craved them with avidity, or he remembers not. We are not now speaking merely of the unlettered and the feeble-minded. This is true of the senator in legislative halls; of the minister plenipotentiary to foreign courts ; of the man whose information seems to extend almost everywhere. Of the Bible, and of ancient literature connected with the Bible, h? is I'ACTS NOT LEARNED. 27 uninformed : the cause is his appetite for darkness rather than light. The Latin poet Ovid amuses the school-boy greatly, in his fanciful narrative of Phae- ton's chariot. This heathen author tells us, that a day was once lost, and that the earth was in great danger from the intense heat of an unusual sun. It is true, that in attempting to account for this inci- dent of peril and of wonder, the writer, as .was his custom at all times, consulted only his imagination, and clothed it all with an active fancy. But our notice is somewhat attracted, when we find him men- tion Phaeton — who was a Canaanitish prince — and learn that the fable originated with the Phoenicians, the same people whom Joshua fought. If you ask an unbeliever of these incidents, or of the common tradition with early nations that a day was lost about the time when the volume of truth informs us that the sun hasted not to go down for the space of a whole day, you will find that he had never thought on these points : they are not of the character which he is inclined to notice. Let not the young reader suppose for one mo- ment, that if the many octavo volumes which might be made, were really filled by the compilation of such items and placed in his hands, this would constitute the evidence of Christianity. Far from it These books would scarcely form an introduction to thai entire subject. Such corroborative history or tra^ ditional fragments are mentioned here, because they serve to exhibit the fact, that man is inclined to tha side of error without knowing it, in matters of relig- ion. The way in which things have been and are 28 CAUSE AND CURE OF JNFIDELITY. received, exhibits our disposition unequivocally; and it is so important that we know plainly, whether men by nature do or do not turn away from holy light, that we will pursue this branch of the subject a little farther. The cases to be cited are merely referred to as examples, out of a multitude almost endless, which any one may notice who is much in the habit of exchanging sentiments with his fellow- ruen. TEUTH SLOWLY RECEIVED. 29 CHAPTER V. MEN RECEIVE TRUTH SLOWLY, BUT ERROR PROMPTLY. The author once conversed with an able states- man, and in the confidence of a private and social interview, inquired after the main prop of his unbe- lief. He answered that he had read a statement in a respectable print, which seemed to him strong indeed against the common faith. It was, that at a given spot in Europe, bones had been found under a rock six hundred feet in depth. He said the Mosaic account allowed the world a youthful date ; but that to him it was utterly incredible that a sheet of roclc could be formed and grow above these bones, six hundred feet thick, within the space of five thou- sand years. After a class of facts connected with such subterranean discoveries, he did not seem to have inquired. It is a fact, that God's record speaks of the fountains of the great deep having been broken up. It is a fact, that if those waters were ever called to the surface, so as to cover our highest mountains, they retired again, for they are not there now. It is a fact, that the billows of a sinking ocean would be strong enough to carry bones, or more massive bodies, nn ler the largest rooks, and into the deepest caverns of the earth ; and the turmoil of the mighty deep could sweep hills of clay or sand upon that which was once exposed". It is as hard to believe that bones remained undecaycd during the growth of six hundred 30 CAUSE AND CURE OF mFIDELITT. feet of rook above them, as it is to suppose that a rushing stream carried them far along into a rooky cave. If this learned man were asked to account for the forests which were found with a hundred feet of earth heaped over them, or how it is that all reallj? learned chemists and geologists agree that the pres- ent surface of the earth is a young surface, he did not seem to have thought on such facts. If asked concerning extracts from Berosus the Chaldean, Nicolaus of Damascus, Manetho the Egyptian, or others, what they may have said of the ruins of a great ship, in their day remaining in the mountains of Armenia, he did not appear to have read, or to have noticed points of this nature. Whether any ancient author mentioned the remains of this vessel as covered with pitch, which the natives used as a charm against disease, stating that a man once landed there when the world was covered with water — w^hy a village at the foot of mount Ararat should always have borne a name which signifies the city of the descent — or of a thousand incidents of this nature, he seemed never to have inquired. He knew nothing of historic fragments of this kind; but that bones had been found deep under a rock, and that therefore the Bible was not to be Obeyed, he seemed to conclude readily, and to remain confident. That men love darkness rather than light, will be exhibited in another form, and by a different prooefis, in the following chapters. 800KFERS SHALL COME. 3I CHAPTER VI. SCOFFERS SHALL COME. " Knowing this, that there shall come in the last days scoiferB, saying, Where is the promise of his coming?" 2 Pet. 3 : 3-5. In the preceding chapters, some objections often urged against revelation have been noticed. They are certainly characterized by imbecility. It is more than probable that the youthful reader is ready to exclaim, " These are not my objections : my difficul- ties are of another kind ; and remain unanswered in all the productions I have ever read in favor of Chris- tianity." And they are likely to remain unanswered, unless some author should be able to write a book as extensive as all the volumes contained in a well-filled library. There are many faces belonging to the in- habitants of earth now alive, but no two of them are just the same. So it is with the unending difficul- ties and objections in the minds of those who lean towards error, rather than the light of the sacred volume. We might remind any one reader that we do not know what his particular objections are, and therefore cannot answer them, unless we could take up the millions of cavils on the surface of the ocean of darkness. If your difficulties could be known, they would resemble such as have been noticed and met by many authors. Some additional examples will be given, as we attempt fairly to hold up to view the general principle, or the cause of unbelief, namely, 32 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. wilful ignorance. But before we proceed, it will bf necessary to guard by preliminaries against mistake. Many are ready to suppose that the wilfully ignorant have no desire for knowledge. This '.s a misunderstanding, against which we should be well guarded . The boy at college who has passed off his weeks of study in idleness and frivolous amusement, as the day of public examination approaches has a very strong desire to know as much as his classmates. Still, he is justly censured as wilfully ignorant. The careless, loitering, and work-hating apprentice may have a desire for knowledge and skill in the business of his employer, yet his deficiencies are punished as wilful ignorance. Many unbelievers desire knowledge on the great subject, but they never undergo the labor of research. "We suppose that of all the scoffers who were to come in the last days, and who were to be wilfully ignorant, there is scarcely one but would be willing to receive historic knowledge at least, pro- vided an angel could just grasp it in his hand, and throw it into his brain, without any exertion on his part. But the toil of research he never encounters. He may snatch at some plausible objection to truth, as he hears it repeated ; but to impartial investigation he is an utter stranger. As for those who think they have investigated very laboriously, but who have not investigated at all, we will notice them in consider- ing another part of this subject. The millions of scoffers who have come, and who now live, are igno- rant of Bible facts and Bible language. The profound and the unlettered, the "/ealthy and the indigent, the talented and the stupid, are ignorant of Bible SCOFFERS SHALL COME. 33 facts and Bible language. To some, this may sound strange, but it is not hard to prove. The matter may be easily tested. The scoffers live now, and you may approach and converse with them. During a ten-year's search, you are not likely to find one excep. tion to the general statement. There was one who tried this for eighteen years, to see if be could meet with any one who cast away the Bible, and who was at the same time acquainted with its contents, and with the ancient literature connected with the Bible. He found some who at first declared themselves acquainted with the subject, but who really were not. After asking them, in an affectionate manner, a few questions, they generally confessed that their know- ledge did not extend far. But this fact can be seen more clearly while looking at examples of wilful ignorancs. 2* 34 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER VII. SCOFFERS ARE UNACQUAINTED WITH THE FACTS OF lUE BIBLE. Examples. Those who have " come scoffing" In the present age, are utterly unacquainted with Bible facts and Bible language. We first notice Bible facts. In exhibiting such oases, we are like the man who stands by an immense magazine of wheat. He may take a handful and hold it out to view ; but he can- not exhibit each grain in the mass to the eye of any purchaser. It would be a task endless and painful. Item 1. In the second and third chapters of Rev- elation may be found the letters written by St. John, at the direction of Jesus Christ, to seven churches situated in that part of the world which we call Asia Minor. To each church was sent a different message, a different threatening, or a different promise. These prophetic declarations were long in fulfilling, but have all come to pass. It is common with the totally uninformed in chronology to say, when prophecy is named, " Perhaps this was written after the event came to pass." For the sake of such, it is here remarked, that the event about to be noticed occurred more than nine centuries after the book of Revela- tion was much written against by haters of the gos- pel, and defended by lovers of the truth. Inasmuch as a book is written before its contents are greatly controverted, even the most unlettered will be able to BIBLE fiCIS NOT EXAMINED. 33 understand dates in this case ; and will be satisfied, after nine hundred years of discussion, that the book was in existence. For the sake of those who may- fear Christian partiality, when we come to speak of the fulfilment of these seven messages, we will quoto mostly from infidel authority. They will scarcely suspect an undue favor towards the sacred volume, in those who have hated its name, written against its authority, and mocked at its doctrines. To the church of Ephesus the Redeemer ordered John to write, "Re- member, therefore, from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works ; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of its place, except thou repent." The author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon, one of the most accomplished, unre- lenting haters of the Bible, that ever spent half a lifetime in writing against it, says, " In the loss of Ephesus, the Christians deplored the fall of the first angel, and the extinction of the first candlestick of the Revelation." He tells us this was accomplished by the Ottomans, A. D. 1312. In Ephesus, at the pres- ent day, there are none who even bear the Christian name, so completely is the candlestick removed. To the angel of the church in Philadelphia, John was commanled to write, " Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee fr m the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth." it was indeed an hour of trial to all the churches, when the Mahometan, with his naked sword, gave the member choice to receive the Koran for his Bible, S6 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITST. and Mahomet for his prophet, or to see his sons and daughters go into servitude, his dwelling blaze, and to suffer his blood to stain his own hearth. From this temptation it was especially improbable that riiiladelphia would be saved. This we may learn from the language of the same unbelieving author, who seemed almost startled himself at what he was compelled to record. Hear him speak. "Philadel- phia alone has been saved, by prophecy — or courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the emper- ors, encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her val- iant citizens defended their religion . and freedom above fourscore years, and at length made terms with the proudest of the Ottomans. Among the Greek colonies and churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still erect ; a column in a scene of ruins." We have reason to hope that God has had new-born souls there in every age. To the Laodicean church the Saviour wrote, " Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." It seems to us, that words could not be placed on paper express- ing a more deep and decisive abhorrence. What are the words the infidel historian has chosen ? He says, " The circus and three stately theatres at Laodicea are now peopled by wolves and foxes." The church at Smyrna next claims our notice. In the sacred volume we find the Lord repeatedly telling Ilia servants, that a day should stand for a year in the occurrence then foretold. This may be more fully considered when we come to mention the subject of prophecy. That the ten years' persecution, during BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 3T which the church at Smyrna suffered, under the roign of Diocletian, was a cruel and a bloody one, perhaps no one has ever questioned, and we need not pause hero to quote history for its proof. The Lord had, long beforehand, commanded an apostle to tell them, by letter, " Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried ; and ye shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life," etc. A minis- ter of the gospel once felt a desire, and sought an opportunity to converse with a number of rejecters of Christianity, who possessed talents and literature. Between him and some of these a friendly intimacy existed ; some of them were admired by their coun- trymen, and known to the nation by their politioai eminence. He felt pressingly solicitous to make inquiries such as the following : " Do you never find your curiosity at least, somewhat awakened, whilo reading the letters to the seven churches of Asia? Suppose it had been of Philadelphia that the histo- rian had said, with truth, * It is inhabited by wolves and foxes ;' or suppose it had been concerning Sardia that the Redeemer's promise of salvation from the hour of trial was penned ; how triumphantly would the event have been noticed by the opposers of holy writ. Suppose the Saviour had said of Philadelphia, ' I will spue thee out of my mouth.' Suppose that gospel light had still shone at Ephesus, even faintly, showing that the candlestick had not been removed. Suppose no marked distress, of ten years' continu- ance, had ever prevailed at Smyrna. Or, suppose Fome comforting promise had been recorded concern- '58 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITr. ing Laodicea. Vary either the history as it trans- pired, or the message which was sent, in any one out of a hundred ways ; and what would have been the result ?" The inquirer found that they did not know par- ticularly what the Lord had written to any one of those churches. They had either not noticed, or the^ had certainly not remembered' what had been the precise fate of Ephesus, Sardis, or Laodicea. With the long drawn train of Bible facts, as numerous as the pages of that singular book, they were entirely unacquainted. Let no one suppose that these items are here presented as the evidences of Christianity : by no means. They do, we believe, possess much inter- est, but the foundation is broader than these can make it. A few out of the wide multitude are here called to view, merely to show the wilful ignorance so strangely belonging to those who speak against light. BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 89 CHAPTER VIII. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. Item 2. A man who was an able Senator iu Congi'oss, from a staite where talent was not scarce, once said to a Christian friend, " I have heard the prophecy concerning the destruction of Babylon, mentioned as evidence that the writer saw into futu- rity. With me it weighs nothing. Any one might guess that a proud city would come to ruin ; and the common tendency of things to revolution might bring it to pass. It requires no inspiration to foretell the decay of perishing things." His friend discovered that some things he did know and remember with readiness, but that of other very many and very ob- vious facts he was totally uninformed. He under- stood with alacrity, and he was correct in his doc- trine, that if the overthrow of Babylon had been all that the prophet foretold, that alone would have been no certain evidence that his pen was guided by a su- perior hand. But on the difference between a pre- diction with specifications and one without them, ho appeared never to have meAtated. The difference between a prophecy — like the heathen oracles— where one naked event is declared without any of the particulars, and a circumstantial prediction where the items of time or manner are all related, must be attentively noticed by us, or our judgment in such cases will be vague and infantile. If you foretell thu 40 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY death of an individual, time will accomplish it, though you have no prophetic gift ; but if you ven- ture to add as many as three uncertain particulars, your reputation as a seer is instantly in jeopardy IN'ame the death of the man, and say that it will take place by apoplexy, on Thursday of the next week, and you are likely to fail in all the particulars ; whilp you are an impostor should you mistake only in one Take a thousand men, and it is not to be expected that any one of them will die just at that day, at a given hour, and with that disease. How much more difficult to sustain your pretensions to prophetic gifts, if three more specifications are added. Suppose these to be improbable particulars, and how much is the difficulty increased ! That which distinguishes the prophecies of the Bible from all heathen or all pretended predictions of every age, is simply that the former have not merely three specifications, or six particulars, but often very many, and many of these, too, altogether unlikely ever to come to pass, in the view and judgment of, human wisdom. The prophecy named by the emi- nent statesman mentioned above, has connected with it more than twice six of these items or particulars, many of them totally improbable, according to man's common expectation ot things. Before we notice these, or look carefully at the prophecy, we must men- tion an evasion which does not belong to the learned unbeliever of the present day; but it is common with those who do not read. The better informed will excuse us for explaining to the youthful and the unlettered that which is already known to oth- BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAlllNED. 41 era It is concerning an old and common refuge from truth, we now write. " The prophecies," say those who are afraid to believe, " may have been written after the events mentioned transpired." This shall bo no difficulty between us at the present time, for we will present no prediction which did not have all or & greater part of its fulfilment many generations after the time when unbelievers admit it was in existence. If we go according to infidel authority, the young sceptic will have no unwillingness to receive the ac- count from his own party, and from leaders on his side of the question. There are many ways in which the date of a prophecy may be fairly proved and es- tablished ; but we at present will take the shorter course of quoting no prediction which did not come to pass many years and centuries after the time fixed for its origin by the most noted and learned oppos- ers. For example, the great hater of Christianity, Porphyry, was perhaps the first who ever used this objection. Some prophecies of the Old Testament were so plain, and seemed to give him so much dis- tress, that he gave it as his opinion that the book of prophecy must have been written subsequently to their fulfilment. He quoted from the Greek transla- tion, so well known under the name of the Septua- gint — the same translation used by the Saviour and his apostles ; the same which was made for, and formed a part of the Alexandrian library. If you allow this no greater age than the time when the learned unbeliever wrote against it, this will suffice for the present. Porphyrv has been dead fifteen hundred years. And the prophetic events we are 42 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELlTr. about to state came to pass from three to seven, nine, and eleven hundred years after his death. Or again, concerning the common Greek version of the Old Testament, the famous Gibbon says, scofiingly and deridingly, that the Egyptian king gathered it from ihe villages of Judea. But the king of Egypt of whom he speaks, lived three hundred years before the Saviour was crucified. Then, if you do not fear to receive the account from this champion in unbe- lief, if you do not fear he was too partial to the Bible, the events we are now about to call to view occur- red from three to seven, nine, eleven, or twenty-one hundred years after the Old Testament was trans- lated into Greek. "We can only say to the young reader with an immortal soul, that if no more could be said on this point than even the little we have now told you, we think you might doubt the security of your refuge. But if you are determined to seek a flimsy hiding-place, where even the infidel arrows will pierce you, then you musf go there, and there remain. ^ The first prophecy noticed shall be that which was cited by the able politician, to show that little was proved by its alleged fulfilment, namely, the fall of an- cient Babylon. Here the reader is invited to turn to different books of the Old Testament, and there note how the event was mentioned by different prophet.=!. The name of the general who should lead the army — one hundred and fifty years before his birth — the manner of the assault, the condition and conduct of the besieged, where the victors were to find the treas- ures, etc., are all declared. But at present it is our BIBbE FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 43 plan to hold up to view only that part of these pre- dictions which has come to pass since the Old Testa- ment was translated into the Greek language. Isaiah 13 : 20-22. " It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to gen- eration; neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there ; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; and owLs shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there ; and the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces," etc. 1. Let it be noted, that it was very unlikely that this particular kind of desolation should happen to any city. We should never conjecture concerning London or Paris, should these cities come to ruin, that they would be deserted by man while lofty pal- aces or stately dwellings were there, inviting the houseless wanderer at least under their friendly shelter. Centuries rolled by after these threatenings were written. Babylon received another and another overthrow. Still, these did not unpeople her streets. After a time, history informs us, Seleucia and Ctesi- phon were built ; the luxurious and sensual nobles of Babylon must follow their monarch and his court; they left their palaces, and their splendid abodes were deserted in a singular and unexampled manner. The servants and tha dependents of these wealthy sons of revelry and authority, followed their lords to gaze at or participate in their feasting. Those who lived by selling their merchandise to the opulent followed, and the streets were in *"aot abandoned to unbroken silence. 44 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. 2. Must it f(jllow of course that the ferocious boasts of the islands shall inhabit dwellings more splendid in some respects than any we have ever seen ? By no means. This was not the natural result, for still enough of the indigent remained to rule the brutal creation that have not reason for their guide. But continue to watch the progress of events. The Lord has spoken, and shall he fail to make it good ? After a time a despotic potentate craves a more splendid hunting-ground ; he repairs the walls of the ancieni city and makes it the area of his chase. Theii houses are then full of doleful creatures ; owls dwell there, and dragons in their pleasant palaces. 3. But it was not to be expected that these houses could stand always, and they did not. It was not to be expected that Babylon could continue always the hunting-ground of a king, and it did not. Babylon had stood on a fertile and extensive plain. "Will not the shepherd drive his floclt wherever vegetation springs to sustain them, if man's dominion does not forbid him? Assuredly h'e will, if God has not said nay. But when the towering edifices of brick had fallen in, the under cellars and vaults afforded such dens and lairs for tigers, wolves, lions, and hyenas, 'that travellers inform us it was too hazardous for the approach of a shepherd and his flock. 4. But the Arabians move in bands ; they delight to wield the javelin ; they tremble not at the lion's growl The Arab will surely pitch his tent there, as he traverses all the deserts of the eastern continent. And he would have done so in defiance of the most ferocious of the forest tribes ; but under the extended BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 4fi and unparalleled rubbish of tliat spot denounced of heaven, were concealed scorpions, serpents, and rep- tiles so numerous, and with fangs so envenomed and deadly, that no one could close his eyes in safety un- der the shelter of his friendly tent. 5. But time will obliterate these dens and hiding- places; these heaps will dissolve and this rubbish will decay. Babylon was in the midst of a rich plain that could not be washed like the hills of Pal- estine into nudity and barrenness. Will it not be re peopled ? Who shall venture to say, " It shall never be inhabited from generation to generation?" An- swer, God. He said so, and so it has been. 6. But the Bible goes on to say that it should be inhabited by the bittern, a water-fowl ; nay, the book declares that it should become pools of water. When did this happen? Answer, in compara- tively modern days. Some singularly spontaneous obstruction of the Euphrates caused its overflow- ing, and travellers tell us that two-thirds or more ot Babylon is now "pools of water for the bittern to Jry in." We have not exhibited half the items of history foretold concerning Babylon; but we have noticed enough to illustrate the difference between a vague prediction and a prophecy whose particulars are mi- nutely mentioned. The man of great mind, and in other respects extensive information, who spoke against this prophecy, had acquainted himself with none of these particulars, nor with any of a similar character abounding in the book of Grod; he only knew enough to make him doubt, to raise difficulties 46 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. in his mind. Thus far his religious information extended and no further. This is unquestionably the fact with many of the orators, statesmen, and leading characters of the present day. They have been pressingly engaged in their worldly pursuits. It seemed to them as though they had no time for such research. They indeed had but little love for this kind of labor ; but of this last truth, perhaps, they are unconscious. Yet many, it is to be feared, are influenced by them, as was a female of the state of Tennessee. Her husband kept a public-house of much resort. Her friends were much surprised to hear her avow that she had cast away the Bible. When asked her reasons, she said that those of the brightest minds and highest attainments the land con- tained spoke even deridingly of it as they sat at her table. She considered them much abler to judge in such cases than she was, and refused all further love or reverence for the Man of Grethsemane ! "We quit for a time the history of Babylon, but we have not done with it. We must proceed to notice other cities and their fate, and then to call up these different oases severally, as so many steps by which we ascend to tlie sun\mit of an interesting consideration. BIEI.E FACTS NOT EXAMINEE. 47 CHAPTER IX. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED, Item 3. The city of Tyre. If the reader will uonsult the prophets of the Old Testament, he will find the overthrow of this city foretold, the manner of the siege, the name of the conqueror, the number of years before it should resume its former splendor, and its second fall. But these things we will not dwell upon : we attend to those particulars which be- long to more modern times, or which took place as it were but yesterday. 1. "When a city subsisting by commerce is over- thrown, if the many streams of her lucrative trade shall cause a speedy elevation to more than ancient magnificence, the mind of calculating shrewdness might conjecture, that if spoiled again, the winds of traffic might blow wealth and power once more into her ports. The ships of Tyre floated over the seas, and her second growth almost resembled magic. The Lord said she should be destroyed and never built again. Two thousand years are past, but the liches and splendor of Tyre are no more. 2. The Lord ordered Ezekiel to say, " I will scrape her dust from off her, and make her like the top of a rock." In the siege of Tyre by Alexander the Great — it having been rebuilt on an island a half mile from the shore, and surrounded by a wall one hundred and fifty feet in height — " a mound wafe 48 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. formed from the continent to the island, and the ruins of old Tyre afforded ready materials for the purpose. The soil and rubbish were gathered and heaped, and the mighty conqueror, who afterwards failed in rais- ing again any of the ruins of Babylon, cast those of Tyre into the sea, and scraped her very dust from cflf her." 3. It was declared by the prophet, more than twenty-three centuries since, " It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea." Should the desolation be as complete as that of Babylon, who shall carry their nets there to dry them ? " The whole village of Tyre," said Volney in his Ruins, " contains only fifty or sixty poor families, who live obscurely on the produce of their little ground, and a trifling fishery ;" and Bruce describes Tyre as "a rock whereon fishers dry their nets." We ask the reader once more to treasure up these facts until we shall have mentioned others, so as at fast to bring them all into one view. BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 49 CHAPTER X. THE SIIPJECT CONTINUED. Item 4. Damascus — " It shall be a ruinous heap." Damascus lias not been blotted out, so that no one dwells there ; it is not a naked rock ; it is not pools of water ; it is not peopled by wolves and foxes. This is not the way in which Damascus is mentioned in the book of books. But it has been ravaged and desolated again and again. It was reduced by Alex- ander, by the Romans, and especially by the Sara- cens in the year 713, who " miserably devastated it ;" and by Tamerlane in 1396, who " put its inhab- itants to the sword without mercy." It has been made " a ruinous heap ;" and still exists, " the ex- ternal appearance of most of the buildings being very mean — of some exceedingly so — while many of them are very elegant within." For several chapters we have been preparing to exhiibit the truth that scoffers of the later days are unacquainted with Bible facts. We are now almost ready to make the application. If you will go to any number of judges, legisla- tors, physicians, counsellors, etc., who speak against the sacred book, and ask them some such questions as we are about to specify, you will be able at once to understand the strange assertion, that the learned are included in the class of the wilfully ignorant. We will here ask the reader some questions^ such 50 CAUSK AND CURE OF INFIBELlTy. as he may ask any who now live and who no\v deride the Bible. Q,UESTioKS. The Hebrew prophets were ordered to utter their denunciations against all the nation =? round about for their wickedness. They spoke of their hills, rivers, villages, cities, and governments. If these prophets only conjectured or guessed that the events they foretold might or would come to pass, then may we not ask, with some degree of wonder at least. Suppose it had been said of some other city besides Babylon, that it should become pools of water and never more inhabited ? May not our curiosity be somewhat excited when we notice, that of the thousand proud and wicked cities around, the prophet did not happen to write these things of any, Babylon excepted ? And had they been written of any other one city, town, or village, that was or has been upon the face of the earth, we know of none where their truth could be seen. These, and the other particu- lars we have noticed, came to pass many centuries after these books of prophecy were written, according to infidel authority, or after unbelievers wrote against them. May we not inquire, with some degree of won- der, Suppose some writer of the Old Testament had happened to conjecture and write concerning Da- mascus, Sidon, Jerusalem, Jericho, Nineveh, or any city, town, or village, except Tyre, that the soil on which it stood should be scraped away, and fishermen^s nets rest upon its nakedness, who could point to its accomplishment ? On the broad surface of the earth, or along the protracted shores of tho BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAflllNtD. 51 ccean, the prophet was surely fortunate to hit upon the only spot where these things did happen. Long and dreadful calamities were threatened to Jerusa- lem ; but suppose it had been said that owls and tigers should inhabit pleasant palaces there, how many thousands now would clap their hands, rejoic- ing that such a conjecture was ever made. Suppose some one, two thousand years ago, had ventured to guess that the time would come when a shepherd would be afraid to drive his flock where Palmyra of the desert then stood, or through Athens, Ephesus, or Rome ; name any spot you please but one, and where would his reputation stand ? An admirer of the Bible who once sought, during many years, an opportunity to converse on this sub- ject with those of cultivated minds, asked questions resembling those above oftener than he can name or remember. He found that the reason they had not thought with some degree of interest on some such Bible facts was, they did not know that such facts existed. They could not think what God had said of Persia, Egypt, or Syria, for indeed they did not know what he had said, or that any thing was writ- ten about almost any nation or city that could be mentioned to them. Those of them who had read the Bible through, did not know that the things we have named were in the Bible. A thousand similar facts were equally unknown to them. If the learned unbeliever of the present day is thus wanting in the ancient literature connected with the Bible, it will not be hard to fancy the condition of the uneducated scoffer. Thousands who range the streets of ouj 52 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. large cities seem to be beyond remedy. Their furi- ous liatred towards all that is meek or holy, prevents their listening to expostulation ; and their ignorance renders them incapable of weighing argument on almost any subject. Their confidence in their edifice, however, would no doubt be much shaken, were it not that they fancy they have substantial support in their sameness of belief with the learned and the great. "We were to show that scoffers are wilfully igno- rant of Bible language, but we must first devote a few more chapters to facts. It is important that we should have a fair view of the fact, that men have some fondness for darkness, but none for light. This can be seen, if we show that men will not inform themselves, even where they condemn. It is possible that some reader may be in the state of mind in which was an old and wealthy merchant, who fancied that he had fully investigated the matter. " I have," said he, " heard these things spoken of all my life ; I have looked through the Bible ; I have thought on these things as I rode on my horse, as I lay on my bed, as I stood behind my counter, and I cannot be- lieve, because I am unable to understand the subject. Many things in religion seem to contradict my plain- est reason." Mark this case. The preceptive doctrines of Christianity are plain enough for a child to under, stand, and lovely enough to captivate all that is not enmity against God. The old man was not attempt- ing to obey any of these ; he only had his eye directed towards that which might appear difficult to him. So BIBLE FACTS DOT EXAMINED. 53 far as he could see, he was not trying to perform ; but on more mysterious points, spoke of an investigation which was no investigation. "We must illustrate this. Suppose there was a ploughman who had some strange dislike towards the science of chemistry ; he professes to disbelieve the whole of its facts and theories. Sup- pose he declares that many doctrines of chemistry contradict his plainest common-sense. ,He takes up a receipt for making ink, and avers, that to speak of mingling several clear white fluids together, and expecting black as the result, contradicts his plainest reason. Again, he says that chemists speak of mingling two cold substances until each shall become hot without the addition of a third ; but declares that this contradicts all that is rational. He finally adds, that he can never attempt to practise that which he cannot understand ; that he has read of alkalis, calo- ric, affinities, etc., until all appears to him a mass of confusion, and a jargon of nonsense. That he has thought on these things as he rode on his horse, as he lay on his bed, and as he ploughed in the field. And to crown all, chemists differ among themselves. At all this the philosopher would smile, and tell him that in order to practise the most useful part of chemistry — making salt, washing clothes, or baking bread, etc. — it was not necessary he should under- stand all that the Creator knows about it. He would tel this doubter that he might easily try the matter, take different substances and do as directed, and he would soon know the truth of these things expert' mentally. Finally, he would tell him, that if he 54 CAUSE AND CITRE OF INFIDELITY. must search into deeper matters, he must investu gate in reality ; that his much talked of research had left him ignorant still ; that this ignorance could be removed, and that he certainly should not con- demn, with a confident air, until it was removed. The doctrines of the Bible may be known, and their usefulness tested practically. Experimental knowledge is the safest and the best in the world. But if any are resolved that they will have a differ- ent kind of evidence or none, let them see that their wilful ignorance is removed before they venture to decide for eternity. BIBLE FACIS NOT EXAMINED. 53 CHAPTER XI. IHE GREAT AND THE LEARNED DO NOT ACQUAINT THEM SELVES WITH BIBLE FACTS. Item 5. Egypt — ^All the early history of Egypt, 80 impressively foretold by the prophets, we pass over, and come at once down to the particulars that are accomplishing at present — ^to those things which have been fulfilling in all recent years, as well as in ancient days. "We may notice those predictions concerning Egypt, which the reader, whether young or old, has lived to see fulfilled. The words of Ezekiel: "And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to re- turn into the land of Pathros ; and they shall be there a base (Heb. low) kingdom. It shall be the basest of the kingdoms ; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations ; for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations. And I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked ; and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of stran- gers : I the Lord have spoken it. / will also destroy their idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph ; and there shall be no more a jrrince of the land of Egypt." Chap. 29, 30. "We remark, first, it was very unlikely, to human apprehension, that Egypt should be the lowest of kingdoms always. Of all the nations, it seemed most 5G CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. unlikely that Egypt should bo depressed very long, because her unparalleled fertility and consequent populousness promised a speedy recovery after a downfall. Shall that country which was so long, so universally, and so justly called the granary of the world, have any other than a dense population? And, if numerous, shall strength be wanting to re- cover her freedom? It was more improbable of Egypt than of any other spot of earth, that strangers should always rule and waste it, because of its situ- ation. The Mediterranean on one side, the Red sea on another, impassable deserts on another, promise great defence. But the total inundation of the whole country by the Nile, during a part of every year — which the inhabitants are prepared to meet, while an invading army never can be — would surely aid even a weak people to defend themselves. But the Lord said her exaltation was ended, and that her future recovery w^as prohibited. The Babylonians, then the Persians, next* the Macedonians, the Romans, the Saracens, the Mamelukes, and finally the Turks, have protracted her subjugation and her servitude down to the present day. She has often made the attempt, but never succeeded to free herself. She has been under and always under, loio and always low. She has been kept the basest of kingdoms; servile, stupid, treacherous, cruel, and base in char- acter. We know of no part of the earth which has not governed itself, or been free some part of the last twenty-four hundred years, except that part which, from its location, fertility, and internal resourofs, seemed most likely to continue independent all tho BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 57 time. "We do not know the otherwise considerablp nation which has been thus debased for half that time, but the one seemingly most capable of self- defence. Secondly, when Ezekiel lived, had we been there and about to invent a highly political or historic im- probability, could we have thought of a greater one than to suppose that the idols and images should cease out of Egypt ? "What! shall we conjecture this of those who were so strangely prone to worship any thing but God ? Serpents, unicorns, cattle, reptiles, no matter what it was, they kneeled before it. Tt was a strange prediction to speak of causing images or idols to cease in a land where continued baseness is to prevail; because we spontaneously couple together in our minds ignorance, images, filth, idols, and sensuality. Images have long ceased there. Their idols have long since been destroyed. The Christian — in name only — who lives there, and the Turk who rules there, equally disdain to kneel before wood or stone, living animals, or painted statues. Thirdly, it was strikingly probable, from all for- mer history, and from all historic analogy, that Egypt would, at some time, have a native ruler, even should that ruler hold a borrowed or deputed authority. May not one of her own sons sit a prince upon that throne, although he may be a tributary prince ? May not her native lords govern there, no matter howexorbi- tant the tribute ? There has never been a prince of the land of Egypt- Their rulers have been se"* to them. Stran- 3* &« CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. gers have sent their slaves to be governors of the land of Egypt. It has not been her own sons who, in the pride oi self-exaltation, have drained the treasures of Egypt, It has always been by the hands of strangers that she has been wasted. Application. If we inquire of the unbelievers who live now — not merely of the uncultivated, but of the most noted for talents and professional emi nence — whether they have not been surprised on reflecting that these things were said of one nation only ; and that out of all the nations of the earth,- of one only they have happened to be true, and that for so many generations, we find that they have never meditated on such points. Of these and of similar facts almost countless in extent, they know nothing, and they do not inquire ; yet, either openly or in heart, they are scoffers. Men are slow and backward to inform themselves of any thing on the side of truth, in matters of religion ; but slight and superficial ob- jections, weak but plausible theories against the Bible, they learn speedily, ,they understand instantly, and they remember always. It is supposed, on good evi- dence, that no son of Adam ever was known to forget an ingenious and seemingly correct argument against Christianity, once heard, so long as he retained his mind. The conclusion is, that men love darknesi rathor than 7ig"A^ BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 59 CHAPTER XII. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. We might here cease to point at Bible facts, hop- ing that even the few we have noticed might servo as samples from the mass; but we feel inclined to give another instance, to show that these facts abound all through the New Testament as well as the Old. The Saviour's Prediction. " And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let them which are in the midst of it depart out ; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto ; for these be the days of vengeance. And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled." Luke 21 : 20-24. Observe, first, the time the Redeemer fixed and left on record for his followers and children to depart from that devoted city, was the time when it must seem to them that they could not get out of her. How were they to escape after the invaders had sur- rounded them? The church in Jerusalem had in- creased sometimes as fast as several thousand in a day. How were these families to depart, when Je- rusalem was compassed with armies ? The sign nanied by the Saviour as the token of their flight was of itself an impassable barrier in the way of their travel. The incident which dictated their hasty 80 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. lourney must necessarily hedge up their way. If the reader wishes a particular recital of many striking incidents, let him turn to the contemporary historian Josephus, who was himself an actor in the military occurrences of the time. This much admired and much respected writer does not seem to have known or to have remembered that the Saviour had said any thing of the Roman eagle standing where it ought not, or of Jerusalem being compassed with armies. When this siege did occur, he relates the circum- stances truthfully, although it is evident he did not know that they were appointed of heaven. The ban- ner which the soldiers worshipped, and which thi prophet called the " abomination which maketh deso- late," waved before the temple gates. Josephus re- lates accurately the movements of the Roman general Cestius, on that occasion. He informs us, that when he might have taken the city speedily, and with com- parative ease, thus terminating the war at once, he led his army away. He retired "without any just occasion in the world." Josephus seems to want words to express his surprise at the conduct of this commander. Perhaps Cestius scarcely knew himself why he thus acted so much to the astonishment of beholders ; but had we been there, knowing what we now know, we could have told all spectators and his- torians the reason why he withdrew. God's people were in that city. His little flock — little in com- paiison with the multitude of the ungodly — never noticed by the haughty of this world unless to deride or calumniate, are never forgotten by him. They were to seek safety in the mountains; they were to BIBLE FACTS HOT EXAMINED. 61 have an opportunity to retire. To afford this, the Roman legions must be taken to a proper distance. They were thus conducted, and the followers of the Saviour with their families did retire. The young reader is here again reminded that we are not giving merely the Christian account of these things. He may gather these facts from the pens of ancient and modern unbelievers, if he prefers their testimony. When those who had vociferated, " Crucify him, crucify him ; his blood be upon us and our children," were crucified themselves, with their children, around the walls of their blazing city, nailed many on the same cross, until there was no more space on which to plant a cross, and no more wood of which to make one ; when famine, gnawing, unparalleled famine, was doing a work along those crowded streets, the bare recital of which would cause the stupid, the callous, or the cruel to faint with sickening horror, there were no Christians there. They had gone to Pella. They had watched for the Redeemer's token, and obeyed the signal. Those words spoken by the Man of Cal- vary, unheeded by the world then, unnoticed by after- generations, and that scoffers of the present age scarcely know are in the Bible, were the means of their salvation. Let the reader bear these incidents in mind, until we come to the application. Observation second : " And .Terusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled." An inspired apostle, Paul, at the command of the Holy Ghost, had given the §hurch to understand — ehall we say fortunately or unfortunately — that this ea CAUSE AND CURE OF lilFlDELIIY. fulness of the Gentiles was to synchronize with the conversion of the Jews at a glorious period in the latter days. The prophet Daniel, in the prediction quoted by our Lord, lets us know that the desolations of Jerusalem were to continue until the end of the struggle between Christ and antichrist. The Saviour himself, in other discourses, lets us know that these long desolations would not terminate until the latter days. What an opportunity to defeat the declara- tions of the Messiah, and to show that Jerusalem should not be trodden down of the Gentiles through after-ages. The Israelites have been rich enough to build a score of temples during any period of their widest dispersion, or of their deepest, heavi- est oppression. Notwithstanding the reiterated mas- sacres, the constant apostasies or lapses into hea- thenism, the uninterrupted commingling with their oppressors, etc., there has been no portion from any one of the eighteen centuries now gone by, during which there might not have been counted two mill- ions or three — a number sufficient to populate the hills and vales of Canaan — and zealous enough to venture almost any thing, or to endure almost every thing for the Zion of their songs. If some king of the earth, some sceptred potentate would only sanc- tion or countenance their return, what would they not perform ? The Lord allowed them just such a raan ; nay, a more powerful leader : one who sat on Cesar's throne, who nodded and the nations trembled. The emperor Julian was an accomplished warrior. He ruled over the lanA shown to Abraham, and ten limes as much. He hated .the Saviour as bitterly BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 63 as those who crucified him. He had been educated under the sound of the gospel, and knew the words of Christ. He was familiar with the writings of the evangelists. He resolved that Jerusalem should bo trodden under foot of the Israelites, instead of the Gentiles. The reader is invited to examine the account of this as given by one whose hatred of tho gospel equalled that of Julian himself. The author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was under the necessity of stating some facts concerning this effort to defeat the words of Christ, made by the mighty and the wise. At the invitation of the em- peror, the children of Judah assembled to rebuild their temple and to claim the inheritance of their fathers. Their enthusiasm was wonderful. Even their delicate females were seen carrying off rubbish in their silver veils. Their joyful companies labored, cheered on by the sound of instruments of music and animating voices. But the emperor did not trust this undertaking to the Israelites alone. Wealthy as they were, devoted as they were, he resolved to make this matter more certain still. He could aid by his proclamations, his royal decrees, or his treasures, but it was not a trifle he had at heart ; to show the gaz- ing earth that the Jewish worship should be restored, where the Lord had said the Gehtiles should continue to tread, was no ordinary achievement. He went himself to their aid with those cohorts and those legions that had crossed rivers, hills, and deserts, that had elevated or dethroned monarchs, and before whom it was hard indeed to stand. Here then was to be a ' "ial of the strength of heaven and the strength 64 CAUSE AHD CURE OF IKFIDELITV. of earth, in determined contest and fairly balanced opposition. Jews and Romans, Christians and hea- thens, gazed to see whether the emperor could or could not go contrary to the declaration uttered by the Man of sorrows, who had not where to lay his head. The earthly potentate was defeated. Ho abandoned the undertaking. This fact, recorded' by Christians and by infidels, would be enough for our present purpose, were we to say nothing concerning the means of his defeat. To show that Jerusalenr has been still trodden down of the Gentiles, is mainly the point we have in view; and it is all we shall not tice when we come to the application. But for the purpose of exhibiting the way in which opposers uni- formly narrate that which they dislike to pen — we must notice the strange want of fairness and of truth belonging to unbelieving historians, leading them sometimes to conceal and sometimes to pervert — we look for a moment at Gibbon's history of this event. He grants that it was said the workmen were driven from their work by a supernatural visitation ; that they were scorched by fire again and again ; that an account of this public and marvellous defeat was published the same year by two individuals — but these individuals were Christians. That their state- ment was neither denied by the emperor or his friends, nor contradicted in any way, does not seem to have weighed much in his estimate of the singular occur- rence. It is true that Gibbon speaks well of a cer- tain heathen writer, Ammianus Marcellinus, who was the emperor's private secretary, and who became his biographer. It is true ho quotes the following BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAMINED 65 words of Ammianus, who knew as much of the defeat and the cause of it as did the emperor h i tnself. ' ' Wlii I a Alypius, assisted by the governor of the province, urged with vigor and diligence the execution of the work, horrible balls of fire breaking out near the foundations, with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered the place from time to time inaccessible to the scorched and blasted workmen ; and the victorious element continuing in this manner absolutely and resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a dis- tance, the undertaking was abandoned." If the his- torian had simply quoted this testimony, telling us that although this reputable heathen author was a spectator of these things, and was recording his own failure along with that of his master, still he. Gib- bon, did not credit the recital, there would have been nothing unfair in the transaction ; but his efforts to prejudge the case and bias the reader's mind against evidence, certainly evince a repugnance to the un- obstructed ray of light. It is not our object here to inquire how much credulity they must possess who can believe that no one was found to contradict these statements of Pagans and Christians, out of all the Jewish nation, and out of all the Roman army, or from the ranks of the admirers or flatterers of royalty. A sermon which was preached within that genera- tion is still extant, addressed to the Israelites as a persuasive, leading them to obey the gospel ; they were reminded of this noted overthrow, and invited to go and look again at the materials and other tokens of their rebuke from heaven while endeavoring to go contrary to the purpose of the Maker of worlds. We b6 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. might pause and inquire how strange that any one wishing them to embrace Christianity, should remind them of that which they had never known, and speak to them of wonders which they had never witnessed, as though these marvels were fresh in their recollec- tion; but these are not the points before us. The certainties alone are enough for our purpose. We know that Jerusalem has been trodden down of the Gentiles seventeen hundred years. "We know that the Jewish worship was not restored ; and that if a wealthy and enthusiastic people, aided by an emperor and his army, were not enough to build another temple, then nothing ever could accomplish it. Application. Should the reader desire to ascer tain whether those who scoff at holy writ do not oc- casionally have their curiosity, at least, awakened by such incidents as those above named, so far as to lead them on towards further inquiry, he may soon bring the matter to a fair trial by asking such questions as the author has often asked. Inquire the reason why the Christians left the city, and were not involved in ruin and misery such as the world had never seen before. Had they more political sagacity than their countrymen? Or why did not some fifty or a hun- dred thousand of the more prudent Jews retire to Pella, and share the safety which the Christians there enjoyed ? Or, if the church had been watching for the token, and obeyed the signal of the Redeemer, did he only conjecture the sign, or was he Lord of armies ? How did he know that the dispersion would continue, and that Jerusalem would never recover her Mosaic forms of worship ? etc. BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 67 Those who make such inquiries of such as reject the gospel at the present day, find, with striking uni- formity, that they do not remember, or they never knew accurately, what Christ had said of that peo- ple and that place. They are not informed as it regards Julian's ability, or his wish to disprove the prophecy ; what unbelieving historians have acknow- ledged on these points; what were the sufferings of those who killed the prophets and. stoned the apostles, or indeed of any other fact or facts of this kind. It is only some hearsay difficulty, some seeming contra- diction, or some objection of their own against the book of inspiration, which seizes and retains their thoughts when the subject of inspiration is men- tioned. There is another branch of wilful ignorance which must not be passed by without notice, but at present we are otherwise employed. Scoffers of the present day are unacquainted with all those facts of historic authority which have a sec- ondary connection with the holy page-; but for the present we must show what we mean by saying they are ignorant of Bible language. 69 CACTSE AND CURE OF INFIUELIir. CHArTER XIII. SCOFFERS OF THE LAST DAYS ARE WILFULLY leNORANT OF BIBLE LANGUAGE. An old man of Kentucky became rich and mocked at Grod. He became more and more bitter, just as fast and in proportion as his kind Saviour heaped the blessings, comforts, and luxuries of life around him, He took up the Bible and read the following passage, or one like it : " Bel boweth down, Nebo stoopeth, their idols were upon the beasts, and upon the cattle ; your carriages were heavy loaden ; they are a burden to the weary beast. They stoop, they bow down together ; they could not deliver the burden, but themselves are gone into captivity." Isaiah 46 : 1, 2. " Here," exclaimed the old man, with more than anger depicted in his face, " here is the jargon which no one can understand, which I am required to be- lieve ; an unmeaning jargon." Reader, notice what that old man might have loiown, if he had read one fiftieth part as much Bible history as he had read of political disputes in his newspapers. Notice what he might have felt, while reading those verses, had he been humble enough to seek after knowledge; had he even patiently con- versed with such of the pious as wished to speak with , him on the great concern. He might have noticed that in the sacred book, God, by the mouth of his BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 69 prophets, spoke in the past tense of future events — ■ that which he determined should take place was as certain as that which had already transpired. The old man might have reflected, that when Isaiah spoke tlius of Bel and Nebo, the kneeling millions prostrate before those idols pained the hearts of God's people. The desolations of Zion, the subjugation and disper- sion of the worshippers of the true God, made his prophets mourn. How his servants would watch and wait to see the salvation of Israel, as connected with the fall of Bel and Nebo. That old man might have learned from common history, that those gold and silver images were broken down under the hammer, placed on mules and oxen, and while driving to dis- tant Media, the cattle were oppressed with the wea- risome load. The friends of God then, and the church ever since, while reading that passage, are cheered with the recollection that the Lord of glory invariably performs his promises of succor and deliverance. Their souls are fed with the glorious fact, that as he did not forget to fulfil his words of promise then, so he never will in future. The enemies of God might be reminded, if they would receive instruction, of the awful truth that his holy denunciations will also be verified. The passage is of course unmeaning to those who know nothing; but shall God be answer- able for the wilful ignorance of man ? Those verses are full of comfort, sublimity, and heavenly glory to the pious who have sought after knowledge. The boasting worm who chooses to keep himself in utter ignorance, cannot of course understand this or any 70 CAUS£ AND CUEE OF INFIDELITY. other passage whioli pictures ancient occurrences ; but the blindness is in his own dark mind. It is in this way that the educated and the brill iant in other things have neglected every thing con. neoted with God's book; they have inquired after knowledge anywhere or everywhere else, and much of the sacred volume has no meaning to them. BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAllINED. 71 CHAPTER XIV. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. A MOCKER who was admired for his strength of intellect, exclaimed, " What unmeaning nonsense !" after reading either the following passage or one like it : " They shall jostle one against another in the broad ways. He shall recount his worthies: they shall stumble in their walk ; they shall make haste 1o the wall thereof, and the defence shall be pre- pared. The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved." Nahum 2 : 4-6. Suppose this scoffer had condescended to inquire. He might have read this chapter with tears of won- der and of joy. Before the invention of cannon, the walls of Nin- eveh, so famous for their height and their width, were trusted in as impregnable by those proud enemies of Jehovah's people. Perhaps, to many of them, the opening of the gates of the rivers was as unintelli- gible as it is now to modern mockers; but the Lord taught them its import with fearfal accuracy. An- cient history informs us that during the siege in after-days, there arose one inundation of the Tigris, unparalleled, as far as we can iearn, in previous ages or in succeeding centuries. It swept down that boasted wall, on the top of which three char- iots used to drive abreast, by furlongs. Through these awful gates the river entered and melted dowD 12 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. their palaces and their piles of bricks; showing to them and to us that God's word, however strange and unlikely, will always be fulfilled ! If man keeps himself in such ignorance that he cannot understand or be profited by these glorious flashes of heavenly light, who will finally bear the shame, the book of light, or the uninformed mocker ? You may spread a table of pure and wholesome food which the perverted appetite of the sated epicure will not receive ; but his feelings of disgust do not change the existing nature of those really desirable viands. There is no passage, no fraction of a passage, within the covers of that blessed book, which is not rich with treasures of in- structive truth, or full of music and of light ; but it is an old fact, that men may close their eyes and stop their ears, until they cannot judge of or even per- ceive sight or sound. BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAMINED, 73 CHAPTER XV. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. In how many instances every day does it happen, that the Bible is cast away with indignant scorn, af- ter some one, wise in his own estimation, has read a sentence resembling thalt which follows : " Oh, that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence, as when the melting fire burneth, tho fire causeth the waters to boil, to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence !" Isaiah 64 : 1, 2. If we were to address a scoffer who says, " I cannot understand this book," after reading such a page, we might make to Ijim two several state- ments : 1. Fellow- worm, if you will place yourself at the foot of that volcanic precipice, at the time when the broad, deep, and dreadful torrent of melted ore flows down its side, while the boiling ocean retires before this red tributary ; if you will gaze at the electric flash, and hear the subterranean thunder, you will confess, unless you have stupefied your soul with Bin until you cannot feel, that no spectacle towards which mortal eye could be directed, is more calcu- lated to awaken in us a recollection of the grandeur, the power, and the dreadfulness of the awful One. 2. If you never have, like the prophet, felt so Ckou aM Cum. A, 7i CAU^E AND CUE.e OF INFIDELITY. pained by the wickedness, tlie blasphemy, ingrati- tude, and daring insults of rebellious man, that you longed to see them overawed and stilled into obedi- ence by some striking manifestation of Jehovah's power, it is because you have no piety, and never ftlt any genuine filial gratitude towards the giver of all the mercies which sustain you ; but you should not scorn those who have. Oh, every line of that inspired page is sweet, or reproving, or grand, or instructive, or cheering ; but men love darkness rather than light, and the learned are too ignorant to understand the plainest words that ever were written, provided those words come from heaven ! BIBLE FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 75 CHAPTER XVI. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. " And the daughter of Zion is left as a lodge ia a garden of cucumbers." Thore was a man who had read Xenophon and Longinus, Cicero and the Latin poets. He was ap- plauded by his friends for what they called his mind. The passage quoted above, and hundreds like it, he said appeared to him not only unmeaning, but weak, puerile, and inelegant. In process of time he was led by the notes of modern travellers, seemingly by accident, to remember that these little lodges are built for the habitation of a single watcher, to pre- serve from the ravages of birds, etc., those oriental gardens. We are told that if we sail on the bosom of that gentle river, and look to the slope where the quiet sunshine rests on those lonely and solitary dwellings during the stillness of evening, nothing on earth is more calculated to bring into the bosom a feeling of desertion and desolation, thari this image from the prophet's pen, picturing the decay of Jeru- salem. This self-important man afterwards confessed that the deficiencies were in his own stupid soul, and that the language of the Bible was indeed the style of heaven.* * Perhaps one confession ought to be made to the miidel ■jTorld It id that Christians should not he too loud in theix 76 CAUSK AKD CURE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER XVII. MEN HATE LOVED DARKNESS RATHER THAN LIGHT. We have endeavored to hold up to view that etrange tendency and natural leaning towards false- hood, in matters of religion, which we possess with- out being aware of it. We will endeavor to illus- trate this same truth by another process. It should be presented in another attitude. We think the weakness of props on which opposers rest, gives a full exhibition of this truth. If men base a fabric of their eternal expectations on decayed weeds, while an enduring rook is close at hand, there is some strange reason for such a choice. There is some- thing defective in his heart or in his head, who is content to cast away the book of God, and venture voice of condemnatiou, so long as they practise the same sin which they reprove. Christians believe that their heavenly Father has sent them a long, kind letter from heaven ; that they owe it to him to read every line of it to their children, and make them ac- quainted with all interesting concomitant facts. For want of this knowledge, many of the youth of our nation have grown up scoffers. Rather than risk this, encounter any trouble and expense ; better have a professor at college for every book in the Bible ; better recite a morning lesson on every line in the book ; better endanger the loss of all other knowledge. How is the actual practice of the church in these things ? When the Christian parent places his son in the academy or college, does he say to the teacher, " Whatever else you may omit, see FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 77 all the terrors of the judgment-day upon some one feeble cavil, which is annihilated as soon as a few facts are presented. Out of many we must select a few, and such as we have heard urged most frequently. Case 1. An amiable lawyer, after urging his toilsome but successful course for many years, at last won a seat in Congress. On his way to the meeting of that assembly, he was taken with a disease which at first did not seem alarming. A physician, with whom he was on terms of intimacy, went to see him. This physician was one who thought the soul of great value. He believed the disease one of those which flatter but destroy. He felt impelled ^to tell his friend so, and to ask as to his preparation for crossing the river of death. The lawyer answered him that he could not believe in Christianity. The doctor asked if he had ever investigated the mat- ter. He replied that he had read such and such books on the subject, naming over some five or six that you teach him the ancient literature connected with the Bible ?" No, this is not his charge, this is not his expectation. He knows that his son will he taught daily, laboriously, and invariably, Virgil, Horace, and other heathen authors, contain- ing many most exceptionable passages. But if a college has a rule that the Bible is to he part of the course, it is an unpopu- lar rule, and often the teachers are themselves ignorant of Bible facts and Bible language. The haters of God have ex- i;laimed, " The college is no place to learn religion ;" and this weak dogma Christians have obeyed scrupulously, and Bible facts and Bible language form no part of the nation's study. Books on these points — Lardner, Grotius, Shuckford, Prideaux, etc. — are almost out of print ; they may be found in a preacher's library, but even there, will in many cases be sought in vain- 78 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. infidel authors, and that he deemed this a sufficient research. Being aslied if he had never read any thing on the other side, he confessed he never had. His friend told him that he deemed this a strange investigation, but would wish to hear the argument of his strongest confidence, that on which his hope leaned with the most quiet security. His answer was substantially as follows : " I can never believe in the darkness said to prevail over the land at the crucifixion of Christ. The strange silence of all writers, except the evangelists, disproves the state- ment ; the elder Pliny particularly, who devoted a. whole chapter to the enumeration of eclipses and strange things, would surely have told us of this oc- currence had it been true." His friend the physician answered him with the following facts : " My dear friend, permit me to tell you where you obtained that statement concerning the silence of contemporary authors, and the chapter of Pliny de- voted to eclipses. You read it in the second volume of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. There would be some degree of force in the state- ment, were it not for one individual circumstance ; that is, it is not true ! A tree painted on paper may resemble an oak, but it is not an oak. There is not a word of truth in Mr. Gibbon's account, although the falsehood is polished. That which he calls a dis- tinct chapter of Pliny devoted to eclipses, seems to have taken your full credence. Pliny has no such chapter ; it is only a sentence, an incidental remark as it were. It consists of eighteen words. I will re- peat them to you, if you wish to hear them. The im- FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 79 port of the remark is, that eclipses are sometimes very long, like that after Cesar^s death, when the sun was pale almost a year. A man hears of many things which he does not write. Pliny does not mention the darkness, but Celsus does, and so do Thallus and Phle- gon, Origen, Eusebius, Tertullian, and others, somo of them Christians and some of them pagans." The reader can see Home's Introduction, vol. 1, chap. 2. " I am sorry you took the word of that author, splendid as were his talents; for he sometimes. pen- ned falsehood without scruple, if religion was his topic." The sick man was silent, and fell into a long deep revery. After a few days he said to a relative, " If what I read in youth gave my mind a wrong bias, I suppose I must abide the consequences, for I cannot investigate now." He fell into convulsions and died. Reflections. Poor man ! the truths of the gos- pel and the evidences of Christianity were presented to him, and he turned away. He read a statement against the Bible made by a modern historian who hated Christianity, and he received it at once with- out asking further. He took hold on a falsehood without one moment's delay or hesitation, relied upon it, and continued to believe it for twenty years, never asking after further testimony. Surely men love darkness rather than light. Ten thousand fruitful facts were before him and around him on the page of history — they favored Christianity, and he did not observe or remember them. The first his- toric lie he met satisfied him. It seemed opposed to revelation. 60 CAUSE AND CURE f F iNFIDEl ITY. CHAPTER XVIII. MEN HAVE LOVED DARKNESS RATHER THAN LIGHT. Case 2. Several physicians of Virginia declarod to oach other that the Bible could not be true, because the doctrine of the resurrection was taught there, and this they deemed impossible. They mentioned the case of a man whose body was carried in fragments to different parts of the earth ; and asked, with ex- ulting laughter, how he was to recover his body after it had been dissolved, mingled with earth, grown again into vegetables, then again forming a part of other animals and other bodies, age after age. Hun- dreds and thousands make this the strongest prop of their system of unbelief, but physicians are mentioned here because they are familiar with facts which would utterly forbid any one being influenced a moment by such reasoning, unless he had a strong appetite for falsehood and a full disrelish for the truth. That men of science have trusted in the hope that the resurrection could not take place, because part of the same body may have belonged to different men and different animals, exhibits so glaringly and unde- niably the love for darkness, that we must take some time and some space to review the fabric of their confidence. We must encounter some toil and exer cise some patience, to make that perfectly plain to the youthful or the unlettered, which is so readily understood by the anatomist. We must and will FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 81 expose, if we can,' that which has led the scientific 1o propose a difficulty in the doctrine of the resurrec- tion. Let enlightened readers then bear with us, while we explain things well known to them, for the sake of the uncultivated. The inferences will be of equal importance to all. The application is profit- able to each one of us. Let the following facts be noted and impressed on the memory. First fact. G-od tells the righteous that their bodies, although made out of the materials belonging to their present frames of earth, will shine and be very splendid. 1 Cor. 15:40-49. God can make very durable and very glorious things, out of mate- rials the very opposite of firmness or of brilliancy. He has done this. Of all the substances with which we are acquainted, we esteem diamond the hardest and the most glittering. Charcoal is as black and as crumbling as any other body known to us, yet these two bodies are the same. The learned know, the ploughboy does not, that the difference between char- coal and diamond is, that the Creator has ordered a different arrangement of particles. The same ma- terials are differently placed, that is all. If any are wishing for a body more beautiful than they now have, they may be assured that God can, if he chooses, take our present fragile, corruptible forms of clay, and make out of them something exceedingly glorious. "It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory." Out of a certain spot of earth a flower arose, which waved in splendor ; the soil from which it grew was very black. 4* 82 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. Second fact. God has not told us how much of our present body goes into the composition of the new, on the morning of the resurrection. The figure used as an illustration by the inspired writer, to make his instructions plain on this subject, is the grain which is sown in the earth, decays, and out of which springs the new grain. It is perhaps a twentieth or thirtieth part of a grain of wheat, which springs up and forms a part of the new grain ; the rest rots and stays in the ground. It is not needed in the new body which God gives the wheat, and is not called forth again. "Whether it will be a tenth, a twentieth, or a hundredth part of our present body, which is to enter into the formation of the new, God has not chosen to tell us, and we need not care, for the work will be well done and we shall know enough after a time. Third fact. The man who has lived here sev. enty years, has had very many bodies : perhaps less, perhaps more than seventy. God has not conde- scended to tell us out of which of these bodies he will take the new, or whether a portion of each will be used. Here let the young reader be very careful to note and remember, the body he has now is not the same body he had last year. Our bodies change continu- ally. The man who is kept from food in any way, no longer than one week, finds, at the end of that tim>e, he has not as much body by many pounds, as he had seven days before. In this way, how fast the body wastes is not yet accurately agreed on. Our food is only supplying this continued waste. The FACTS HOT EXAMINED. 83 bones change also, but not so fast as the softer parts of our frames. How the body can waste, and be again renewed, is singular and interesting, but not easily understood without close thinking. It will be worth while to take some pains, and drop anatomical Btyle, or physiological style, and speak in a way to be understood by all. The young reader may be led to admire the wonderful works of God, while pre- paring to comprehend a fact connected with his own resurrection. Every little boy knows what a vein is. He is also capable of understanding what is meant by a vein forking, or branching again and again, until it becomes exceedingly small, like those he has seen running over the eye when it is inflamed. Then again, he can fancy that if one of these small veins shall divide into a thousand branches, in run- ning a short distance, they must become so small that they cannot be seen by the eye alone. And if thousands of these branch a thousand times, they will lay over each other finer and more plentifully than the hair of the head. These small veins physi- cians call vessels, bloodvessels. Running through, and along with these, are other vessels as small and as numerous, that are not called bloodvessels. Il we place a small pebble in a leathern tube, and con- tract our fingers behind the pebble, we may push it from one end of the tube to the other. In this way, and through these countless millions of vessels, our food changed to blood is conducted to every part of the body where it is needed. We call that which is so much smaller than the dust of flour that we can- not see it, a particle. When any of the body which 84 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY WO now have shall have remained long enough whorti it is, to become too old and need changing, it is taken up by particles into these hairlike vessels ; the vessel contracts behind the particle and pushes it on the skin, and much of the body is lost in one day by what is called insensible perspiration. Others of these vessels lead in a different direction, and taking up particle after particle of the old body, it is thrown into the bowels, and so passes off. But from where these particles are taken there is left a vacancy of course, and if not supplied, the man is said to be falling away, or declining in flesh. Our food, day after day, is taken into the stomach, there prepared, taken up in particles by these small vessels, con- ducted to every part of the body, and deposited in these vacancies. Thus we think that any one can understand the necessity of daily food, and the won- derful process by which our sinking flesh is constantly sustained. But the inquiring mind sometimes de mands, " If my body is thus totally changed, and so often, how is it that I look as I formerly did, or retain my shape in any way?" Answer: This you shall understand if you are willing to think indus- triously. Take a plate and cover it over with apples. On the top of this first layer of apples place a second, and on these a third, and so continue ; after a time you will have a pyramid, and one to crown the top alone. Then suppose one man approaches the plate, takes up an apple and throws if to a distance. Another man by, immediately drops another apple as large into its place ; your pyramid is still there, and retains its shape The first man takes up apple after apple in FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 85 swift succession, casting them to a distance, while tho second man drops an apple into each vacuum as fast as they are made : your plate of apples may bo changed a thousand times, and the pyramid is still there in full shape. Thus your body is changed and renewed by particles. The shape remains, although there is nothing about you, soul excepted, whicli was there in former years. It is a man's immortal part which constitutes his real identity. Blessed bo Grod, the soul does not waste, and glory to his name, the body does ; thus leading us to remember our de- pendence on our heavenly Father. Fourth fact. We never had a body, a part of which did not come from every corner of the world. The rice of which that man is partaking grew in Georgia or the East Indies. That waterfowl once swam on the surface of a northern lake. That sugar came from Jamaica, and that fish once floated on the Newfoundland shoals. Young reader, do you expect to live a few months longer ? If you do, you must have in part a new body ; and where is it to come from ? It is probable that you will eat bread ; but the wheat from which this is to be made is now growing in your father's field, or in that of a neigh- bor. How is the growth of this wheat to be con- tinued? Plants are sustained and nourished much from the air that floats past them ; it enters into tho pores, the leaves drink it up, and it forms a part cf their substance. But the air of the earth is always changing and streaming in torrents from one part of the earth to the othe'r. This incessant motion is necessary to preserve its purity. The air which is 86 CAUSK AND CURE OF INFIUELlir. to sustain that grain on which you are to feed, is not near it now ; it is on the other side of the earth. Vegetation is fed by the showers of heaven. "Water forms a part of the wheat, an indispensable portion. But that water is not over the field now. The clouds come from a distance. The process of evaporation will proceed on the surface of distant oceans, if the atmosphere is made heavy with the showers that nourish that which is to nourish you. You never partook of any food, part of which had not been col- lected from distant lands and oceans all over the earth. Application. Here is a man who is acquainted with all these facts. He knows that the body he is to have, if he lives, is now diffused and com- mingled through all the elements of earth, air, and water ; but his belief is, that when he dies, if his body should go back into these elements, and be scattered abroad once more, Grod cannot collect it again. Well might heaven mourn, earth be astonished, and hell rejoice. I never could have believed this, if I had not seen and heard it. That scientific man is fully aware that for the twentieth time he has had a body gathered from the corners of the world ; but his prop for eternity is, that God cannot do this once more on the morning of the resurrection. The fabric of his everlasting expectations rests on the cieed, or the hope, that the Creator, who has given this other man fifty new bodies, will fail in the fifty- fivst effort, should he endeavor out of all these bodies to gather one new frame. FACTb NOT EXAMINED. 87 If this system or religious creed is not the re- suit of man's disrelish for truth, and his love for darkness, then is there no such thing as cause and result. My dear friends, I do not envy you your tower of refuge. Be not angry with me if I prefer the Eock of ages for my security when the world reels. 88 CAUSE AKD CURE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER XIX. MEN HAVE LOVED DARKNESS RATHER THAN LIGHT. Ca.se 3. A noted teacher of Latin who had read the Bible, and who had read many volumes of his- tory, averred that he could not receive the New Testa- ment : " For," said he, " the enemies of Christianity, pagan writers, would surely have noticed Christ and his apostles, or their writings, or their miracles it they had been performed." This objection was the ground of his creed, the pillar of his confidence. It has been such to thou sands, and continues so to be. To show the strength of these objections, we will look at similar cavils in matters of common history. Suppose you were to meet an impetuous and loud- tallfing young man, who had taken up some .strange dislike to the occurrences of the American revolution. With flashing eye and indignant action, he declares that he does not believe one half of the statements of our historians. One of his most prominent difficul- ties and strongest objectionp he presents in the fol lowing way : " I never can believe that Lord Corn- wallis marched his forces through Virginia. This ia Washington's native state, and he would certainly have opposed them had the enemy crossed its border. The British troops never could have been in Virginia ; common-sense tells me so ; because, had they ap. peaied there, we are certain, from what we know of FACTS NOT EXAMINKD. 89 the cliaraoter of Washington, he would have inter- fered, he would have encountered them." Now, ob- serve, the secret of this marvellous difficulty is sim- ply this : Washington was a man disposed to meet the enemy speedily and unfailingly. Nothing pro- rents this objection against American history from possessing great strength, but one solitary oircum. stance, and that is this : he did encounter, surround, and capture them. If a class of men should keep themselves in oh stinate ignorance of the transactions at Little York, this cavil would to their rninds possess great force ; but when the whole truth is told, we think a half idiot would turn away from the objector with con tempt. Thus, when the scoffer says he cannot be lieve the gospel, because he deems it altogethei probable and to be expected, that other writers be- sides the evangelists would have mentioned or allud- ed to the occurrences of those times, it is indeed truo that these attestations, records, or allusions were to be looked for; and all that prevents the argument having some weight is, simply, that these records and heathen testimonies were penned in the greatest abundance. The objector is not only ignorant of what was written in that age, but he continues per- sevoringly ignorant, as we are now about to show. Volney, Hume, Voltaire, and other able infidel au- thors, make statements on these points utterly un- true. These the scoffers read, believe instantly, and never forget ; but answers written by friends of the gospel, they never read ; or if they do, it is cursorily and languidly, and almost every statement is forgotten 90 CAUSE AND CUKE OF INFIDELITY. before a month. All this the reader may observe foi himself, if he be inclined. He may ascertain these facts from actual inquiry. He may test the matter ■whenever he chooses, by pursuing a course which in any degree resembles the follo\\ring. Suppose he goes to that unbeliever, or to as many of them as hw chooses, in any part of the earth, and after remind- ing him that the emperor Julian lived so near the apostles that his grandfather must have been contem- porary with those who heard them preach ; that this monarch was not only a splendid warrior, but an able writer, of extensive information ; that in either writing or fighting against Christianity, such was his bitterness, that he put forth all his energies ; and then proposes questions like the following: "What does this learned emperor state in his writings con. cerning Peter and Paul, whom he hated so bitterly ?" "Had he any opportunity to learn whether or not the Saviour walked on the surface of the deep ?" He confesses he did. "What does Julian record con- cerning the blind in the villages of Judea being re- stored to sight ?" etc. Reader, you will find that the man who was professedly asking after heathen testi- mony, either never knew facts of this kind, or his recollection is so dim that out of volumes of them he cannot relate accurately three circumscribed items! Ask after the Greek philosopher at Athens, Aristides, who renounced heathenism,* who wrote a letter to the emperor, etc. Ask what this man said concerning those who had been healed or restored by the apostles in his day. Ask the objector, if this * See Addison's Evidence». FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 91 philosopher's testimony is weakened because the evi- dences of Christianity were so strong as to cause him to renounce the religion of his fathers and be bap- tized. Ask the objector what Celsus wrote concern- ing the companions of Jesus — who lived, he states, a few years before his time. Ask what this writer states of the Saviour's incarnation — of his being born of a virgin — of his flight into Egypt — of his baptism, etc., and you will find that the man who turns away from the testimony of early Christian writers because they were friends of Christ, also keeps himself in ignorance of the remarks, or con- fessions, or quotations written by his enemies. Such a man of course must be destitute of evidence. 32 CAUSE ANli CURE OF INFIDET-ITY. CHAPTER XX. iNOONSISTENCY OF UNBELIEVERS-. Unbelievers demand heathen testimony concern- ing the book of the New Testament and the things contained therein ; but the testimony of pagans and Jews on all such points they have forgotten, or they never Imew. Let those who can scarcely think this is so con- cerning the learned scoffer, go to him, or to as many as a thousand, severally, if so inclined, and ask, " What does Lucian say concerning the crucifixion of Christ ; concerning the doctrine of love which he inculcated to his followers ; concerning the honesty and fair dealing of his disciples, their hopes of im- mortality?" etc. You will find, that concerning the contents of the Talmuds, or Lucian, or Porphy- ry, Celsus, Tacitus, Pliny, Josephus, or any writer living near that age, they are almost entirely igno- rant, or their recollections are only a mass of con- fusion. We will notice another case, selecting it out of many, to show that those who ask for pagan testi- mony, wish indeed for no testimony on the subject. For the sake of the youthful or the unlettered, we preface the case with a few remarks relating to an- cient history. The Romans were in the habit of writing, and preserving among their senate's records, fctriking events and strange occurrences,. Their gov- FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 93 ernors used to send to the emperors a written ac- oount of noted and remarkable transactions, which were preserved under the name of these several gov- ernors, such as the acts of the principal men who ruled. Pilate sent on an account to the emperor Ti- berius of the Saviour's life, miracles, crucifixion, res- urrection, and ascension. These papers were called Acta Pilati, the acts of Pilate. Justin, who was a boy when St. John died, grew up in the Greek and heathen philosophy, was converted to Christianity about the forty-fourth year of his age, and wrote to Rome asking from Antoninus imperial favor and lenity for the Christians. Having written to the em- peror and his senate of the life and death of our Lord, of the dead that were raised, of the diseases that were healed, etc., he adds, "And that these things loere done by him, you may know from the Acts made in the time of Pontius Pilate." Tertullian wrote to the emperor, and refers to the Acts of Pilate. The early Christians, in their disputes with the Gentiles, referred to the Acts of Pilate as au- thority which no one disputed. These writers, or these disciples, were almost uniformly either Jews or pagans before their conversion, and once hated the name of Christ. Reader, go and ask the objectors of whom we have been writing, questions such as these: "Was the account of the Acts of Pilate, mentioned in the letters of Justin Martyr, less clear and credible be- cause he renounced his former faith and embraced Christianity ? Would Justin or Tertullian, or any other, writing to the emperor and senate, asking for 94 CAUSE AND CTJRE OF INFIUELITT. their lives and the lives of brethren, and for kind- ness, favor, and toleration to all the church, refer them to papers which they did not possess, or to senatorial documents that did not exist ?" You will find that the objectors do not know who Justin, TertuUian, Irenajus, Clement, and Eusebius were; where, or when they lived ; whether any of their writings arft, or are not extant, or what they wrote about. FACTS HOT EXAMINED. CHAPTER XXI. UNCEASING CAUSE OF INFIDELITY. Suppose there burns a light of uncommon gplea- dor, not far from a man who hates its radiance. Sup- pose it is his duty to gaze upon its glory, but he re- fuses ; this aversion may discover itself in a variety of attitudes, all tending to the one result. In the first place, he will not approach. Then, suppose an angel should descend, take him by the arm, and with the mastery of superior strength lead him near ; will the object be accomplished? No; one of his expe- dients is taken from him, but he can employ another. He turns away his head. He is next compelled to face the light, but he holds his hand before his face ; this forcibly is withdrawn, and he then shuts his eyes. Just so it has been with fallen man, in differ- ent ages, regarding the truth. " If I had been near to Sinai, in the days of Moses and of Joshua," said a young man ; " if I had stood at the foot of that thunder-rocked mountain, and heard the voice of God speaking to that nation, I never should have doubted the power of Jehovah ; if I had marched through the bosom of that retiring eea, and had been fed with manna, year after year, I never should have questioned the deity of my leader for a single moment." Neither did the Israelites ; this was not the form af their unbelief, Amidst all their rebellions, they 93 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. never questioned the strength of Jehovah, or the facts recorded during their journey, a single hour Their disrelish for the truth showed itself in the fol- lowing way : " May not different deities have the empire of the earth divided between them ? We know that our God is powerful ; but our neighbors say that their god is also powerful. May it not bo well to seek the favor of both ? Might it not be wise to propitiate the favor of all ? Their worship is easily rendered ; it is very agreeable, and allows of the dance and songs and joyous festivity." The unbe- lief of this age was the infidelity of idolatry. It is true that the Lord sent them teacher after teacher ; he chastised them, and warned them ; he continued his marvels, multiplying their opportunities, adding to their prophets and instructors^ until idolatry be- came as impracticable in that nation as it would be now in the streets of Philadelphia. If some great man was to set up a gold or silver image in the street of one of our large cities, what IS the reason he could not get the multitude to kneel before it ? Is it because of any love they have for the Bible, or any reverence for the name of Christ, or the precepts of his will ? No ; there are thou- sands there as wicked, as sensual, and as filthy, almost, as the imagination can paint. There is no danger that the wicked of our land will fall into this kind of idolatry. They cannot. That road has been blocked up. Books, education, truth, science, and heavenly light have heen brought too near. So it was when the Redeemer stood in the streets of Jeru- salem. There was no fear that men would erect FACTS NOT EXAinifED. 97 wood and stone and kneel before it, as their fatliera did. Grod had removed such hiding-places. Will they then receive the truth ? Shall we now see thom listen and obey ? No ; they then say, '* He casteth out devils through Beelzebub, prince of devils." This ■^as the form infidelity then assumed. The heathen caught the same excuse and used it. They all qui- eted their fears in this way. The writers of the Talmuds knew well enough the events of their day. They were sufficiently acquainted with what. the Saviour did and suffered. How is it, then, that they did not become his disciples ? How could they avoid submitting to the truth ? They say he had learned the correct pronunciation of the ineffable name of Grod. They say he stole this out of the temple. Again, they say he was in Egypt, where he learned the magic art, and practised it with greater success than any one ever did before him. See Home's In- troduction, vol. 1. They agree that he was the son of Mary, the daughter of Eli — was crucified on the evening of the passover — that the witnesses who Bwore against him were suborned, etc. " Celsus, one of the bitterest antagonists of Chris- tianity, who wrote in the latter part of the second century, speaks of the founder of the Christian relig- ion as having lived but a very few years before his time, and mentions the principal facts of the gospel history relative to Jesus Christ — declaring that he had copied the account from the writings of the evange- lists. He quotes these books, as we have already re- marked, and makes extracts from them as being com- posed by the disciples and companions of Jesus, and Cftusf and Cure. C 03 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. under the names which they now bear. He takes notice particularly of his incarnation ; his being born of a virgin ; his being worshipped by the magi ; his flight into Egypt, and the slaughter of the infants. He speaks of Christ's baptism by John, of the de- scent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and oi the voice from heaven declaring him to be the Son ol God ; of his being accounted a prophet by his disci- ples ; of his foretelling who should betray him, as well as the circumstances of his death and resurrec- tion. He allows that Christ was considered a divine person by his disciples, who worshipped him ; and notices all the circumstances attending the crucifix- ion of Christ, and his appearing to his disciples af- terwards. He frequently alludes to the Holy Spirit, mentions God under the title of the Most High, and speaks collectively of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He acknowledges the miracles wrought by Jesus Christ, by which he engaged great multitudes to adhere to him as the Messiah. That these mira- cles were really performed he never disputes or de- nies, but ascribes them to the magic art, which, he says, Christ learned in Egypt." Home's Introduc- tion, vol. 1. Now the Jewish and the Pagan writers, who knew what was done by Christ and his apostles foi the space of forty years, were not under the neces- sity of becoming Christians. Men do not thus lovo the truth. The Jews and heathens who lived after- wards, with those w^o were raised from the dead, and with the children of those who were raised from the dead, declared, that although these things were FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 99 done, they would not believe. Rather than submit to the truth, they would attribute all to the agency of evil spirits. We know where our parents and our grandparents lived. "We know many things about Ihem which we never saw. Thousands who heard thotr parents and their grandparents speak of those who had been restored to sight, or of the children of those who were thus restored, of their intimacy with them, etc., had as clear a knowledge of these facts, as we have that our fathers landed on the rock at Plymouth, or were victorious at Bunker Hill ; yet they would not obey the gospel. The magic art was their refuge. They did not, and they could not de- stroy themselves in that age by the unbelief of idola- try. This avenue to ruin was barred ; but to ascribe the works of God to demoniac influence the genius of the £ige permitted, and this was their resort. 100 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER XXII. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. Shall men continue, age after age, to destroy themselves by the persuasion, or by the hope, that the Lord and his apostles acted through the agency of evil spirits ? No ; that kind of infidelity cannot last always. As sure as the copies of that New Tes- tament are multiplied, or much read in the churches, men will cease to attribute, works of love and mercy to Satan. Preach that gospel extensively, and men will not believe in this creed of magic more readily than they nov/ do. You cannot prevail on the most wicked, or the most ignorant blasphemer in any of our streets, to believe that Christ healed those who touched his garments, with the aid of fallen spirits. WTiat is the reason that his enemies of the present day never think of accusing him of any connection with Beelzebub ? It is not because of any affection they have for him ; it is not because of their love, or their reverence, that they do not believe and cannot believe he learned the magic art in Egypt, where he certainly was in early childhood. No ; the lamp of knowledge has been held too near to them. No thanks to the wicked now, that the Lord has made that kind of infidelity inconsistent with the genius of the age : there is enough of hatred to Christ and his precepts ; enough of wickedness, ignorance, and pol- lution, to insure the rejection of offered mercy. His grace will be scorned, and his Messiahship denied, FACTS NOT EXAMINED. 101 but not under the old pretext. New expedients will be devised, and other channels sought. Any thing rather than look at the light. Centuries have rolled away. The original witnesses have fallen asleep, and their children, and their children's children, for many generations. During the first three hundred years and more, after our Saviour's ascension, had any one attempted to deny facts of the gospel history, soma would have looked him in the face with the remark, " My father or my grandfather saw it, or conversed with a man who saw it." Ages have passed away. The latter days are here. An inspired apostle was directed to announce, that in after-days there should come scoffers, mocking at the promise of his coming, and casting away the whole record. We have noticed three of the most prominent and conspicuous kinds of infidelity, or of the forms in which unbelief has ex- hibited itself. Other intervening kinds have existed, such as the infidelity of superstition, priestcraft, etc., but we have not time and space to write minutely of its every shape. The infidelity of the last day is here. The scoffing unbelief, as foretold, is come ; and it was to be accompanied with wilful ignorance, the offspring of a secret love for darkness. We must continue to observe other indications of this strange disrelish for truth, and we search after it more faithfully, because those who possess it are unconscious of its existenco- This preference for darkness may be detected from the fact, that men in support of their own systems of infidelity are more credulous than ordinary, and be- lieve that which is much harder to believe than simply to receive the truth. 102 CAUSE AND CURE Of INFIDELITY. CHAPTER XXIII. INCONSISTENCY AND CREDULITY OF THE REJECrEHS OF THE GOSPEL. Eejecters of the gospel are exceedingly credu- lous, and in support of a false system, receive that which is harder to believe than the truth. Case of a Schoolmaster. An aged man, who had spent much of his time in teaching a Latin school, had read at times fractions of history, until he had hecome somewhat acquainted with a few of the facts we have named. This knowledge seemed to detract somewhat from that quietude which he had once possessed in scorning holy things. His restlessness evinced itself occasionally by his impa- tience and fretfulness under preaching; but he thought himself entirely tranquil, and hated the word Christianity. It so happened, that from his intercourse with his books and with his acquaint- ances, he learned something of ^e moral character of the early Christians. "We will pause here long enough to inform the young reader how he may get the same knowledge, if he wishes it. As to what kind of persons they were who were baptized in the apostolic age, it is not hard to get an idea, because he may gather the account from friends and enemies. If we hear the character of a noted individual from those who love him, and are not entirely satisfied, we may ask further. Should CREDULITY OF INFIDELS 1U3 we receive the same account from a number of those wlio cordially hate him, we feel that this is all the testimony we could have on such a point. It is now, for the point before us, necessary that we should have some correct estimate of what kind of men an women those were who have been called primitive Christians. It may be that if I should refer the reader to the Acts of the Apostles, to the writings, cr extracts from the writings, of Clement, Irenasus, Justin, Barnabas, Polycarp, and others, there are some who might inquire after other evidence, saying, that although these had been either Jews or Pagans, yet they were Christians at the time they wrote ; and who knows but their partialities blinded them, or induced them to say things of their brethren more favorable than were deserved ? If so, then the reader can seek elsewhere for testimony. Let him take the word of those who hated them and put them to the torture.^ We may gather from the brief remarks of Pagan adversaries the same facts, more circumstan- tially related by friends to Christ. For example, if we consult the celebrated letter of the younger Pliny to the emperor Trajan, we shall find his statement, sufficiently decisive. This Pliny became governor of Pontus and Bithynia not far from the time of St. John's death, but he had been in public life else- where long before. Pliny informs the emperor that he sometimes made the Christians confess under the torture. Two young females thus tried he men- tions particularly. He speaks of threatening with death, and ordering away to punishment for their inflexible obstinacy, until we begin to wish for the 104 CAUSE AND CUKE OF INFJUELIT r. confession cf those who were tortured. "We begin to desire an account of their character and their actions thus obtained. Reader, if you will consult the nar- rative given by Pliny, you will find that the Chris- tians were brought to confess, 1. That they were wont to meet together on a stated day, before it was light, and sing among them- selves alternately a hymn to Christ, as God ; 2. And bind themselves by an oath — the word sacrament meant oath in the Roman tongue — not to the commission of any wickedness ; 3. And not to be guilty of theft ; 4. Not to be guilty of robbery; 5. Not to be guilty of adultery ; 6. Never to falsify their word ; 7. Nor to deny a pledge committed to them when called upon to return it. The dullest reader, we suppose, has mind enough to see that if it is an enemy's testimony, collected from tortures and laborious research, that the aggre- gate of their criminal practices amounted to the fol- lowing, namely, repeated and solemn engagements never to speak falsely, to act dishonestly, or to com- mit any manner of wickedness, etc., it is certainly praise as loud as though a friend had written that they were honest and upright in their ways. Once more, we may gather from the writings of a hearty adversary just the same. Lucian was born a few years after the death of the oldest apostle. '■ Lucian, the contemporary of Celsus, was a bit- ter enemy of the Christians. In his account of the death of the philosopher Peregrinus, he bears authen- CEEDULITT OF INFIDELS. 105 tic testimony to the principal facts and principles of Christianity : that its founder was crucified in Pales- tine, and worshipped by the Christians, who enter- tained peculiarly strong hopes of immortal life, and great contempt for this world and its enjoyments; and that they courageously endured many afflictions on account of their principles, and sometimes surren- dered themselves to sufferings. " Honesty and probity prevailed so much among them that they trusted each other without security. Their Master had earnestly recommended to all hia followers mutual love, by which also they were much distinguished. In his piece entitled Alexander or Pseudomantis, he says that they were well known in the world by the name of Christians ; that they were at that time numerous in Pontus, Paphlagonia, and the neighboring countries; and finally, that they were formidable to cheats and impostors." Home's Introduction, vol. 1. These statements from the haters of the gospel would be amply sufficient, if no one else had written, to furnish us with all the information we need con- cerning the meekness and integrity of the early dis- ciples. Gro and coUect and condense that which has been written by friends and enemies until you are satisfied ; then come and follow on with us to notice what they must believe who cast away the Bible. Before we proceed, however, we have still another preparatory remark or two to make. As it regards the number of the early Christians, any one who chooses may inform himself in the same way we have mentioned. For in.stanoe, if I read the pagan .5* 106 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. historian Tacitus, concerning the persecution at Rome during which St. Paul was put to death, and find him calling those who were burned ingens multi' tudo, a vast crowd, I have testimony concerning the church in that city. For if those martyred were ingens multitudo, then it is no tortured inference to suppose the congregations from which they were taken, considerably numerous. Again, if we read from Pliny that the heathen temples had been almost deserted ; that this superstition, as he calls it, had seized, not cities only, but the lesser towns and open country, we may make some inference regarding the number and strength of Christian congregations there and then. The same information may be had from other authors, either friends or foes, or both ; but at present we must proceed with our narrative. We have said that the aged school-teacher had picked up some information concerning the Augustan age and the times which followed it. He had a par- ticular friend with whom he was willing at times to converse on the subject of religion without growing angry, but not long at once. This friend made to the old man a certain statement, and asked his belief on several different points. The following is as near the substance of that statement, and of those in- quiries, as recollection will restore. " My friend, I am about to ask you to draw a picture, then to look at it, and to meditate on it calmly for a few minutes. I am not about to ask you to describe, and then observe, all the churches and congregations of the Roman empire in the time of Nero or of Trajan. I will only ask you to notice CfiEDOLITi OF INFIDjSLS. 107 closely for a time one or two hundred churches, or Christian assemblies : these you may select wherever ycu choose ; from Greece, Asia Minor, or from Africa, or collect some from every portion of the mass. No matter, only fix your eye on one or two hundred of Ihese congregations. Let thom be neither the larger nor the smaller, but churches of the medium size. You know that as it is now, so it was then, these congregations were not composed of any one class of society alone, but some were seen of every descrip- tion in each assembly. . Some were poor, some were not ; some ignorant, some learned. Variety has been found in every Christian assembly throughout the earth, in every age. I do not ask you to observe these congregations through all the time that Christ and his apostles were on earth, or as long as miracles continued to be performed in the churches ; but fix your eye upon them during just thirty years of that time. Enter now with me into one of them — we may say the church at Corinth — here is a congrega- tion of, say one or two hundred members; some of them ignorant, others well informed ; male and fe- male, young and old. They were once all Jews or pagans, and very zealous for the religion of their an- cestors. Now they are professed Christians, although it is dangerous to wear that name, both to property and to life. These Christians say that some of their number were once blind ; but that they received their sight by virtue of the name of Jesus Christ, which was called over them. These Christians are altered in their conduct very much. They were, while pagans, very fond of theatres, feasts, and revels ; 108 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITir. they were very sensual. Now, whether sincere cr not, according to the statement of both friends and enemies their external conduct at least is verj* differ- ent. They are very careful to exhort each other flvery Sabbath, and to pledge themselves to each other con- tinually, to abstain from all that is false or wicked, They seem to believe that Sabbath after Sabbath cer- tain wonders are performed by themselves and breth ren in the name of Christ. " They think that they understand and speak tho languages of the nations and* people around them. The apostles are writing to them month after month, and year after year, not to be lifted up or exalted because they have the gift of healing, etc., because pride is unlovely in the view of Heaven. The mem- bers of this congregation seem to think that they con- verse continually about the wonderful works of God with their neighbors, in all their different tongues — Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and dwellers in Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadooia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Lybia and Cyrene ; Cretea and Arabians, Jews and proselytes. " Let us now enter into another congregation, and look round for a time, and then another and another, and so continue until we have reached just one hun- drea, in some five or six of the nations nearest Pales- tine. Now let us observe them closely for the first y??'e years only, out of the thirty. Do you suppose that these congregations were deceived, thinking all the time that they spoke with tongues when they really did not ? Do you suppose that these hundred churches, for the space of five years, did think that they saw CREDULITY OF INFIDELS. lOD the blind cured, the dead raised, and then lived with them afterwards, while all the time it was mere de- lusion?" The old man allowed that to take one hundred congregations out of any one nation of the Roman empire, and these congregations made up of mem- bers of every sect, temperament, class, and condition of mind and of body, and set their enemies to watch, to hate, and to kill them for their faith ; and it would be hard to believe that they all thought these things done, when they were not done, by themselves, even for the space of fifteen years, instead of thirty. That one hundred churches should all happen at the same time to bp thus deceived in matters of eyesight, for fifteen years, he thought would be hard to believe , and we agree with him. He was also reminded of a piece of information, which the reader may obtain whenever he chooses. "We have at present a need for a distinct view of the fact. It is concerning the meekness and patience under suffering which belonged to Christians, and which nothing could shake. The reader, who may not wish to take the account of the church on this point, can have the testimony of enemies whenever he chooses, and wherever he turns. We will cite but one example, and that is from the page of the cele- brated Pliny, which is already before us. Note hia words: "I have put the question to them, whether they were Christians. Upon their confessing to me that they were, I repeated the question a second and a third time, threatening also to punish them with death ; such as still persisted, I ordered away to be 110 CAUSE AND CUB.E OF INFIDELITY- punished, for it was no doubt with me, whatever might be the nature of their opinion, that contu- macy and inflexible obstinacy ought to be punish- ed." Others who were accused "denied that they were Christians, or had ever been so ; who repeated after me an invocation of the gods, and with wine and frankincense made supplication to your image, which for that purpose I had caused to be brought and set before them, together with the statues of the deities. Moreover, they reviled the name of Christ ; none of which things, as is said, they who are really Christians can by any means be compelled to do. These, therefore, I thought proper to dis- charge." From the pen of this pagan ruler, the reader may gather all the praise which has ever been bestowed by friends. It is not hard to see to what he alludes in the words inflexible obstinacy ; and when he in- forms us that there were certain things which they could not by any means be compelled to do, he has told us all the fortitude and faithfulness we were ask- ing after. Reader, become acquainted with, similar declarations and other scraps or detached passages from different heathen writers, and you will not de- mand information from Christian authors. The unbeliever had pronounced it hard of belief, that many congregations in the circumstances named, for many years at a time, should think themselves ca- pable, by using the name of Christ, of curing lepers, the blind and lame, unless it were so. To think that they lived long with those who had (;nce been dead, and were in habits of intimacy with CJ,EDULITY OF INFIDELS. Ill those who were born blind ; and to think thai they remembered the Sabbath, and the hour when they saw them restored — he thought that these delu- sions were not likely to happen in many congrega- tions at the same time, or to continue very long, par- ticularly if all the profit to each member was the loss of goods and worldly honor and life ! He was reminded by his friend, that his difficulty would be somewhat increased after taking into account the fact, that those who sustain insult meekly and suf- fering uncomplainingly, with a quiet fortitude im- movable and deathless, are not the characters easily led into any vain delusion. It would be no harder to believe that a leper was cleansed, or a blind man made to see, at the com- mand of the Creator, than to believe that ten thou- sand eyes belonging to such characters as we have named, were deceived in supposing that they saw incurable diseases healed, in many instances and through many years, when it was not so ! It would be to believe in a miracle indeed, one hard of belief, to suppose that in very many different and distant nations at the same time, in open day and public streets, in cities, towns, and villages without number, ten thousand eyes were deceived in thinking they saw, ten thousand ears in fancying they heard, and ten thousand hands in supposing they handled, those who had been dead or.dumb, lame or afflicted with all manner of diseases, healed and restored. Again, this aged unbeliever was asked, if it was easy to believe that these churches had all united to deceive ; that they were not deluded themselves. 112 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. but had entered into a combination to delude oth- ers. His friend observed that he seemed somewhat perplexed. He remembered that it was the testi- mony of their enemies that they were formidable to cheats and impostors. He remembered, that according to Pagan authors, it was a noted part of Christian character to be often in the habit to renew their solemn pledges never to cheat, lie, or deceive. He confessed it was hard to believe that the pure and meek and firm, kind and inflexible, who would lose life at any moment rather than deny their word, all of which peculiarities their differ- ent enemies avow of them, should be the actors in such a scene of deception. Any limb of his creed, any part of his system, when taken and followed out, he would agree was hard to believe ; but that our kind Creator should have pitied our condition, should have descended to instruct and to die for us, and should then offer us a heaven of purity where ho himself resides, was what that aged immortal never would believe. It is true, that the wilfully ignorant, who do not know what either friends or enemies said of the character of early Christians, are incapable of under- standing any arguments on such points. Neverthe- less, it is a fact, that the sceptical, who have partially informed themselves — we say partially, for we never knew one who had industriously informed himself — wiJ swallow the greatest absurdities ; they will take down the wildest incredibilities on the side of dark- ness, rather than believe any one plain, simple gos- pel fact, as related in the New Testament. And of CREDULITY OF INFIDELS. 113 all men on earth, unbelievers have to be the mosl credulous. They dare not carry out their creeds into particulars. Their doctrines wound and destroy each other to such an extent, that they do not von- tnre to state them clearly, but let it pass, saying, •' 1 do not know how it is." Ui CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER XXtV. MEN WHO CAST AWAY THE BIBIE, ARE CREDULOUS IN THE EXTREME. Case of a Moralist. There was a man who scorned Christianity, but was at the same time a great advocate for orderly behavior. He seemed to rely much upon his honesty in dealing : he defrauded no man. His friend said to him, " Let me ask you, what do you believe ? You must believe something. You say that you believe that God has made us, and placed us here. Thus far I agree with you, for here we are. The world he has made for our abode is one of considerable size, and well made. Our bodies are strangely made. "We are curiosities to ourselves. We feel at times a strong inclination to know if our spirits are to die with our bodies, or if they are to live on. It would not have been very hard for our Maker to have given us some informa- tion on this, and on similar points, if he had chosen to communicate with us. I should love to know how long I am to exist. I should love to know what my Maker likes and what he dislikes ; what he approves and what he hates. He must be a being of prefer- ences. Intellectual beings always have choice. Some conduct must please, and the opposite of it displease him. I should have been glad to know some of these things, had he been able to inform me. Has ho placed nie here a wonder to myself, to guess at hi.'S CREDULITY OF IKFIDELS. 116 will ; or has he told me something of my origin, ho-w long since man was made, what he expects or wishes from him, and what is to be his future fortune ? Is my Creator amusing himself at my perplexities, or has he left some guide by which I may find out all necessary knowledge ?" The moralist allowed that our heavenly Father had not left us in the dark, un- kindly or neglectfully. He said that reason was to be our instructor. He was loud and eloquent in praise of that celestial lamp, as he called it, which was to show the path of duty to every man. He said he had no use for the Bible, but reason directed him in every strait. His friend replied to him, in substance, as follows : " My dear sir, all your system of rectitude, etc., so far as it is worth any thing, you have stolen from the Bible. You are like the man who had taken up some strange hatred to the orb of day. He turned his back upon the sun and exclaimed, I have no use for your light ; I can see without your beams. My Creator has given me eyes for that purpose, and I use them, and see all around me with- out looking at you. He thought that because his ■ eye was never directed towards the sun, therefore he did not use his light. But he was using light which had been reflected and thrown in a thousand different directions. So because you never read the Bible, you hope you are not using its contents. All you ha/e, and all you know which is valuable, you obtained from thence, or from those who received it thence for you." This position we will prove, and then show what the moralist has to believe who thinks differently 116 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. If you will take the map of the world and a pencil, then sit down and draw a black lino around that por- tion of the earth where the Bible has been in the longest and most plentiful circulation, where every class, high and low, are able to read, and do read Iho volume most commonly and with most ease, such as England, Scotland, and the United States of America, there you will find men most enlightened and most amiable in demeanor. There, wherever are most Bibles, men are less cruel, less polluted, and less un- principled. There they are less inclined to kneeJ before images of wood and stone, aiid more ready to understand and to practise the law of forgiveness and of love. Then sit down and draw a line around those countries where there are no Bibles, where none have been for generations, and there you will find most cruelty, most pollution, most absurd notions of Deity, and most darkness. Finally, mark off those sections of earth where that book has a partial circulation, as in Catholic countries, where it is read by a portion of the people, and with a medium frequency only, and there yoa will find a twilight in every thing. The moralist is either afraid to look long at or to follow out such facts, or he says, " It happened so." He believes in casualty to an almost unlimited ex- tent. The reader shall have an opportunity, if so inclined, to observe a portion of this credulity. It shall be exhibited in the words addressed to the mor- alist we have named, by his friend, or in words of similar import. " Dear sir, you believe that human sacrifices are cruel, and cannot please God, You believe that CREDULITY OF INFIDELS. 117 drunken revels, or lascivious rites, cannot be accept- able worship in his sight. You do not think that self- torture pleases him, and you have no doubt but that he looks with disapprobation upon adultery, theft, lying, or murder. You think that acts of kindness, of mercy, and of love, are pleasing to our Maker. This, you think, your reason tells you of his charac- ter. Now observe, if reason taught you all this, then reason has done the same for the multitudes of the most ignorant, and the most besotted in all Christian lands. Mark well, I deny that reason was your in- structor, but it is true that something has thus in- structed men wherever the Bible is. Even those wno cannot read it, know more truth about God than does the Mandarin of China. You could not in any way prevail on the most stupid creature you meet in our streets, to fall down before a block of wood and worship, believing it to be God. You may go to one hundred thousand of the most uninformed in Protes- tant countries, one after another, just as you meet them, and you will not find an individual who be- lieves, or can be made to believe, that he can please God by killing his child, or by boring through his own tongue, or by drunkenness, or obscene rites, or revels. If reason has taught these unlettered, igno. rant creatures so much truth, then it has taught them very uniformly; and they all know much of what is right and what is wrong, in all moral deportment. But will you just reverse the picture ? Just look at the other side for a moment. Come with me across the ocean. Here is a populous nation. They have some science, they cultivate astronomy, and there ia 118 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. a class which may be denominated the learned. But the Bible has not been in use there for a thousand years. Go to one hundred thousand of the first you meet, one after another, learned or unlearned, and talk with them. If reason should have told them some truth about Grod, it has not done it — not one out of that whole nation who does not either believe that to strangle that infant would please God, or he believes obscene revelry to be a part of worship ; or he will talk of the intrigues of his gods, or in some way show that he looks upon them as gigantic in vpickedness. The most learned there believe in human sacrifices, or sensual rites, or absurd enormities, such as would excite the pity and the ridicule of the poorest and the lowest in our land. How is it that reason does not chance to teach where the Bible is not ? Glance your eye entirely across heathenism. If the Maker of worlds intended reason to teach men there some just notions concerning himself, it has failed in six hun- dred millions of instances in this generation, and in as many during the last generation, and as many the generation before that, and so on. If he expected that reason would tell men there only a few truths respecting his own character, what would please him, etc., he has been disappointed, or he has furnished an insufficient guide, for it has not succeeded in a single instance. If the wicked in the land of Bibles would do only what the Bible has taught them, they would need no more. That book has succeeded in teaching nntil they know how they should act. The most degraded and the most ignorant there know more of the proper worship of God, and of his proper charan- OREDULITr OF INFIDELS. 319 ter, according to the character given of God by the deist, than does the most learned and the most exalted in heathen lands." Now we are ready to look at what the worshipper of reason has to receive in his creed. In the United States of America, or in England, there are somo twenty millions of the human race, each one of whom knows much of the proper character of God ; much of what is lovely, and what is in itself hateful. Each one does know, with considerable correctness, that which would please God, and that w^hich he must abhor. Here is a man who says, " Reason has taught them this." If so, it has not failed in a single in- stance. It has happened to be uniform in many millions of cases : surely we might suppose, that if reason is so sufficient that it has not failed in one out of twenty millions of cases, then leave it to itself in twenty millions more, and it will succeed in half of them. No ; it has not in one. In Asia and Africa you may count two hundred millions of persons now alive whose reason has been at work for twenty years, and out of the whole two hundred millions, there is not one who does not either believe that the favor of the gods may be purchased by self-torture or human sacrifice ; that sensuality is pleasing to them, or that they are opposed to each other, and may be courted in different ways ; or other sentiments equally absurd and grovelling. So it has been in past generations. Those ancient Greeks had great statesmen, orators, and poets. Suc- ceeding ages have gazed at them : they believed that to place that only son, that promising boy on an altar, 120 CAUSE ANU CURE OF INFIDELITY. and whip him until his entrails could be seen tlirougJi the quivering flesh, would please Diana. Are you admiring the wealth, or the polish and the splendor of the Carthagenians ? They believed sincerely — so sincerely that they would perform it — that it would please God if one or two hundred of their children at a time were cast into that redhot metallic statue. Just such things were believed by Romans, Modes, Elamites, and all people where that singular old book did not circulate. Reader, if you believe that reason always did teach to avoid these cruel enormities where the Bible was found, but never did happen to instruct better where that page was not, then we have no further argument with you at present. If you believe that the low, and unlettered, and most ignorant in Bible regions — who have more correct ideas of God, and of justice, and of loveliness, than have the most scientific in pagan countries — have been thus instructed by reason, then will we cease all further discussion of that particular point with you. CRKDULITY OF IKi'IDET<3. 121 CHAPTER XXV. MEN ADOPT FALSE OPINIONS WITHOUT INQUIRY. A MINISTER once delivered a discourse on the evi- dences of Christianity, in the city of New York. After the sermon was ended, and the audience dis- missed, he descended from the pulpit, and was met by an intelligent looking man, well clad, whose eye flashed, and whose voice trembled with emotion. He seemed angry at the cause which had been advo- cated, and at the man who had spoken. He avowed, with indignant emphasis, that he had no doubt the Israelites had obtained their religion from the Greeks, and particularly from the philosophy of Plato. The minister replied, " Your argument would be worthy of some consideration, were it not for one circum stance, which certainly abates its momentum. You say that what the Israelites knew of God, they learned of Plato ; but Plato says, that what he, ana the Greeks in general, knew of the gods, they learned of the Israelites." The ancient Greeks called the Jews Syrians, because they lived in the land of Syria, and because they called themselves thus. Every male of the Jews was ordered to stand, on a given day in each year, and avow his origin by pronouncing pub licly, and with a loud voice, "A Syrian ready to perish was my father." The word fables was the epHhet by which the ancient Greeks designated all narratives. Plato informs us — see Stackhouse's His- Ca'ue and Care A 122 CAUSE AND CURE OF IKFIDELIir.. tory of the Bible — that one of the Syrian narratives from which his countrymen obtained their know- ledge, was the Fraternity of the human family, and that man was made out of the dust. "Whoever will Teal ancient history, and notice the Grreeks during their nocturnal mysteries, where youthful virgins, having baskets full of flowers with serpents in them, call on the name of our first mother, Eva, Eva, all night, will not be at a loss to know which of the Syrian narratives they had in mind, or what event they commemorated during these ceremonies. The minister's concluding remark to the scoffer above- mentioned, was satirical, but certainly not incorrect- "You remind me," said he, "of the boy who, while looking in the glass, loudly averred that his father's face took after his. An ancient Greek philosopher believed that he had learned certain things of the Syrians. A citizen of New York is very positive that the Syrians learned them of the philosopher. Which shall we believe? or rather, let us ask the more profitable question. Why should that man as snme that position with dogmatic confidence, with- out inquiry and without research ? It was for the same reason that ten thousand others in that and other cities, assume ten thousand similar positions, with as little information, and as much assurance. Since the fall of our race, men have had an appetite for falsehood so spontaneous, that they often adopt it without inquiry, in matters of religion. It does not seem to man that he prefers falsehood in points of religious faith. If he were aware of it, this know- ledge would become a part of the remedy. CURE OF INFIDELITY. 123 CHAPTER XXVT CURE OF IJfriDELITY. We now have offered a few thoughts on the cause of infidelity. We could, as it were, only pen a few hasty words ; endeavoring to offer some of the more simple and obvious reasons, by which we may know that it is caused by a want of knowledge, and by a want of love for the truth. Each of these items assists in promoting the growth of the other. We may resume the subject hereafter, and devote other chapters to the- consideration of the cause of infi- delity; but at the present, we feel disposed to say something of its cure. The cure of infidelity ! What a subject. The cure of infidelity! Can it be cured? Indeed it can. There are difiSculties in the way, but all that is arduous is not impracticable. It may be cured thoroughly. All who have ever used the remedy were cured, therefore it is safe to say that it may be cured with certainty. It is known to the world of physicians, that the treatment of those dis- eases wherein the sick deem themselves entirely whole, is attended with unusual difiiculties, because they are not willing to use the remedy. Unbelievers usually think themselves well informed, particularly those whose minds are well stored with other know- ledge, when the opposite fact is the truth. Whether this is or is not the cause, something does cause them to be very backward in the business of research. 124 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. Their hands hang down, and their nerves are all unstrung as soon as vigorous and industrious research is proposed. Unbelievers inquire not after a remedy for their disease. If one is proposed, they turn away. If it is urged upon them, and they employ it, it is slowly, reluctantly, and perhaps sparingly and imperfectly. There are two remedies, or two modes of cure. Men may take either. One of these remedies is infallible ' it succeeds wherever and whenever used. The other is almost universally successful, but under certain circumstances has been known to fail. We will dis . tinguish these two modes of cure by the appellation of the powerfid and the all-powerful remedy. "We will leave the second, namely, the all-powerful remedy, for the last consideration. Men are more averse to the use of this ; they dislike it more than they do the first. The powerful is not so certainly efficacious as the all-powerful ; but men may be more readily induced to give it a trial. Therefore we will begin with it, and endeavor to malie it plain, and to guard against obscurity, or that which may cause us to be misapprehended in any particular. CURE OF INFIDELITV. 125 CHAPTER XXVII. A REMEDY PROPOSED. The powerful remedy. If ene rf the causes of infidelity consists in ignorance, then it is not hard for ns to understand that the opposite of ignorance must be a promising remedy. We mean ignorance of the Bible and of ancient literature connected with the Bible. Information almost always cures ; but it is not an easy matter to prevail on the unbeliever to labor for this knowledge. That knowledge is a powerful remedy, the author of these pages has seen tested during eighteen years of continued trial. He has watched these eighteen years of experimental pro- cess, with unusual and uninterrupted solicitude. By presenting a history of these years of trial, the doc- trines which we deem important can be made plain, and misapprehension easily avoided. We may form theories, and believe that certain things are practica- ble, but our belief is not confirmed entirely, until we have tested the matter by long and faithful trial. History of eighteen years' observation. Aa soon as the author had escaped from the pit of infi- delity, he felt an indescribable solicitude for those who are unbelievers. He felt a painful apxioty which impellede iind Wn- no CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELIU. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. When we find the introduction of Christianity expressed in prophecy by the cutting out of a rock without hands, we should inquire honestly after the propriety of the figure. If we had been in an ad- joining apartment, looking on when the Lord's sup- per was instituted, when the emblematic cup was first handed round, and some one had asked us how long that memorial would contintie in the world, how should we have answered him? Suppose much de- pended upon our giving a correct answer, upon our judicious opinion respecting the durability of that feast ; we must, before we ventured upon a confi- dent reply, make many inquiries and ascertain many facts. Reader, let us now make these inquiries, ask these questions, notice these facts, remember these circumstances. As sure as God calls to the men he has made, we should be familiar with such truth. If we had been thus spectators in Jerusalem, and it had been demanded of us how long that supper would in all probability be celebrated in the world, we must, before deciding, make the following inquiries : 1. Is this city where the feast is instituted, to re- main long as it now is ? Answer : No. That indi- vidual at the head of the table, who hands the bread and cup, has told his. followers that one stone shall CUUE OF INFIDELITY. 171 not be left upon another in the loftiest buildings. He has informed them that the room where they now are, and the house containing the room, and the city which contains the house, will be crushed before destruc- tion's rudest ploughshare, and that ere long! His inspired followers have written, " As often as ye cat tliis bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come." Again, they explain his coming to be at or near the end of the world. The question still recurs, " Does he expect that any will continue to show his death until the end of the world ?" He had informed them, that ere long war would riot in its wildest, bloodiest revel; that nation should be dashed against nation, and shivered like a potter's vessel ; and history has informed us that so it was. Under this view of facts thus far we might have supposed, if there, that no one would remember him through the turmoil, unless we had known who he was Such, no doubt, would have been our conjec- ture. Before asking the second question, it is necessary that we should remember distinctly, that men are often well pleased when certain things are enjoined by their religion. When some of the ancient na- tions were told that if they used wine to intoxication, through the long nightly revel in honor of Bacchus, it would please that deity, they had no particular objection to the command ; nay, it pleased them. When the Mohamedans are told that the more of their enemies they kill with the sword, the greater shall be their sensual joys in paradise, it does not displease them. Revenge on those they hate is not 172 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. hard to cultivate. It requires no sacrifice. It ia ordering them to do that which they love to do. When the Asiatic is told by the priests of his relig- ion, that the practice of adultery through a long feast of obscenity will conciliate the favor of a particular deity, he is well satisfied with that worship. When others are told to hang up the mangled bodies of their adversaries, in honor of the god of war, compliance requires no self-abasement. Question 2. Does he who is instituting this me- morial require of his followers that which men love to do — to fight, or to feast, or to practise fornication ; and does he forbid only that which men already hate ? Answer. He enjoins meekness, the love of enemies, turning the cheek to the second blow, temperance, chastity to the strictest thought or heaven is lost, patience, non-conformity to the world, etc. Question 3. Does he not promise them that if they follow him, and are called after him, they shall thus arise to worldly honor ? Answer. He tells them, " Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake." Question 4. Does he not olTer them safety at least ? Answer. He said, " Whosoever killeth you, will think he doeth God service." Question 5. Surely he engages for their peace and rest ? Answer. All the pledge he gave of this kind was such as the following : " They shall scourge you from city to city." He will tell those twelve men sitting around him, that but one of them shall die a natural death. If we had been there on that night and heard liim say, " This do in remembrance of me," and had we CURE OF INFIDELITY. 173 been asked earnestly as to our expectations respect- ing the durability of the ordinance or his religion, in view of the facts we have named and of similar truths, we should have answered, " No one will do this or care for him twenty years from this hour." Thia would have been our deliberate judgment, unless we had known that he was the Maker of stars, or unless we had forgotten to estimate that which we well know of mankind. He who does not know that men love ease and indulgence and sensuality, has but a narrow circle of mental vision. He is a fool, or he speaks falsely, who does not confess that the hope of honor, affluence, and exaltation had and still has an overflowing influence with the sons of men. The name of the individual who promised perse- cution, but no flattering advancement ; who permit- ted toil and poverty, but no sensuality; who said, " This do in remembrance of me," his name now is heard and felt as no other name is. It shakes the soul of those who deny it. It is felt by those who hate it, by every member of every club that meets to revile it. Reader, we cannot understand this clearly, unless we notice the difference between honoring a name and feeling it. We had better see these points clearly, on many serious accounts. That we may not mistake, let us look at nothing short of facts. Fact 1. The Mohamedan does honor the name of his prophet. He honors it enough to cause him to plunge his sword in your heart, were you to speak against it. "When he prays he does not weep, his voice does not falter. When he pronounces the name of his prophet he dees cot tremble, as by a melting Ill CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. influence ; he honors, but he does not feel that name. Fact 2. Fifty persons of very different charac- ters were sitting in one house — this has happened every Sabbath since we were born — the tear was in the eye of every one of them ; they sobbed and could not speak. They were listening to something about the Man of Calvary, but they had heard it five hun- dred times before. They felt that name in some way. And so does the bitterest hater of Christianity you can find in any street. "We may see this like- wise, if we choose, and if we are not afraid to look at facts. Facts on thf, other side. Fact 1. If you will sit down by the side of that man who is near the hotel fire, or at the dining-table, or in the stage- coach, and exhort him to be a worshipper of Vishnu or Siva, or implore him to become a Mohamedan — being sincere and in earnest we mean — he will laugh at you. Or talk to him with mere scientific interest on the different religions of the earth, and he will hear the names of five thousand gods that are wor- shipped by millions pronounced with entire indiffer- ence. He does not care whether you speak in praise or reproach, reverence or ridicule. It is not so with the name of the Sufferer of Gethsemane — far from it. You will see his eye flash with anger, and his brow gather instantly. Meet him in the street, or on board the vessel, it matters not, the name of Christ he will not bear. He reviles it, and the most humble and affectionate approach on the subject of eternity in the name of Christ, he calls intolerable. Ah, my CURE OF INFIDELITY. 175 infidel brother, you mock that name, but you feel it. And you will feel it more and more, in heaven or in hell, for ever and for ever. The religion of the Saviour was introduced and kept in the world as others were not, and this stone will fill the whole earth, although it may appear improbable to those who do not observe that that rock has been cut out without hands. Application. Multitudes have read this portion of the second chapter of Daniel, or other parts of the same chapter, or other chapters in the same wonder- ful prophecy, and have passed on with but little ex- cited thought. After this they have, while reading the remarks of some pious commentator, been re- minded of historical facts which they had read or been driven to read for the first time, and they have been brought to see beauties and marvels in the book of God, which their ignorance had before hid from their eyes. Let it not be supposed that we state these facts of Daniel alone. "We take these passages as samples ; but in aiming at the cure of infidelity, we exhort to the study of the whole volume, the wonderful volume, the Bible. The man who erects a druggist's shop, need not become the inventor of the chemical processes by which alkalies and affinities are formed. He may avail himself of the labors of those who have gone before him, without being called a servile copyist. Thus, if you have not twenty years to spaie in searching in a given way through the holy Scrip- tures, to compare verses, and trace Hebrew verbs', or to ask after heathen history, you may avail yourself of the labor of others. An author on geography will /76 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. tell you more in an hour than you could explore or measure for a week, should the pride of originality make you decline the assistance of others in this case. A commentator will bring before your view, with- in the compass of a few days, more objects through out the dim wide field of antiquity and tradition, than you can yourself collect by years of toil. But the adversary of souls would rejoice, were you to de- cline the assistance of others, and labor none your- self. OURK OF IWFlDliLITy. 177 CHAPTER XXXV. AN EXAMPLE. Case of the use of the powerful remedy. Two professional men once formed an attachment for each other. We may designate them by the appellation of the youthful and the more aged. The younger friend had been liberally educated, and he com- menced his profession thoughtless, joyous, and from the first successful. The more aged friend feared that his indifference in things of religion was based on infidelity — made inquiry, and found his conjec- tures were correct. At a subsequent interview, he approached his young friend, offering a volume, and an address like the following, from his heart : " My friend, I believe it is your wish to do me a favor when you have it in your power. I know that you would arise from your bed at midnight, and put yourself to much inconvenience to serve me. I am about to ask of you a favor which you can confer. I have it more at heart than the value of much prop- erty, and it will cost you very little to comply with my wishes." He was answered as he had expected, with the most open declarations of readiness to act where it was in his power to benefit his friend. Iho older friend then continued, " The favor I aslv is, that Vou will read this book through, soberly and faith- fully, endeavoring to master the train of thought as you proceed. When you are through, should much 178 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. f>f tlie treatise be forgotten, or appear obscure, read i1 again." The work was cheerfully undertaken, the promise given, and the book received. The volume contain- ed, as well remembered, Paley's Evidences of Chris- tianity, and Watson's Apology. When the friends did not meet, they corresponded, and this subject chieflj engaged them, whether personally or by let- ter. The young man, after he had read the book, laid his hand casually upon another author on the same subject. He was sufficiently excited to under- take its reading. Before he finished this, he said, " I have a spirit, and I have no doubt it will be lost, or very happy for ever." His more aged friend asked him to read Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Relig- ion in the Soul. He complied ; and while reading, thought that he had entered into a compact with his Redeemer, which gave him great joy. He was sc elated, that he has ever since — fifteen years — ^tried tc persuade others to do the same. Cases resembling the above are taking place, wherever a similar course is pursued. Books of this kind are not much read, for reasons which will be found in the following chapter. In fifteen years more, neither of those ■ two friends may remain on the earth. They both seemed to be made very happy by the occurrence named ; and that enjoy- ment seemed to last for fifteen years. Perhaps it may add to their pleasures for more than fifteen years, after they go hence. It has already been worth more than the toil expended on either side, many times told. CURE OF INFIDELITY. 119 CHAPTER XXXVI. ■WORKS ON THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTLiNITY. Recapitulation of the powerful remedy. Books on the evidences of Christianity are but little read in our nation. Some of the reasons why this is so it would bo well to observe. 1. Many who are inclined to unbelief, whose doubts are enough to paralyze their energies in seek- ing conversion, are not confirmed sceptics. They do not call themselves infidels. They do not know the name of these authors, or that many of the books exist. They do not inquire, and those who never were thus annoyed themselves, suspect none of infi- delity but the bitter declaimers against the Bible. 2. These books a're little read, for few of them are in circulation. Inquire in an ordinary village for ten such authors, and you will not be able to find ■ them. The minister perhaps may have one or two. These few are not much read, for the following rea- sons. Perhaps here is a man who has prevailed on an unbeliever to read a certain volume. He finishes it, and informs his Christian friends Ihat he is more encompassed in cloud than he was before. They are disheartened, and he is not benefited. They perhaps ask another to read the same work, hoping to see a happy result in the second case. The man perhaps looks into the book occasionally, and lays it down ; 180 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELIXT. takes it up again, and thinks it hard to compre- hend — ^thinks it does not touch the points which perplex him. He lays it down again, the world presses, his business harasses, amusements divert; and after some months they find he has not read, and they lose all hope in the case. After meeting a few similar results, they believe that almighty power could save, but they have little confidence in means. If soldiers of the cross had a full assortment of truth- ful volumes, and were to make a prayerful effort, they would meet cases where unbelieving friends and neighbors could be induced to read six or eight vol- umes ; and perhaps repeat a part of the research. In these instances they would scarcely ever find one, if ever, who would still dispute the message of high heaven. They would meet those who would refuse, and those who would only half perform; but one case of a soul snatched from the gulf would repay all the labor. We will here name some who have writ- ten on the evidences of Christianity, so that out of the list some six or ten may be asked after by any inquirer. From the following list, it is a matter of comparative indifference which is selected, so that enough is chosen and read until the subject is mas- tered. It is strangely true, that these books are not known to Christians. The few that are in circula- tion are scattered and invisible. Enough of them can rarely be found together to inform extensively the mind and heart disposed to cavil. The following books are a few out of the many which are more than worth the cost of possession. Evidences of Christianity, by Grotius ; Paley's, Locke's, Addi- CUE.E OF INFIDELITY. J81 8on's, Campbell's, Sherlock's, Lyttleton'is, Le Clero's, West's, Douglass', Leslie's, Lardner's, Portous', Beat- tie's, Soame Jenyns', Jones', and Burnet's Evidences of Christianity; Alexander's Evidences; Faber's Dif- ficulties of Infidelity; Newton on Prophecy; Stack- house's History of the Bible ; Scott's Family Bible ; Home's Introduction, vol. 1 ; Watson's Apology ; Jews' Letters to Voltaire ; Prideaux's Connections ; HorsB Paulinse ; Paley's Natural Theology ; Shuck- ford's Connootions. The reason why many, on beginning to read the advocates for Christianity, sink deeper into the mire of their infiuelity, is worthy of our notice. It is inti- mately connected with the transaction of the garden and the forbidden fruit. The author who writes on the evidences of Christianity begins, very commonly, to overturn the cavils and sophisms of unbelievers; such as he has heard urged, or such as are often made. The young reader perhaps never heard these objections urged against our religion. He certainly never did hear or see the one half of those in use. He did not know that they existed. As soon as ho sees them on the page of the Christian writer, for the purpose of refutation, the objection seizes the powers of his soul. The answer he does not receive — he cannot nonce. Such is the nature of fallen man. This is true of those who would be glad to believe the book of God. Darkness has for their souls a su- perior attraction. It is not until he reads the work the second or the third time, that he begins to observe the quibble less, and the answer more. 183 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER XXXVII. testimony resisted. Concluding remarks concerning the poweri'I'l REMEDY. "We must shortly endeavor to look at the all-powerful remedy, at the remedy which never fails when used. In this concluding chapter on the power- ful remedy, we must not neglect to observe something of the amount of evidence which God has furnished in this remedy. We have been writing of the ex- ternal evidences of Christianity; we now ask as to the extent and the force of this evidence. How much of this external testimony has the Creator furnished ? The answer is, He has given enough to prove the truth and inspiration of the Scriptures, and no more. He did not intend any thing further. Let us not be misunderstood. We do not mean, that this point is not proved again and again, times out of number, but this kind of testimony does nothing more than prove it, and can do no more. Take the verbal testi mony of a score of credible witnesses to a given fact in a court of justice, and the incident is proved; bring in ten thousand others, and it is not more than proved. There may be a man who disbelieves still. But if we place the incident before his eyes, it is established then as verbal testimony could not do it. If he refuse to receive the testimony of one hun- dred respectable witnesses, he may discover to us an nnloveliness of soul by such a position ; nevertheless! Cure of infidelity. 183 we would confess that eyesight is of the two the stronger testimony. That the Bible is the book of heaven, is shown by this external evidence with a frequency which cannot be counted. But it is only proved. No coercion was ever designed. Men may yet disbelieve. It never was intended to make il impossible for a man to ruin himself, if obstinatelj bent in that direction. If man's rationality, his judg ing for himself, were taken away from him, it would not please earth, and we suppose it would not rejoice heaven. Man does judge wrong, and choose to his own hurt ; but he does not wish to be turned into a piece of thinking, necessary mechanism. Reader, no matter how many historical facts; no matter how many prophetic verities and accomplishments; no matter how many celestial sentiments and beauties call to you to say, " This book is from heaven," you can disbelieve it. It is not only possible, but it is of easy performance. You can continue uninformed concerning the history, or you may forget the facts once noticed. Others you can neglect to apply. You may besot your soul with sin until incapable of feel- ing the heavenly sentiment. You may close your eyes and ears, and harden your heart, until you can believe or disbelieve any thing. It has been tried. All the evidence of this character which could be given may be resisted. Testimony of this descrip- tion, piled higher than the mountains, has been gain- said. We come to notice in the next chapter, a kind of testimony which cannot be resisted — ^the remedy which is infallible. But before we reach this, we will look at one more case which exhibits 1-84 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. the fall of man, and reminds us of our love for dark- ness more than light. It is one out of the millions that exist every day, telling us that all testimony may be resisted where the heart sets in a different direction. Concluding case. There was an agriculturist of the "West who was wealthy. He was a man of good education, and an infidel. The most of his friends, associates, and relatives hated Christ with an uncon- cealed dislike. A train of circumstances gave a cer- tain preacher of the gospel access to this man's ear which few ministers could obtain. They had each other's confidence and esteem. The minister, at dif- ferent times, informed him plainly and fully of the want of information prevailing in the army of unbe lievers, and told him that this ignorance was like- wise his. He requested him to read a number of the books we have named, and at length addressed to him the following sentiments : " My friend, eternity is long, and the prize you may win invaluable, therefore I must be plain with you. You may read these books, and reperuse them, for you'have little else to do. The amount of newspaper invective which you read, shows what time and vision you could expend, if so inclined. You are judging about religion, and never heard nor read much more than the revilings of its truth. You begin to suspect that much as you know on many subjects, you might know much more of this. Your judgment, if wrong, may lead to hell. Your judg- ment may be wrong, because you are ignorant of the facts from which you should draw your inferences. Much as you know of business, agriculture, law, cr CURE OF INFIDELITY. 185 political affairs, you have learned nothing here but a few total falsehoods, which you have read, or heard retailed, iintil you begin to take them for history. You have, like scoffers in general, kept other infor- mation so entirely excluded, that you are even lame in conversation, unless your antagonist is afraid to speak plaiuly. If I ask you of the letter of Tertul- lian, I find that you do not know within three cen- turies of his age, or on what continent he was born. If I ask you of a passage in Tacitus, I find you re- member not what he said of the crucified One. If I inquire after a passage in Joel, I find you have al- most forgotten, or never knew of such a book in the Bible. I speak of the fulfilment of a prophecy, and find you did not know that it had ever been uttered. I ask you as to the confessions of early haters of the gospel, and discover that you know better what they have written of every thing else. I do affectionately entreat you to inform yourself well, and then decide. You may be positive, if you choose, as soon as you ' are well prepared to judge. The result is too mo- mentous for you to risk an error here. Will you read the books ? Read on the other side, if you have not seen enough of perversion. Take more, and keep on until you are thorough in facts. Read on the side of truth faithfully, and cunning misstatements will be- gin to lose their influence over you. Continue still to read, and after a time every entire lie stated by a celebrated opposer of the gospel will weaken his cause in your estimation. Will you read ?" He was an- swered, " / will read some." The substance of the following dialogue then took place. 186 CAUSE AND CURE OP INFIDELITY. Preacher. Why not read industricvisly ? you con- fess there is much that you might learn. If so, there is a possibility you may be wrong. We should never decide in lohole where we know but half, especially if it be an inquiry of momentous consequence. Unbeliever. True, I see that there are many things I have not learned. I would be willing to know them, but I fear to promise you, lest I should fail, for you know that we have not always a taste for every kind of reading. Minister. If you may possibly be wrong, and J may possibly be right, then you may be now neglect, ing mercy, and rejecting heaven ; and in the hour of final conflagration you will feel how much activity was called for at the present hour of your indolence, because your mistake can nevermore be rectified, and your failure will continue unendingly. For the sake of a possible fortune, men will toil. Will you not, for the sake of a possible eternity of joy, read a few books attentively? Unbeliever. Perhaps I ought to read something, as you request ; but you know we are often called away by pressing business. Visiting our friends sometimes makes us forget our studies, and further- more, what few pages I have seen on this subject were somewhat dull to me. I fear that I may find the investigation irksome to one of my habits and accustomed indulgences. Reader, the following fact is that which I wish you to note, and avoid forgetting it, lest God should make you remember it at an unwelcome hour. If that man's friend had pointed him to a faint proba- CURE OF INFIDELITr. 181 bility only of doubling his estate by a moderate ex- ertion and no risk, he would have embarked in the effort. If he had told him of only a distant danger which threatened his fifty -thousand-dollar farm, he would have been vigilant, and that speedily. But to inquire after joy and splendor everlasting, to watch against eternal loss, he could not be influenced. Noth- ing could move him to begin. What is the reason of this ? It is because we have an appetite for any thing rather than the true religion. The rolling rock moves down hill with ease. Fallen man climbs the hill of truth with difficulty, even when he wishes to ascend. How swiftly, then, may he rush when he seeks the dark vale of falsehood below. 188 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER XXXVIII. a further remedy. The second remedy, called the All-fowehful We come now to the second part of the inquiry, con- cerning the cure of infidelity. The remedy which is infallible, which never fails, is called the experimental evidence of Christianity. This remedy is indeed in- vincible. Millions have used it with success, and no one has ever used it in vain. It may then be asked by some. Why are there any unbelievers ? Why is not every infidel cured ? The reason is, they will not use it. Dear reader, do not think this metaphori- cal rhapsody, or figurative expression, the result of strange enthusiasm. We mean what is written. We mean, that there is a cure which all might use, many have used, thousands will not use, and that it is actually all-powerful. Furthermore, you shall un- derstand us, and tmderstand the modus operandi of the remedy, if you are not afraid to follow us, and to observe faithfully and to meditate honestly of that which concerns you. You are capable of seeing this subject through its length and breadth ; and if you do not, it shall be your fault and not ours, for with the help of God we will place it before you. We have resolved on childlike simplicity; and for the pur- pose of keeping at a distance from every thing ob- scure, we must ask you to remember first principles CURE OF INFIHELITY. 189 of which we are all aware already, and oonoeining which there is no dispute. There is no difference between us concerning three principles, or acknow- ledged facts. That these facts may be made more distinct, definite, and observable, we will divide this chapter into sections, and devote a section to each one. Section 1. Experimental testimony is the stron- gest evidence which exists. If we were to see a man of truth and probity approach a pile of now and strange fruit, and after partaking of it, declare that its taste was singularly delightful, and that its effect was immediately exhilarating beyond the excitement of wine, we might believe the statement, or we might not. One man might believe, and another might discredit the avowal. If we were to see ten more individuals, of equal respectability, approach one after the other and partake, each one declaring forth- with that the taste was strange but delightful, and the result rapid exhilaration, the evidence would be much strengthened by their statement. Add one hundred more, and the testimony might be called more than convincing. But it still does not entirely equal our own experience, when we partake and find it as declared. Experimental testimony is the stron- gest evidence by which we are influenced. Section 2. Man cannot feel by simple effort, and by mere resolve. Should some one of boundless resources offer you an estate equal to a nation's treas- ury, provided you would love with glowing attach- ment the son of a Russian officer, whose name you hear, but who is an entire stranger to you, you could 190 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. not succeed by simply trying to do so. Oui affec- tions are not moved in this way. No matter how much you might desire to win the prize, you could not arouse in your bosom a devoted affection by mero resolve. You might act the hypocrite, but nothing more. Suppose you were offered a large amount of gold, if you would hate with sincere abhorrence some one who had been long dead, say the lather of Demos- thenes the Athenian orator, you could not rouse your- self into vehement commotion, unless it were hypo- critical agitation, for all the gain which could bo offered you. Man cannot feel by simple effort, and by mere resolve. If we could not either love or hate these objects of our entire indifference because we wished it, we should do well to remember that the difficulty would increase, were we asked to hate purely the object of our devoted love, or to love with ardor that which we cordially detest. We cannot in this way move our souls at will in any course we choose. Section 3. That which disposes us to feel when we hear it, does not increase in force by frequent repetition. If I tell you of a murder which does not move your feelings, then repeat the same facts and circumstances but find that there is some reason why you do not feel, I am not to expect success by fre- quent repetition of the same narrative. If I were to go over the same detail every hour throughout the month, and should others take it up, and a thousand men tell it over, you might grow weary, but never tender. Nay, should any one relate a most affecting history, which caused you to weep profusely, you CUilE OF INFIDELITX. 191 would begin to weep less before the week was out, were he to relate the same each day ; and before the year was ended, should this custom be continued, we question if you would regard any incident in the nar- rative. Our feelings cannot be coerced by mere rep- etition of a truth. Reader, thus far we have spoken the common sen- timent and the common language of men. This they all say, whether pious or ungodly. We presume, then, that thus far we are agreed. We have never known these plain principles, and these simple, every- day facts disputed, until they are used in connection with religious truth. These simple truths have been the experience of every one oftener than he can re- member, and we have never known them contro- verted until they are found to be a lever which over- turns infidelity, and then we have heard them denied by those who had before conceded their clear, unde- viating verity. Read these first principles over again, and if you deny their existence, let it be before we oome to their application. 192 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELIITT. CHAPTER XXXIX. ILLUSrHATIONS. The all-powerful remedy. It is not so proper to say of the Christian, he believes, as to say he knows. "We mean the full-grown Christian. The infant cannot walk, cannot sit alone, ca'inot lift a pound ; yet it is of our race. There is so much dif- ference between the performance of an infant and that of the tall man, that we can scarcely see their resemblance ; but the infant is a child o{ Adam, a member of our family. The Bible calls a weak Chris- tian a babe in Christ. Others, full-grown men and women in Christ Jesus. It is true, that i.i the pres- ent age the most with whom we meet are only babes in Christ, if indeed born again. The infant Chris- tian understands the use of this remedy with almost as much difficulty as the unconverted. He has noth- ing about him but mustard-seed graces, invisible ex- cept in a perfect light. But we now speak of the full-grown child of God. It is the privilege of ^ery one to drink freely of the milk of the word, and to receive his growth speedily ; but men are indolent, and some even pass their whole earthly journey with- out growing perceptibly. The full-grown man in Christ knows the Bible is from heaven, with a con- sciousness which you cannot take from him. Let any man whose mind is unimpaired, hold his hand in the blaze of a torch as long as he can bear it, and CURE OF INFIi3ELITr. 193 ftfter it is withdrawn let another tell him he does not feel pain ; tell him that it is only imagination — heated fancy ; let him enter into very ingenious and plausible arguments concerning caloric, to persuade him that it is all fancy or fanaticism ; let him jeer, deride, supplicate, or threaten, it is all the same: you cannot change his creed in this case, because it is a matter of sensation, and not of simple opinion. So it is with the Christian — with each one who uses the all-powerful remedy ; it is a matter of feeling, of consciousness with him. If the man who has held his hand in the blazing torch, were to sink into for- getfulnesa%as it regards the sensation of pain, and hold his hand again in the blaze, he would soon have his knowledge recalled. The sensation of the Chris- tian is as plain and direct as that from the lamp, and it is repeated ten times every day. AU may use this remedy who choose — ^the experimental evidences of Christianity. "We now enter into further explanation by giving the history of incidents as they occurred. EXPERIMENTAL CXJRE. iLLusTRATrvE iNcroENTS. Case 1. There was a man of middle age, of cold, slow, doubting tenden- cy of soul, who obtained at last a Christian's hope. He hoped that his name was in the book of life; but he was only an infant, a weakly infant. He Beemed to grow a little in the course of six or eight years, but very slowly. He dreaded his deficiency in one feature of Christian character. The appre- hension gave him pain. He read in one section of his Master's letter "Love your enemies." He for Cause and Cure. Q 194 CA.USB AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. a long time, like thousands of his brethren, concluded hp would not hurt them, or fight them, or return evil for evil, and hoped this was love. He could hear others say of injuries received, " I can forgive, but T will not forget it," and he could see in their cape clearly that this was Satan's kind of forgiveness. It made him fear in his own case, that he did not lovo hi.«i enemies. He remembered that his bleeding Leader was too stern in his purity to accept of a false love. He knew that it did not mean a love of approbation for their sins, but the love of compas- sion. He knew that the love of compassion was a ten- der and melting love, and that he did nofc possess it. He sat down trying to feel it, but did not succeed. He tried again and again for a year. He did not love his enemies. He read on the subject. He thought it over in every way ; he prayed over it for another year. He did not love his enemies. He went to making stronger efforts, for he thought it v;ould be hard to miss heaven at last. He continued trying for eleven or twelve years. He thought at times thai his feelings were perhaps softer, but he soon found it was not love. At length he found that by mere effort he could not move his affections. He knew that he could not wish a lofty rock into a rill of milk, and he could not wish hatred into love. He became alarmed: He fasted and prayed in earnest, and at an hour when he was not looking for it, at a moment he was least expecting it, he loved his enemies. It was a real love. He knew it in the same way, reader, that you know mirth from woe when you feel it yourself. If, when your bosom is shaken with the sob of anguish CURE OF INFIDELITY. 195 after losing a smiling son or daughter, your friend should say to you, " Perhaps you are mistaken ; are you sure it is not mirth you feel ?" You would tell him, I have felt both, and the difference is very strik- ing. This man, after remembering how long and how hard he had tried to love his enemies without suo- cess, began to feel that it was the Spirit of G-od, the invisible Spirit, who is willing to have intercourse with men who wish it and who quit sin, that had changed his heart and planted a hew feeling there. After this, if he began to forget his need of this kind of heavenly help, he would be left suddenly in his old condition. But when this threw him again on his knees, and he received the dew of heavenly influence in his soul, he was reminded of the existence of the Holy Spirit. He was conscious of this Bible truth. The flow of love in his soul was a stronger sensation than the cup of water which he drank communicated to his palate. If you would try to persuade the thirsty man who dips and drinks from the spring, that his feelings are fanciful, that the water is hot instead of nold, you will not alter his belief in this case. 196 CAUSE A.ND CURE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER XL. ILLUSTRATIONS. Second remedy. The wicked may>go to the prac- tice of the precepts of the Bible. Those who practise with humble industry, are met and assisted. AH, we mean, who apply to the Saviour of lost souls, quitting their sins, are met; none are rejected. Those who live as commanded, receive in their own spirits a con- sctousness, a knowledge of the inspiratioji of the holy Scriptures. Men may not only have their sins for- given, but they are not compelled to remain infants in experimental religion. This aU-powerful remedy is offered to all. We must continue to notice it, to look at it again and again. We must exhibit it until all can understand its nature. EXPERIMENTAL CURE. Illustrative incidents. Case 2. A professor of religion felt concerned at the fact that his soul was not melted at the history of the scene of Calvary. He had once felt deeply at the picture of a Sav- iour's sufferings, but these feelings had left him. He heard a minister tell it over, but he had heard it or read it a hundred times before. He turned to the Testament and read again, and tried to feel ; his affections were dead. He went to the com- munion-board ; there were the cup and the bread speaking of blood and crucifixion ; it was all old. CURE OF INFIDELITY. 197 He had tliought it over, trying to feel it, a hundred times. Reader, if you are unconverted, and if you think one might succeed in such a case by simple re- solve, try it. Create the feeling in your own bosom, and Grod grant that you may feel. Not to dwell on minute particulars, we must hast- en briefly to the result. The callous professor prayed and prayed week after week. He did not feel. At last he humbled himself, fasted and prayed. When not looking or expecting to feel, the name of Christ melted his soul as words cannot describe. Any sen- tence he would read in the book, or hoar from others, of the Saviour, made his tears overflow. The word Calvary would awaken in him emotions which he could not express. This man's experience that God is willing to converse with men, did not stop here. There was another doctrine which he did not feel, tried to feel, and failed ; he went for help to his former Benefactor, and succeeded. He desired another trait of Christian character, and endeavored to assume it by strong determination, but failed. He humbled himself before his Lord, and received bountifully. 198 CAUSE ANI> CURE OF IJSFIPELITY. CHAPTER XLI ILLUSTRATIONS. Second remedy. Dear reader, there are two con- siderations which we here entreat you to treasure. First, the two individuals of whose experience we have been writing, are not the only witnesses. They are selected from a cloud of ten thousand times ten thousand. It is true, that a vast majority of pro- fessors never do reach beyond a state of infancy ; of course they do not belong to the cloud to which we lefer. Many professors, and possessors of piety a little more advanced, receive answers to their prayers and forget it, or do not observe distinctly from whence tfieir assistance came. This evidence of man's de- pravity — Christian stupidity — is visible every day. But the Lord has always an army of witnesses on the earth, such as the two we have noticed. The ungodly neighbors of these witnesses call them men of truth, and would take their testimony in a court of justice, but pay no attention to their statements concerning their knowledge of eternal things. Again, impress it upon your recollection, that these witnesses have not this sight of heavenly things merely once or twice in a lifetime. They do not thus seldom have communion with God, and experimental knowledge of the doctrines of holy writ. This con- tinues daily and hourly, so long as they live up to CUilE OF INFIDELITY. 199 their duty and near to their Saviour. Here is a wit- ness who feels perhaps to-day that he does not mourn as he should over the low state of religion. After passing through the effort we have partly desorihed before, the Spirit touches his heart, and every breath is a sigh of anguish or a soh of grief for tha desola' tions of Zion. At another time he observes that he does not feel as he should, the nothingness of earth, and a proper indifference to the things of time. He Beeks for this, and his success tells him of an omni- present God again. Then he wishes to feel for the heathen, or he wishes to feel more pungent shame for the sins of early life, or he desires more industry, or more patience, or meekness, or more exulting joy, or more of any one out of the long catalogue of Chris- tian graces ; and when he comes to ask as suppliants should come, he receives, until he repeats again with high exultation, " I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he will stand at the latter day upon the earth ; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God : whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." Job 19 : 25. Reader, the watchful, obe- dient, and industrious soldier, although he walks by faith and not by sight, yet by gracious, spiritual, and bright communications, has as it were a daily sight into heaven. He obtains that deliberate confidence in eternal things which an apostle felt when he said, without hesitation or an expression intimating doubt, " There is laid up for me a crown of right- eousness." We must relate two more incidents before we 200 CAUSE ANIj CURE OF INFlDELITif come to the application. Reader, think and pray over these things, for your soul is precious. ' EXPERIMENTAL CURE. Illustrative incidents. Case 3. A person vvhc tad obtained a hope in Christ, felt great reluctance to conducting family worship. But he believed house- hold devotion to be indispensable, and resolved to at- tempt the duty, however self-denying. He continued it for nine years, wishing it was not so irksome, but never omitting it. When his prayers were heard, it was strange to what an extent the Lord manifested himself to him when before that altar. His feeling? might be dull elsewhere, perhaps cold at church, sluggish even at the comjnunion-table ; but in morn- ing and evening worship he frequently had such views of heaven and heavenly things that he could scarcely officiate. He stated that he had sometimes been reminded of the fact recorded of Toplady before his death, that his spiritual views became so bright that he exclaimed, " Lord, hold thine hand, for thj servant can bear no more." The witnesses of the Lord are not merely brought to feel on subjects of indifference, but in a direction opposite to the current of their former affections. They are made to hate that which they once loved, and to love that which they once hated. They are allowed any amount of evidence. The treasury can never be exhausted. No matter what degree of cer- tainty any one may wish to connect with the words, " I know that my Redeemer liveth," he may ask it of Grod ; and living more and more devotedly to him. CURE OF INFIDELITY. 201 in the discharge of Christian duty, he may reach a certainty as cool and deliterate as that of the man who says at midnight, " I have no douht the sun is down," or who says, " He shines," while looking at his blinding glory. There is a passionate man ; he may obtain meekness. There is a covetous man ; he can have liberality. There is a hard-hearted man; he may become uncommonly tender. These men, in obtaining these graces, will learn that their Redeemer liveth, and they will be benefited. They will gain that which is indeed valuable, and which will make them instantly more happy. Oh that wicked men would begin the practice of Bible precepts, on more accounts than one. Dear, unconverted friend, in a few chapters more we will inquire, in your case, if you can obey the holy book so as to obtain divine evidence, and also how to dp it. But we first have to call up a few profitable thoughts or to repeat some that have been mentioned. 202 CAUSE AND CUE.E OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER XLII. ILLUSTRATIONS. On the pages of the Bihle certain things are prom- ised to those who seek for them — heavenly and spir- itual hlessings, humility, victory over any besetting Bin, devotion. Christian graces, etc. Other things are not promised, and no child of Grod ever seeks and ohtains them. Personal exaltation, victory over ene- mies, etc., are of this class. The wish for such things is sinful. Again, there are certain favors we may ask for and hope to ohtain, and yet not he certain that we shall ohtain, because there may he something in the way to prevent, \jhich God sees and we do i.ot. Of this last class is the recovery of a sick rela- tive, the conversion of a friend, the rebuke of pesti- Ijnce, etc. The first class of mercies named, a spirit i hate that which is hateful, and to love that which is lovely, the witnesses of Jesus Christ always ob- tain when they seek as directed. Their uniform and striking success makes their evidence so plain that they need no more. Additional evidence, however, is given, like an occasional flash of light from on high, in answer to petitions for such favors as they are not certain always to receive. These answers to prayer appear to the unconverted all as a matter of casualty, and as that which would have happened had no prayer been offered. The Christian discovers too much uniformity, before he watches long, to think CUSE Of INnDELITir. 203 the Bvents he is praying for take place from chance. We will give examples of these evidences tefore we leave the subject. Illustrative incidents. Case 4. There was one who had distelieved and ridiculed spiritual agency. He particularly and specially dishelieved the doctrine that Satan is the author of any of our evil sugges- tions. He once rode to meeting with a gay young merchant. Before it was over he heard two minis- ters agree together, in a whisper, to pray for that young man. While their heads were inclined, no douht in prayer, he saw the young man turn pale, walk forward, and ask the prayers of God's people. This partial sceptic had never denied that God ever influences our feelings, so firmly as he had disputed the agency of the evil one. That same evening he was present when the young man approached a preacher with a look of alarm and said, "Sir, I went into a grove for the purpose of trying to pray, and I could not do it. No matter when or where I made the effort, as soon as I would kneel, there came into my mind thoughts the most horrible, blasphemies the most inexpressible, such as I never had in all my years of vanity or scenes of wickedness. Can it be that I am getting more wicked just as I attempt to repent ?" The preacher answered him, " My young friend, we know how body operates on body, for we can see that and handle it. Spirit is invisible ; it is not tangible We do not know how spirit strikes or operates upon spirit; but it does. The evil one never saw you likely to forsake his ranks, and he never was afraid of losing you before. He exerts himsell 204 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELIIT. often when threatened with desertion. He really can in some way inject into our minds most ahomi- nable thoughts ; hut they are not sinful in us, if we do not entertain or approve them. If that man in the street were to offer you much gold to commit murder, you would not he guilty if you cordially hdted his temptation." The spectator felt somewhat surprised to learn that incidents of this kind were not uncommon After mingling with revivals, and meeting with per- haps a hundred cases more, he hegan to suspect that we are liable to persuasive spiritual influences, hoth good and had. EXPERIMENTAL CURE. Illustrative incidents. Events asked for take place contrary to the most probable appearance of things. Case 5. A man once lived who was naturally timid, but in the concerns of religion he was especially diffident. He was a hundred times more ashamed to be heard to pray, than he once had been to be heard to swear. This detestable cowardice crippled and fermented him for many years. His son was consti- tutionally diffident like himself, and should he ever forsake the world, the almost certain result would ha a similar backwardness in the service of the Lord These thoughts, and the fear that his son would serve Satan long, perhaps until almost middle life, before he gave himself to God, threw the father on his knees to ask a double favor, namely, the conver- sion of his son in the days of boyhood, and the vio« CITRE OF INFIDELliy. 205 tory over cowardice in the Redeemer's army. A sacramental meeting approached. He believed his prayer answered — for a reason only understood by those who have felt it, and therefore it need not be explained or described here. He did not converse with his son, but he watched him. He saw him unite with the church, and he heard hira pray in public without delay as soon as called on. During the course of a few years, when many improbable events asked for had thus taken place, he could say, " If these things happen, they happen with strange nniformity, and contrary to probable appea''(ince." 206 OAUSTi ANr CURE OF INFIDELITY- CHAPTER XLIII. THE REMEDY DENIED TO NONE. All may use this remedy who do not incapaci< tate themselves by sin. Those who inoapacitato themselves are not excusable because of their ina- bility. The man who bores out his own eyes has not the light of the sun to complain of, because he cannot see. The man who corrodes his palate until his taste is destroyed, cannot blame his food for his want of enjoyment in eating. Reader, if you wil] take the ten commandments in all their spirit and all their bearing, also the sermons, parables, and all the sayings of the Redeemer, as uttered by him unite them together, and meditate upon them, you will then, we have no doubt, tell us that the prac- tice of each one would be very lovely. "We presume this because it is acknowledged, and has been as- serted by the leaders of the infidel forces in different generations. If you. can find any Bible precept which is unjust, immodest, or immoral, we may well say, t)o not practise that. If all the precepts of the Scriptures are correct, we are not acting amiss to obey them, and to exhort others to obedience. They must suffer in some way who do not observe that vi'hich is excellent in itself. None ever became infi- dels but those who cease to obey the precepts of the Bible, more or less, or those who were reared to dis- regard them from infancy. The Spirit of all truth CURE OF lifFIDELITY. 201 and purity influences us towards truth. The most wicked of men is still a debtor to the Holy Spirit for what little religious truth he may still retain. A man has not abandoned all Bible truth, nor is ho totally forsaken by the Holy Spirit, until he becomes a thorough atheist, either in creed or practice. We do not rriean a wavering atheist, but a hearty one. The Spirit of truth does not abide in a bosom filled with pollution. He takes up his constant residence in the heart of those who obey, and those alone. He begins to withdraw his influences from those who begin to hug enormities, and from those who turn their backs on God's commands. They begin to question truth, from whom he begins to retire. The light of heaven begins to appear dim in the eyes of those who have insulted the Spirit of truth until his agency is weak- ened. The loveliness of truth begins to resemble dark- ness and deformity, in the view of all those who are more or less left to themselves. If the commands of ihe blessed volume are good, let us exhort all to obey hem. If you wish to be instructed by the God of heaven, if you desire to be led by the Being who made you, if yoti are willing to be guided by the author of all truth, do as he tells you. You will find his orders in the Bible. Practise heartily and indus- triously all that is commanded there, and you will have heavenly communications and light from on high. If you are one of those who have neglected the precepts of holy writ, and the system of Christi- anity begins to appear uncomely in your sight, and cold unbelief begins to chill your ability to pray, listen to what the mighty Counsellor says: " Return 208 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. nnto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord." Some will make the following difficulty when called on to begin to do right. " Do you ask it of us, who dishelieve the Bible," say they — " do you ask it of us to begin to obey it ?" Before we answer your question, fellow-immortal, we must mark the difference between those who do not believe, and those who really disbelieve the book ; and we must take pains to avoid any mistake respect- ing our meaning. Attend, then, to the following illus- tration. Suppose that a man of standing and of truth were to awake you at midnight, and to tell you con- cerning your farm and house some miles distant, that the fire was approaching it, and that its danger was imminent. Suppose, while you were preparing to go to save it, another man of equal verity and respecta- bility rides by, and tells you that he has just passed your property, and that there is a total mistake ; that there is no fire there, and no danger exists. Here we might say, there is such an equilibrium in testimony, that you scarcely know how to act. Then suppose a third messenger, somewhat inferior in credibility, comes along and tells you the fire is approaching your estate. Here you might say, " I scarcely know what to believe ; but I must act. Indolence is inexcusable where there is any preponderance on the side of dan- ger. It is safer to act." You are not confirmed in your belief of the advancing conflagration, but you are unwise if you neglect exertion. Go now and act for your soul. If you tell us that you cannot believe the Scriptures, we answer, go and obey them. It is CUEE OF INFIDELITY. 209 true, if you are a confirmed disteliever, we have l)ut little hope of your action ; but all who sincerely and earnestly obey these precepts, receive the same evi- dence of their truth that the man who approaches the fire receives of its warmth. If he were to stand at a distance and say, " Oh that I could believe there was heat in that fire," we might offer many strong arguments to prove it, but the most convincing m-easure would be to prevail on him to approach. If it were true that he had a strong aversion to the ex- ercise of walking, and a dislike to the sight of fire, and he were to tell us that he was confident, and without a doubt, that no warmth existed there, we should have but little hope of prevailing on him to act ; nevertheless thorough action would produce a certain result. He might advance a few feet, and then call out exultingly that he felt no warmth. He might approach a short distance again, and then turn away, calling out with indignant vehemence, "I knew it was so, I feel no heat ;" but all this has been only a sham trial. So it is with many who say they have complied with the dictates of revelation. It was only a half-way obedience, a partial action, a false compliance with those blessed commands. All who walk up to the fire know its efficacy. So long as they remain there, they remain convinced. Those who stand nearest have the least perplexing doubt. Read- er, do you say to us, " Shall I act, although i doubt?" If you doubt, this is the reason why you should act speedily and decisively. Let us now tell you some things which you believe, and others which you know. If you are an atheist, we are not address- 210 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. ing you just now ; but if not, the following facts fit vou. You believe, 1. That God is a being of purity. You believe, 2. That if he is pure, he •vsti.ll not be disposed to take pollution into his immediate habitation, or near to himself. You yourself do not tolerate that which you esteem filthy. He may deem that unclean which we do not hate. A man hates what a swine does not, because of his superiority over that animal ; but the Lord's exaltation above us is immeasurable. If you say that you cannot understand how that may appear sin to God, which seems very passable with us, you speak unadvisedly. Now for that which you know : 1. That if you stood in a room where were col- lected a hundred persons, male and female, your fel- low-worms of the dust who live here below with you, all sinners like yourself, you would not be will- ing that every word you have uttered, and every thought which has passed through your mind for the last month, should be told or pictured before them. You know, 2. That if all your actions and all your vrishes were told to a church full of your fellow-creatures, they would not sound well ; you know that you are a sinner. We will prove this to you in another way. We will prove that you know that the magnitude of an offence is measured by the excellence of the being against whom it is committed. You know, 1. If you were to insult one of the animals of the field, it would be a matter of little moment, be- cause that four-footed beast is low in the scale of existence. You know, CURE OF INFIDELITY. 211 2. If you were to walk up to your fellow-man, your equal, and offend him, it would be a more seri- ous occurrence, for he is of a more exalted nature. You know, 3. If a tall seraph from the upper army should sail on splendid wings tefore you, alighting near, on an errand of heaven, you would feel less safe in offending him, because of his superior excellence. You know, 4. God's purity is unspeakable; his excellence and grandeur are unlimited ; his power and majesty are boundless ; all his traits of loveliness and great- ness are infinite. Who shall dare offend him ? If you do not know something of the real desert of sin, at the time of reckoning he will make you know it. If what you call a small pffence is meas- ured by his worth, it becomes unlimited in its ill desert. These things you know, and of course, if you are not afraid to think, you know that your case may be a very unsafe one. You know that perhaps your danger may be black and imminent as the silent, but advancing cloud. Then act ; take the safer course, begin to act, and continue it. Bow and tell Jesus Christ all you would tell him if you saw him. Do every thing he has directed as scrupulously as you should do were you to hear his lips utter the orders. Every man may become a Christian. Many will not. Every Christian may have the most satisfac- tory evidence of experience. Many do not try. if you are an atheist, you will be noticed in the next chapter. If you are not an atheist, but settled and unwavering in your creed of gospel rejection, perhaps 212 CAUSE AND CriRK OF INFIDELITY. the first remedy, external evidence, although the weaker of the two, promises more in your case. The last remedy will cure any loho will receive it. No matter who you are, atheist or double atheist, if yoa will bend to each order there written, you will be cured, and your life will be everlasting. But we have very faint hopes that you will come to the light after the Holy Spirit has left you. If you are a con- firmed atheist, he has left you now ; whether or not he will return, he only knows. If you are a con- firmed, unwavering Bible hater, yet still believe some one made the stars, you believe one truth. The Spirit is not gone, but he touches the strings of your soul seldom, and but very faintly. "Return unto me, and I will return unto you," saith the Lord. There is a balm in Gilead; there is a physician there, but he requires obedience, and men do not love the remedy. Some say, " We do not know all the command- ments contained in that book, and yet in force." We answer, you are not obeying such commands as you do know ; you are not trying to fulfil such require- ments as are plain before you. That which is lovely cannot hurt you. Try it. That which is just can- not injure you. Begin it. When that man presented you with a cup of water, and you said, "I thank you, sir," you did not do wrong. You believe that to express gratitude, is not amiss. God gives you many cups of water, and tables covered with food. The Bible orders you to say, " I thank thee." Let your children hear you say this as the favor is repeated. Will you begin ? Ah, we fear you do not wish it. CURE OF INFIDELITY. 213 If you will not otey here, we need not repeat the hundred orders that follow. You are averse to com- pliance ; a secret which you scarcely suspect is, you have no relish for doing what Grod directs you. Conclusion. If one man approach the fire and declare that its cherishing heat is ahundant, another may go there if he chooses. If he stand oiT, calling for evidence and declaring that none is given, the builder of the fire is not to hlame. If, notwithstand- ing the fact that not one since the creation ever ap. preached closely without making the same avowal, he call out that no testimony is offered him, he uttereth lies. If he exclaim vociferously, " I know that your testimony is all fancy, heated imagination, and fa- natical delusion or hypocrisy," and when answered, " Then approach and judge for yourself," he still stays away mocking, then we can only say. Farewell. Faithfulness and truth demand that to that farewell be added, Thi/ blood be upon thine own head. 214 CAUSE AND CURE OF INI'lDHiilTY. CHAPTER XLIV. ATHEISM. Cheis'iIans usually Relieve it impossible for any one to become a real atheist. Their minds are di- vinely influenced, and they forget what they would ho capahle of helieving were they left to themselves. The most of wicked men doubt if there are anj sincere atheists. They are heaven-restrained them< selves, but they do not know it. To every uncon- verted man, the suggestions and influences of the blessed One appear as nothing more than the simple operations of his own mind. The ungodly are un- conscious of holy persuasions, because it seems to them solely and entirely their own mental effort. But we say, to the saint and the sinner, there are atheists by the million. If you were abandoned, you would forthwith become a settled and sincere atheist. We agree that many calling themselves atheists are not entirely forsaken, .and that at times they feel a degree of apprehension; but, notwithstanding this, there are armies of atheists. For the entire atheist we have no hope. Those who die may, and sometimes have been known to re- vive ; but when we see our friends expire, our hope for them in this life is gone, because the cases of re- suscitation are so rare. Omnipotence . could restore the complete atheist, but we have no reason to ex- pect it. CUEE OF INFIDELITY. 213 To the partial atheist we say, our hope for you is very feetle; for a little more, and your head is he- neath the hillow; but we ask you to read Paley's Natural Theology twice over. We ask you to read Dick on the same subject. If these do not influence you to try the second remedy, the experimental evi- dences of Christianity, then we can only say, fare- well. We have now done witli atheists, and with the subject of atheism on their account. Further argu- mentation with the atheist we have none; yet, on another account, we must pursue the subject. For the sake of the rest of mankind, we take the case of the atheist to show the fall of man, to exhibit the doctrine of total depravity, to prove what man would be without heavenly restraint. To hold up atheism as an example illustrative of important truth, may require more chapters than one. We have before stated, that the clear consciousness and constant recol- lection of the fall of man is all-important for those inquiring after truth, and for those attempting to practise virtue or piety. We deem it a momentous duty to look faithfully at what men are capable of believing, if left to them- selves. Accompany us then through the creed of the atheist, and observe the doctrines of holy writ exhib- ited in his case. There are crowds of atheists now alive, but their race is not yet finished. If there were no atheists, it would prove either that man is not a fallen creature, or that the Spirit does always strive with man so long as he lives on earth, 216 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY, CHAPTER XLV. , THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. We wish to dwell a while on the belief of the atheist, that all may be reminded of the amount of evidence man is capable of resisting. Our illustra- tions are of course drawn from things around us. We must endeavor not to write in the language oJ the chemist, or of the philosopher, but to use the plain, every-day dialect understood by the little hoy, or the uneducated, without assistance. It is neces- sary that we should not be misunderstood in our most ordinary expressions. In the first place, then, we must define fully what meaning we attach to the word accident or casualty. If we see a quantity of bricks overthrown in the street, and hurled along the earth in impetuous con- fusion, we call their position the result of accident or casualty. We mean, that mind was not employed in directing their location. Jf we see them lodged in a shapely wall, we at once assert that their position was the result of thought, and not of accident. We have seen the forest where the sweeping tor- nado had snapped the trees, and hurled them across each other in tangled prostiation. We then call the particular location of those timbers accidental, mean- ing that design, thought, or plan, did not effect it. We have seen trees ranged over each other, and CURE OF INriDliLITY. 211 squared into a house : then we did not believe tLeir position casual, we had no douht but ihouf;ht was employed in their arrangement. The atheist is one who believes there is no God. He believes that man is the highest being in exist- ence. He believes that the things we see either came into being of themselves, or have been always here ; for he usually believes they are here now. It is not material in the controversy, whether he con- tends that the world, or the matter of which it is formed, is of recent date, or that it has been here from eternity ; but it is more common with them at the present day, to contend that matter has always existed. Of these, we shall chiefly take notice. "We shall do no more than tell the creed of the atheist, and the creed of the Christian again and again, plac- ing them frequently side by side. We name different facts telling first what the Christian believes concerning them. In looking for these facts, it matters not where we begin. The objects nearest us are our choice ; we have only to aim at being understood by the unlettered, with im- mediate ease, and we had better pain the ear of the scientific by the coarseness of our words, or method, than to fail of comprehension from the unlearned. Young reader, when you look abroad you see very many breathing animals around you. You know that the air we breathe is not fit to breathe again,, so that if closely confined, although we might not feel injured for the first few minutes, yet, after a time we must die. You may not be aware that the air you breathe is so totally changed, that ycu Cauie and Cure. I O 213 CAUSE AND CURE OF ISFlDELiTY. would expire forthwith were you to continue ita R?a It is true, that were you to receive it back again inti" your lungs, unmixed with the other air around you, it would cause your death. There is no danger that this will happen. Those who know nothing of these facts are mostly safe ; because in the action of breath- ing it is thrown some distance from the face, and even when the liead is covered, it cannot be drawn back again, without receiving much of the other healthrul air near us, along with the draught. But where many live near us, it is natural to inquire why the atmosphere is not so poisoned, frequently, as to cause our death. So it would : even on the muster- ground, where hundreds crowd into a circle, it would be felt ; but, in the first place, by breathing, this air is made a little heavier than it was before. If it is only a little heavier than the common air around us, then it will sink down to the earth ; and it does thus fall. This increase of weight causes the air which has been once used in the crowded room, to sink down to the floor. It seeks every crevice to pass lower, or it rolls out of the door and finds the earth. This in- crease of weight is either plan or accident. It is a little matter in one sense, but it saves too many millions of lives not to be, too, extremely fortunate, or very kind. Again, it is natural to ask why we do not dread the increase of this altered and unwholesome air. Why does it not accumulate, rising higher and higher, until it reaches above us, and we sink ? This would be the case : animals not erect, that breathe, carrying their nostrils nearer the earth, would perish CURJE OF INFIDELirr. 219 first, and man at last would fall, were it not for a few additional casualties, or mercies, which we will now enumerate. First, when this air, thus destroyed, reaches the earth, the grass which is there drinks it up. It goea into the pores of weeds, plants, and vegetation in general, and two blessings result ; the poisoned air is used, and taken out of our way, while it enters into the composition of that which grows, and aids its rapid increase, as a most kindly manure. But again, there is a region where winter reaches, and destroys the earth's green covering. Neverthe- less winter is not feared, for it is a kind design or a fortunate perchance, that water will absorb this gas. The snow is on the ground, and you need not fear. It has rained, or the frost has fallen and again dis- solved, and you need not fear ; the wind is blowing towards the surface of the river, or the distant lake, etc. Sometimes, in seeking the lowest situations, this heavy air sinks into a well, where there is neither grass, grain, or water to absorb it, and there it remains and threatens the incautious adventurer. These facts, in one view, are little things; but the continuance of the human family depends on their existence : of course they must be either wise, or for- tunate. There is another kind of air, or gas, which b equally deadly, called by chemists, hydrogen gaa. This would destroy us, if plentifully used at once Those who wade in streams, and walk on the de- caying leaves on the bottom, have seen it bubbling 220 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. up to the surface. It will burn if the torch is applied. Every thing that rots will, like the leaves we have mentioned, give out or produce this unhealthy gas in abundance. If we then look around and notice how many trees, and weeds, and leaves, and chips, and animal substances, etc., are constantly dissolving, we may well inquire again, why we are not all destroyed with rapid and cureless devastation. So should we be, were it not on account of certain circumstances, which we will not pass by. It chances, or it was contrived, that this gas is lighter than the air around us ; of course it will rise up towards the clouds. What- ever is lighter than water will swim, and whatever is lighter than air will rise towards the top of the atmos- phere. This gas is so much lighter than the com- mon air, that it ascends swiftly past our faces, and floats beyond our reach. Those who are disposed to think, might inform us that their fears were not at an end, iox fortunate or Mnd as is this regulation, still the top of the air may, in time, be overburdened, and this cumbrous poison descend to our extermination. If we are saved for a time, what is to continue our relief ? The answer is, that two small facts exist which save our earth. One is, that through casualty, or through wisdom, it is so contrived, that this gas when united with another gas, called oxygen, already and always floating at the top of the air, or in the regions of the clouds, forms water. Water is formed by these two pressed closely together, but the pressure must be hard, to make them unite The question next is, how this powerful pressure is effected high up in the air. CURE OF INFIUELITY. 221 There is a fluid in nature called electricity, com- monly called lightning. The unlearned or the young person can remember that this electricity or thia lightning can strike any thing very hard, for he has seen where it has shivered the hardest oak. This lightning, when it dashes from the cloud down to the earth, strikes the tree. When it flies from cloud to cloud, it strikes these two kinds of air we have named, presses them suddenly and powerfully to- gether, and forms drops of water. Young reader, if you cannot understand this, there is one thing which you know about it. You have seen it rain hard just after a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder. Much of that water was just then formed.* The poisonous air, hydrogen gas, is removed from threatening us, and at the same time the shower is in- creased to fertilize the field. The crop is augment- ed. The table of the atheist is covered with tasteful viands. He fills himself ; thanks no one ; stares at his superabundant mercies, and says, "There is no God !" Two facts we should notice just in connection with these items. First, that if the first-named gas, or kind of air from which we are saved by its weight, and by its being removed through the instrumentality of plants and water, had been lighter than the atmos- phere, so as to ascend above us, this would have been * We are told that recent discoveries evince that the sur- plus drops are not thus suddenly formed by compression. Ba it so. Dispose of the rising of hydrogen in any other way, no matter how, as soon as the truth is reached it indicates a contriver as strikingly as any mistaken theory cjuld pos- sihly do. a22 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. no remedy ; for the electricity in the upper air could not dispose of it, and the mist of the clouds alone and unassisted would be insufficient. Secondly, if the last-named gas, hydrogen, had been heavier than atmospheric air, so as to seek the lowest situation, this would not have relieved us, because plants and water would not absorb it ; and on the surface of the ground, the electric fluid does not play so as to dash it into the shape of water. Reader, we have noticed some ten or twelve of those arrangements, without which the world could not continue the habitation of man. The Christian believes these things were wisely and kindly plan- ned. The atheist thinks them fortuitous. The next truth important in this discussion, and which stands out before you is, that these facts and necessary cir- cumstances belong to every thing you see ; you can- not point at a visible object, you cannot think of a tangible substance on the face of the earth, that is not surrounded with laws or properties without which the comfort or the safety of the earth would sink. It is important that you should be familiar with this truth. We will ask your attention to it again, after we shall have noticed a few more examples of what we have been considering. Other examples of casualties, or of mercies. There was a man who walked into his harvest-field as the sun arose. As the day advanced, the heat in- creased intensely. If it had continued to increase as rapidly throughout the day as it did during the first four hours, that man with his neighbors would have been withered to death. Young reader, you can un- CURE OF INFIDELIir. 223 derstand the reason why the inhabitants of the earth are not destroyed every warm day. Tf you will, in the middle of a sultry day, sprinkle water over the floor, you will find in a short time that it is g^ne, and the floor is dry. It has evaporated ; tha Es, it has turned into mist and sailed away. This i the way the clouds are formed: the sun shines on the wet earth, the damp leaves ; on lakes, rivers, oceans, and smaller streams — the water is converted into mist or cloud, which is so light that it rises and swims in the air. You remember that while your floor was becom- ing Iry, the room was rendered more cool — the air in Ihe room parted with much of its heat. The reason of th's is, that while water is turning into vapor, it absorbs much of the heat of the air around it ; or in other words, while water evaporates, it absorbs or drini's up the heat or caloric near it. Now apply these facts. The day begins to grow warm, but there hang dew-drops on the grass, and as this water becomes mist it absorbs much heat, and thus checks the advancing warmth of the day. "We should bo scorched into cinders, but there are large oceans and many smaller collections of water, and as surely as water is heated, it will evaporate ; and as certainly as it evaporates, it will use the heat nearest it, and we need not fear the snn in his upward march tlirough a cloudless sky. There was a man who left his field as the sun was sinking in the west. He looked over his crop in the Hionth of June, and its green wave delighted his eye The air grew colder as the night approached, i!24 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. and still colder as it advanced, so as to render il cer- tain that if the cold thus increased, before the nigh< Vx^as over frost would be there, and would blacken all the hopes of the husbandman. But the cold did not thus increase. May we nol inquire why it did not? "Would it not be stupidity to neglect such thoughts? Young reader, on the day before, to save us from an unfriendly heat, water had turned into mist and floated through the air, drinking up its superabundant warmth. At night, as it becomes more cold from the sun's absence, this mist goes back again into the form of water, giving out again all the heat it had before absorbed. It now hangs in dew-drops from the quivering leaf, and saves it from the frost. As surely as water seizes on the heat when it turns to mist, so certainly it gives it out again when it assumes the shape of dew. By these facts, little as they appear, our bodies are saved every summer's day from suffocating heat, in all its red intensity; and every cold autumnal night the sustenance of approaching months is sheltered from the blackening frost of winter. The Christian who thinks over these things, feels that he is safe. He lays his hands across his breast, and with the smile of meek serenity he says, and ha feels, " My Father is truly kind." The atheist sits near a .well-covered table, feeling more haughty as he fattens. He turns his broad, dull eye towards the throne of heaven, and says, " There is no God," and he feels, " I am wise." Similar dangers threaten, and similar providences, or accidents, watch over us during every hour of winter. CURE CF INFIDELITr. 225 December's sun disappears, and should the odld increase tlirougli the night as it does for the first few hours, we could nut fancy the consequences. Noth- ing could save us Fuel and clothing could not pro- tect us from freezing to death. The cold does not thus increase. Why does it not? Because the water in the earth, and on the earth, begins to freeze ; and water as it freezes, or as it approaches a freezing state, gives out its caloric, that is, cold water is made colder by parting with the heat in it. As water freezes, the advancing cold is checked. The ocean gives up its- heat throughout the whole of every winter. Earth could not be tenanted by man, if this were not the case. There is another day in winter comparatively warm. This is called a thaw. We should suffer from unnatural and unseasonable heat, were it not for another diminutive, but momentous circumstance ; that is, as snow melts and as ice dissolves, as frozen earth softens and as frost disappears, they all absorb the heat nearest them. The increasing warmth is thus abated for our entire safety. Reader, it is thus with every thing you see. On your right hand or ou your left, above you or below, the smallest object ov which your eye may rest is encircled by wise laws. If altered, the world would be destroyed. We can see no end to these kind contrivances ; volumes could not detail them, for "they are numerous as the objects of creation. Reader, we will not detain you here much longer. We would not pursue this part of our oubjeot any further, were it not for the purpose of holding out a few more examples to show that *^^e earth could not 226 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITV. continue as it now is, if any thing you look at were — had happened to be — made different in any way. A FEW MORE EXAMPLES. You remember that some things mix with water very reluctantly, and others with great rapidity. If you will take sulphur and water and bring them together, you will find them commingle with great difficulty. If you will place water and sugar in the same vessel, you will find they unite at once. The soil you walk on every day is Uke neither of these substances named. Its aptitilde to mix with water is of a middle oast. There are three things over which we have reason to rejoice ; those who think not on them, have the sin either of ingrati- tude or stupidity. Let us look at them in order. 1. If the earth we cultivate had chanced to re- ceive water into its embrace as slowly as that sul- phur, our showers would rush from our hills and swell our streams, but they would never reach the roots of our corn, and famine would unpeople the earth. 2. If our soil should unite with water as water does with sugar or other substances, you would not dare step from your door after it had rained ; you would sink in the mire of your yard. You could not plough your field. The vivifying shower would bo an incurable calamity. 3. If our soil should receive the water faster, or not so fast ; if it should refuse to part with it, or part with it more speedily, we could not continue here. The consequences would destroy us. But we cannot travel over all creation. We need not keep in this path longer. Look at any thing you please, and it will not do to alter it. If it has been CUUE OF IKFIDELITT. 227 hero from all eternity, then it is unspeakably fortu. nate that it chanced to be always as it is ; for had it happened otherwise, we never could have lived here Suppose you were to alter the density, the thickness, or consistency, or solidity of water or of air. Fancy the water of our earth more dense than ;t is, its transparency would disappear. It would hold in sus- pension, that is, floating through it, substances which would forbid us to drink. Diminish its density, and your vessels would sink, you yourself could not swim, and your streams you could not pass. Similar evils wouli! attend us were we to alter the consistency of air, iT wood, or metal. The thinking Christian can look at nothing which does not remind him unceasingly that his Father pland for him attentively, and calls for a return of his affections.* The atheist never had a more lovely * When the pious agriculturist holds his plough, or standa ■with his chain or his axe in his hand, how many thoughts may move his gratitude. Out of the thirty metals, one is capable of we'ding — it is iron. One other metal may be welded, but it is scarce, and never could be used for our domestic wants, if iron were removed from us. If iron had been made like lead, or silver, or zinc, or gold, incapable of welding, how could we m.i,ke many things that are needed hourly ? But that this metal of which our ploughs or saws are formed is susceptible of we'ding, would not avail us much were it scarce as almost every other. But iron may be dug from a thousand hills, thank.i to our Father. However, it is still true, that pleetlfiil as is the iron, and firmly as it may be made to hold to iron, yet it would do us little comparative good if, like lead, it lacked tenacity, toughness. But of the twenty-nine metals iron is, 1 . More plentiful than all the rest. 2. It is more tenacious and durable. 3 It alone may be mended by the process of welding. 228 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. thought than this, " It happened well enough, and glory to myself, for I enjoy it." Thf second part of this picture. The atheist is not m }ved by any of the considerations that we have named. They make no impression on his mini. He looks at the mercies we have named, which are secured to us by what is termed the laws of nature, but he looks no further back than the law. He is like the man who saw a wheel revolve which acccm- plished much ; he saw the work performed, but never looked beyond the wheel. He dreamed not of a more distant actor. At last being told that the wheel was moved, he did look more attentively, and saw another revolving wheel which moved the first. This he con- cluded was the author of the work, and never could be prevailed on to suppose the second wheel was also moved, for in the apartment where he stood he saw no other power or acting force. Not only atheists and half-way atheists, but millions of others, and even professors of religion, get to staring at laws, and speaking of laws, and thinking of laws of nature, until they forget the hand that moves the laws. They never think of the mind that planned the laws. Oth- ers do not use the word laio so readily as the word nature. Whatever comes to pass, they call it the effort of nature. Whatever pleasing property belongs to any thing which advances their comfort or secures their safety, when they speak of it they say, it is its nature. In this expression they would be correct to a certain extent, were it not that they never see any further. Nature is as far as their mental eyesight ever penetrates. Whatever meaning they attach tc CURE OF INFIDELITY. ?i:9 the word nature or to the -word laws, they weave that meaning into a broad curtain, and hang it up before them, or they cast it over every object in creation, so that if they see through it, the view is dim and dis- colored. But there is a way to tear their veil. The Christian or the thinking man may snatch it away, so that even the half atheist must see, or turn away from the view. The entirely abandoned by the Spirit of God will never see again. With them, an absurd- ity is easier of belief than a rational occurrence ; a falsehood is a thousand times more captivating than the truth. There are facts of endless extent, over which the song of laws, laws, nature, nature, cannot be sung. To these facts we now advert. There are mercies and arrangements indispensa- ble to our oornfort or our earthly existence, in the production of which the rules of attraction and of motion, of adhesion and affinity, in all their ten thou- sand bearings, had no concern. To these we now turn in search of examples from the boundless mass. Blessings and mercies not produced by any of THE principles CALLED THE LAWS OF NATURE. Young reader, there is a part of South America where it does not rain. Shall that beautiful region be without what is necessary to man's life? No, it has been cared for. If you will take the map of South Amer. ica, you may discover that her loftiest mountains do not, like the mountains of other lands, run in the mid- dle, or near the middle of the continent. The Andes run along the edge, almost, of the land. You have heard of the trade-winds. The Creator is kind to 230 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. the sailor. He fans his cheek as he blasphemes his name. The sailor could not cross the tropical seas if the winds were still or uncertain. But travellers tell us that these trade-winds, so important to those who go down to the sea in ships, carry the clouds in such a direction and with so much rapidity, that they are borne past a portion of South America. This kind- ness to a part of our race, or this conjoined with other causes, is the reason why the showers do not refresh the fields of another part. The Andes are much higher than our North American mountains, and there seems to be a good reason why we should rejoice at it. They rise above the common region of the clouds. It is said by those who have been there, that the winds bear the clouds against the sides of these moun- tains, which are too high for them to pass with facil- ity. It is stated that the clouds are accumulated there, resulting in what might be termed an almost perpetual thunder-storm. It is said that the rivers are in a state of freshet, and are larger in proportion to their length, than our North American streams. The map says this to the eye. It is said that the sun beams on the slope of the Andes, the south-east- ern slope, thirty or sixty miles broad and many hun- dred miles in length, dripping with incessant rains, until evaporation fills the air with mist. This floats off towards the otherwise arid provinces, and abun- dant dews water the fields. These abundant dews supply the place of rain. The green carpet is spread under the feet of the man who walks there. The fruit-bearing tree waves its beautiful branches ovei bis head, but he nevei supposes for a moment that a nURE OF INFIDELITY. 231 benevolent Contriver oared for his comfort. He thinks nature affords us food. Before we make inferences, we will look at an- other portion of the earth where it does not rain. It does not rain in Egypt, and there is no mountain in tlie proper place to intercept the cloud, nor is there any current of passing clouds to be there condensed, even had the Andes lifted their heads along the shores of the Red sea. No cause, or combination of causes is found powerful enough to water plentifully the fields of Egypt, yet it has been called the granary of the world. This is owing to a number of circumstances, out of which we will notice only four or five. 1. Egypt is unlike every or any other kingdom of which we have read, in being not level merely, but flat enough to be overflowed. 2. A river runs through the mid- dle, large enough to flood a wide range of the earth's surface. 3. The mountains of the Moon invite tiie clouds, or a number of causes unite to produce the result. It rains there with sufficient profusion to swell a river high enough to cover a kingdom. The Nile rises in the mountains of the Moon. 4. The distance from where the Nile receives the rain to Egypt, is sufficiently protracted. It takes the flood several months to descend, so that the waters do not reach the fields where they are needed too soon, or at an improper season of the year. 5. The rains fall at the proper season of the year, and in sufficient abun- dance. When we tell the atheist of the kindness of our Father, in causing the grain to grow that we may be 232 CAUSE AKD CUHE OF INFlDELKr. fed, he replies, that " nature supplies our wants," that " it is the nature of the soil and the shower to pro- duce vegetation." It is according to what he calls "the laws of nature." Now, dear friend, you have mind enough, we have no doubt, to understand that if the atheist were to tell us of some law which pro- duced the Andes, and reared them of a given height, we should desire to know why this law did not produce a similar mountain on the plains of Egypt ? If any one could tell us how nature contrived to spread out the flat of Egypt to receive the coming flood, we must wonder why nature did not level the hills and mountains of South America. Why did not inun- dation answer on the coast of Chili, and dew upon the sands of Egypt ? When facts like these are brought before us — and the world is covered with them — there remains no other possible alternative but to say, "It happened that it never rains in Egypt. It chanced that the country was flat, it being the only country that needed to be thus outspread. The Andes ran in a fortunate direction, and they happened to be higher than our mountains, or they would not intercept the teeming cloud. The contingent rains, far up the Nile, chanced to fall at the season which just an- swers. Luckily, these rains do not fall as often as in other sections, or two overflowings might happen in a year, the last drowning the crop which the first had fostered," etc. You can begin to perceive what incredibilities the mind forsaken of divine influences can entertain. The earth is overspread with such things as we have been noticing. Then you may CURE OF INFIDELITY. 233 begin to suspect that the train of enormous absurdi- ties which the atheist must believe is endless. We would not weary you with voluminous details, but we wish you to look fairly at the depravity of man. Wo must point you to similar illustrations and facts, such as we have endeavored to improve. There is a region where the inhabitants cannot say, " It rains not on us," but they must say, " The timber grows not here." Greenland is without a for- est. Do you ask, how are their habitations warmed in winter ? Sailors tell us that train-oil is their fuel. But wood is wanting. Their houses must be cov- ered; their spears and javelins must have handles. Without domestic or hunting utensils, boats or fish- ing-tackle, their homes cannot be tenanted ; without wood these things cannot be made. Travellers tell us that a certain current of the ocean, or certain winds, or both united, bear along in a proper direc- tion the once stately tree, and another and another with abundant constancy, and lodge the needed forest between the islands. There it remains until needed by those whom the Lord forgets not. The soil does not nourish the needed oak for their con- venience, but the billow obeys his voice and bears it to them. If you had no resource for fuel but train-oil, you could not get that, for the whale is ordered to swim nearest to those who most need his flesh. No trees arc thus borne along the shores of France, or Spain, itr England, or perhaps any other nation. They are not needed, but in the frozen climes. Where these trees are torn from, or how they are swept away, we 234 CAUSE AND CUKE OF INFIDELllT. aro not commonly told, and it matters not, so that the Greenlander fails not to receive his mercies. If other shores were naked, and forests waved not there, they would not be supplied as is this land of snow, for ocean's current is not freighted thus with trees, or it does not bear in the right direction, or the islands do not stand so as to form a storehouse for the timber. Eeader, while looking at these facts, as they are scattered all over the earth, it is evident enough that our Parent designed it all in kindness. To believe otherwise requires an appetite for untruth that no man need covet. "While stating that these mind-exhibiting con- trivances were scattered all over the earth, we scarcely crossed the threshold of reality. The train of thought-evincing facts stretches from world to world, and extends from star to star. Reader, we will show that those who receive and love nonsense as extensive as the world we inhabit, do not stop at that achievement. Their credulity is capacious enough to swallow absurdities as broad as creation. The truth-hater overcomes his difficulties, al- though they are as wide as the universe, and as nu- merous as the objects of which creation is composed. The scientific reader must allow us to depart at will from the language of astronomy, when speaking of distant worlds, so as to be understood by the little boy or the unread investigator. "We must address the child in the manner of children's converse. Young reader, there are certain first principles which you must under.stand and keep in memory, CURE OF INFIDELITY. a35 before you can profit by certain pleasing information. You are aware that the author of an almanac must know much of the sun, and moon, and other worlds, which you do not. He tells you of an eclipse many months or years before it takes place. He tells you to a minute when it will begin, how much of the sun or moon will be darkened, and when it will cease, etc. The reason he can do this is, he has looked through a telescope, and has found out the distance of the sun and of the moon, how large they are, etc. Astronomeis can see through those glasses worlds which we cannot see with the naked eye ; and they have discovered many facts concerning distant worlds, which seem strange to those who have not read, or who have not looked through the telescope. These are the astronomical facts which you are de- sired to mark attentively : 1. Our sun is many thousand times larger than the world we walk on. 2. Our earth flies entirely around the sun in one enormous circular sweep, once every year. 3. There are some worlds much nearer to our sun than we are, and flying around it. We must notice them one by one, beginning with the nearest. First, there is a world smaller than our earth, a beautiful little world, which flies around the sun at the distance of almost forty millions of miles. This is much nearer the sun than we are. Astronomers have chosen to name this little world Mercury. It has no moon. It does not need one ; because it is so close to the sun that it has many times the light and heat which we enjoy. 236 CAUSE AND CDUK OF INKIDELITT. Secondly, if you will come some twenty milliona of miles further from the sun, you will pass another beautiful world just about the size of the one we live on. It is the same that we see so often and call the evening star. Astronomers have named it Venus. It is more than sixty millions of miles from the sun. Although this is a great distance, yet it is nearer the sun than we are, and has more light without a moon than we have with one. It does not need a moon, and it has none. Thirdly, the next world we come to is our earth. "We are the third in order from the sun, and ninety, five millions of miles from that luminary. We have a moon, and it is of great service to us. Fourthly,* if we pass on from the sun, almost four hundred millions of miles beyond where we are, we reach a world as large as fifteen hundred of our * The smaller planets tetween us and Jupiter, we have passed over. The unread could not easily understand the facts which it would have been necessary to state concerning tliese worlds, had we mentioned them. A moon of any size near enough to Mars, would pull him from his orbit, and do him other inotirable injury. But we have no doubt that by the density of his atmosphere, or in some other way, this want is made good. Astronomers believe that it is atmospheric con- sistence which has tinged with red, and thus given name to this world. As it regards the other four little worlds, we have reason, when we look at crossing orbits and other facts, to be- lieve that two of these worlds were once but one ; and that the other two were the satellites to this now exploded planet. This discussion we do not enter. It does not materially afTeet our inquiry, therefore we have passed it by. We have one perJiaps to add in connection with another. Perhaps a world once rolled there, and was shivered. Perhaps its inhabitants forgot their God, and at last denied him, even his ex'isteace. . CURE OF INFIDELITY, 237 earth This has been named Jupiter — almtist five hundred millions of miles from the sun. It must need a moon indeed. It has four. But according to the laws of attraction, and the principles of astrono- my, four large or serviceable moons vrould drajf a world like ours to fearful ruin. The remedy is the size of Jupiter. This world, with so many moons, is — by chance ? — so large and ponderous, that it moves on unwaveringly. Some have avowed, and with reason on their side, that at a distance so enormous, even four moons can- not make up the want, and afford a supply of com- forts such as we enjoy. Others answer, that the nights of that world are never long. Bach side of that cold planet is exposed to the face of the sun every four or five hours. Fifthly, if we go from the sun nine hundred mill- ions of miles, we come to a stupendous world, as large as a thousand of this ; it has seven moons, and other contrivances are plainly visible, which must make up for want of light and heat that would be felt without them. Sixthly, go from the sun eighteen hundred mill- ions of miles, and we find a large and beautiful planet. Six moons have been seen, and how many more may be there, which distance renders invisible to us, we are unable to say. Also, what additional plans and arrangements are there furnishing a boun- tiful supply of heat and light, our short telescopes will not enable us to determine. AVe must here pause and ask the reader to make one deduction from the few facts which wo have 238 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELlTIf. selected from the multitude. Before this concJusicn is drawn, however, some items must be recalled to the reader's remembrance. The atheist does not tell us of any laiv of nature, of any attraction, or natural tendency of things, which secured it from all eternity that Mercury should have no moon, or that we should have one. We never have heard, and never expect to hear, any other than two causes referred to as effecting these things. One is, that the kind Creator was also wise, and that he ordered seven moons to sail around Saturn, and only four around Jupiter, because Saturn was almost as far again from the sun as the other. The other cause is, that it has happened so always. It has been fortunately right from everlasting. The three last worlds mentioned did not chance to be smaller than they are. The first three worlds named are not as la;rge as the others. Had they been thus massive, they would have fallen into the sun, or their motions must have been increased, altering our seasons, and shortening them so as to require an endless train of changes throughout all the elements. "We have now glanced at fifteen or twenty items — chances, or mercies — any one of which, altered in any way, would destroy a world. The catalogue does not stop here. Millions and millions would not fill up tho list. We only point to a few palpable illustrations, and we have not time to do more, even if the reader had patience to examine a long detail. We could not name a thousand on a page, much less specify a thousand facts. But what would a thousand be out CT.B.E OF INFIDELITY. 239 of tlie countless millions that exist in every direction? We have a few more examples to present, but must first mention the inference we have promised to re- quest of the reader. The following inference we cannot ourselves avoid, and we ask the reader if his deductions from facts noticed are not the same. Inference. When we find a heart which loves any amount of falsehood, a credulity broader than a hundred oceans, a predilection for enormous untruth reaching across a thousand worlds, we must infer that, uninfluenced by the Spirit of eternal truth, man " loves darkness," and not the light. A preference for darkness is depravity. If de- praved, man is fallen, for the pure hand of his Sover- eign made him not so at first. More examples. Reader, we would not proceed in this detail, were it not that we are all prone to forgetfulness where important truth is concerned. "We have told you that the train of mercies, which the atheist calls chances, is endless. We desire not merely to state, but to impress it upon you. Dear reader, if you choose you may inquire after an astron- omer's glass and look through it. You may see our sun and twenty-nine worlds, large enough to be in- habited, sailing round him. This makes thirty orbs which excite our wonder and employ our admiring gaze. We cannot write concerning thirty worlds, tut we may notice one or two, to remind you that wisdom and goodness have been extended to the rest. We will look for a short time at the worlds nearest as, our own earth and its moon. Our moon flies round our earth at the distance of two hundred 240 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. and forty thousand miles. Its diameter is twenty- one hundred and eighty miles. Some facts to. be stated may be such as those who have never read astronomy understand with difRculty, but in these cases they may talce the simple assertion of authors, because they are items concerning which Christians and unbelievers do not disagree. "We can- not call attention to one fact in a million, but advert to a few, which will bring us once more to the in- evitable conclusion. 1. The moon moves around us, flying from west to east: had it happened to move from north to south, we should have been two weeks without be- holding her silver visage. 2. Had it chanced that the course of the moon's orbit had been from north to south, she would not. shine on those living near the poles for fourteen days alternately. 3. If the moon had been placed at a greater dis- tance from us, she would have appeared smaller, and her light would have shone more faintly. 4. If the moon were much nearer us than she now is, her light, in many of her phases, would shine more dimly, because, as it regards the sun's rays, the angle of reflection must thus be rendered more obtuse. 5. If the moon were much larger than it is, it would pull the earth from her proper orbit, unless an alteration in the earth's size and motion, reach- ing on to and requiring an alteration in every tiling else, were accomplished. 6. The number of particulars in which we are CURE OF INFIDELITY. 241 benefited by the ebbing and flowing of the tides, we shall not endeavor to enumerate. One advantage we must state. Water is kept pure by motion. The quiet pond stagnates and interrupts the health of those who live near it. The river putrefies not, for lis current agitates and its constant rolling clarifies its waters. The lake is not only shaken by vehe- ment winds, but its waters are unceasingly changed for a new supply. Evaporation diminishes, and trib- utary rivers supply the waste. The lakes are thus becoming new lakes without interruption or delay. The ocean is too deep to be thus changed ; and al- though the storms which help to preserve the lako by agitation, do also shake the ocean, this alone does not seem to be entirely sufficient. The ocean, how- .ever, is salt and never entirely still. These two to- gether secure its purity. But where the river meets the ocean, and the ocean meets the river, they mutu- ally still each other. The extended promontory or the crooked shore often shelters the river's mouth from the wind, so that the water there is not only devoid of agitation from the river's current, which is impeded by the ocean's waters, but it is almost devoid of salt, just where the gale is kept off by the hills from shaking its quiet surface. Then shall the slug- gish waters putrefy, diseases in proportion spread, and Tender the shores of our ocean scarcely habitable? No ; the tides dash the waters up the river till they meet its current and roll them back again often enough to prevent the threatened stagnation. The moon's attraction calls up our tides ; let us then rejoice beoavise we chance to have a moon. Ctme wxi Cur? . X I 242 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. 8 If the moon were nearer to us, it would in crease the tide so as to overflow much of our beauti- ful and fertile shore. 9. If the moon were larger, this same serious evii must result. It would be a sad inconvenience in- deed, were the waters elevated each day only a few fee", higher. 10. If the moon were smaller, or if it were more distant, the tides would be so diminished as to answer little purpose. 11. If the axis of our earth had happened to be uninclined, only that portion of our globe could have been inhabited called the torrid zone, and there nr change of season would have occurred. 12. If our earth's diurnal motion had been more rapid, shortening our night and day, much of our middle earth — the equatorial regions — would have' been drowned continually by the elevated ocean. 13. If this rotary motion were more slow, the same deluge would ruin much of the region which we inhabit and that which is north of us. Conclusion. Dear friend, is it necessary that we should continue to enumerate such facts ? We know not where they would end. The catalogue has no termination on which the eye of man has ever rested. Volumes have been filled concerning similar arrange- ments visible on our earth, such that were they altered in any way, devastation and ruin must ensue. After these volumes were filled, it was seen that the thresh- old was not passed. Only the introduction ever could be penned. After reminding you that those who con- tend that all these things have always been as they CURE OF INFIDELITY. 243 now are, must believe that it is exceedingly fortunate that they were right and happily convenient from all eternity, we shall ask the reader a few important questions. Question 1. What do you think of the oondit'oij of the soul which, rather than receive the truth ro- vealed to us concerning a kind Father, and a wise and glorious Creator, will believe in a volume of hap- py accidents and fortunate occurrences, no matter whether they took place yesterday or always ex- isted ? Question 2. If this volume is gathered from the surface of our earth, how much must it be increased if written concerning every one of the thirty worlds, .save one, which move around our sun ? Question 3. What do you think of the condition of the soul which, rather than worship a kind Father and wise Creator, will devour thirty large volumes of nonsense, or believe in thirty endless catalogues of happy contingences, without which the world where they are seen could not exist ? Question 4. Take the telescope and look at the stars; you will find they are all suns. We have reason to be assured that many of them are many times larger than our sun. But if we were to con- jecture concerning the number of worlds — guessing from analogy — cherished by each sun, it would not bo an unfair supposition to say, " I will allow that each sun I see was not made in vain, or that it is not less useful than our own ; therefore thirty worlds at least may float around each sun." You may count, by the aid of the telescope, about 244 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. eighty millions of suns. Suppose we knew all the facts connected with these eighty millions of suns. Or suppose a volume for each of the thirty worlds oojmected with each sun, it would make a work hav- ing thirty times eighty millions of volumes ; but this could not begin to describe creation. Astronomers toll us that if we could look over all the systems that exist, and then should all the stars and all the suns we can now look at be struck into annihilation, we could not miss them ; we could not miss eighty mill- ions of suns, any more than we could miss the re- moval of one green leaf, when from the mountain top we look over the verdure of a waving and endless forest. Man never believes an endless number of volumes filled with innumerable absurdities, after the truth has been made plain before him, except in matters of religion. Man does not swallow falsehood with uni- form avidity, except to get clear of the Bible or its purest precepts. "Men love darkness rather than light." Love for darkness and disrelish for light is depravity. If man is naturally unlovely, he has fallen ; for he did not come impure from the hands of his Cre- ator. Impurity cannot enter heaven without alteration. Postscript. Some in every age who had cast away the book of God, and whb were walking, with their backs turned on ceaseless felicity, after Satan, have been known to turn, and to prize unending joy, and to inquire after regeneration. We do not know but that some reader, after othei CURE OF INFIDELITY 245 investigation, may make the most important of all inquiries, such as, What is conversion ? What is a change of heart ? How is any one to become a Christian ? What is it to become a child of Grod ? How is any one to obtain the pardon of all his sins ? What is coming to God ? How are we to obtain the new birth ? Reader, the new tirth, change of heart, conver- sion, regeneration, etc., all mean the same thing. They are all different expressions for the same trans- actions. This action or event we wish to place before you in few words, as soon as we ask you to observe a few prefatory truths. Truth 1. It would not do for you, as an innocent man, to die for one condemned by our human law; for in taking out of life a just man, and leaving a bad man in it, the community is injured; but when Christ died for those heaven's law had condemned, he laid down his life and took it up again. Truth 2. If Christ suffered for others, but did not suffer as much in the garden and on the cross as they deserve to suffer in hell, still, a full equivalent was offered in this sacrifice, Ibecause of the dignity of the individual who was bleeding. Truth 3. If the Judge is willing to take the Cal- vary death, as a satisfaction for the divine law, in place of your death, you may very well be willing. How TO GET RELIGION. This convcrsion, designated by the expression, change of heart, new birth, and so 246 CAUSE ANX CURE OF INFIDELITY many different names, is to be obtained by asking for it. This is strange. Many -will not believe it, the terms are so mild. We refer the reader to the Bible for confirmation of this statement. "We will endeavor to explain asking — should it need explanation — -as soon as the reader has looked at the Saviour's invi- tations in the blessed book. By searching there you will find that the Saviour is calling, " Come unto me," etc. He is declaring that applicants he will not "cast out." "Whosoever will, let him take,'' etc. " Ask, and ye shall receive," etc. Explanation. It does seem very strange, indeed, to speak of explaining what it is to ask for any thing. It is never necessary except in matters of true relig- ion. It is true there, that men lean towards mis- take, every step. Ministers talk of freely offered salvation, of Grod's willingness to receive penitents, etc., while their unconverted hearers misunderstand every word. The unconverted think, perhaps, that the change of heart is something exceedingly strange, which they are to wait for. Perhaps others fancy that they are to see light, or hear a voice, as Saul did; or they interpret every word concerning peni- tence, submission, forsaking the world, going to God, receiving pardon, etc., as having some strange meta- physical meaning. Others think that they must be distressed in mind so intensely, and suffer so ex» tremely as to move the Lord's compassion; or they wait for this anguish, thinking that none apply prop- erly but those in great mental agony. Such kinds of mistakes, delusions, and erro- neous interpretations, are so common and so uni- CURE OF INFIDELITY. 247 versal, that it is necessary to explain the plainest things. Asking God. 1. The time. It seems that he urges us speedily, for he always says now. This word now, being the only one used in reference to time, we infe that expedition is meant. 2. The place. That we may choose ourselves, for he is everywhere. He is always near to us, and can hear us whatever we say, so that place cannot be ma- terial. Some, when they go to ask for pardon and heaven, choose to be in secret and alone. Others do not wait for this. 3. The manner. The only way to ask acceptably with God, is to wish what you ask for. He does not love hypocrisy; and if any should tell him that they wish to be saved, and wish to be Christians, when they do not, they cannot deceive him, for he sees the heart. Questions asked and answieeed. Question 1. How am I to know he will pardon, if I ask ? Answer. Go and read of him in the New Testa- ment. After observing his kindness, and patience, and meekness, and compassion, and readiness to hear requests, you will begin to suppose that had you been there, offering a reasonable request, he would not have turned away from you ; but if it had been a petition which he had told you to make, you would confidently expect his compliance. Now you have to recollect that he is unchangeable ; he is as kind now as he then was ; he is as ready to hear as he was , he has told you to ask for pardon, and He will not refuse you. '44.8 CAUSE AND CUEE OF INFIDELITY. Question 2. How am I to know if I am sincere, if I ask in a proper manner? Answer. You are sincere if you wish to quit sin. Those who wish to quit sin, try; those who wish to do right, to overcome sin, etc., ask God to help them to leave it. They are sorry when they fail, and trjf again ; and when they fall into sin again, they are concerned the more, and make a stronger effort. In short, they wish to do every thing they find required in the Bible ; and being sorry for every failure, they keep up a struggle and a warfare against sin. Question 3. If I ask for the pardon of all my sins, and to be taken into the number of the children of God, and to have my- name with the ransomed, how am I to know when it is done ? Answer. He has had it written down for your encouragement, that, if you ask, you shall not be refused. He had it written because he does not ap- pear to sinners, and they will not hear his lips pro nounce words on this subject. When you ask, want ing pardon, you have reason to believe that he does not refuse, because he says he will not. Question 4. Am I to hear no whisper, or to have no strong indication, hear no voice, or have no singu- lar impulse to let me know that my sins are blotted out? Answer. No ; Christ has made you no such promise. You will not see the angel that blots out your sins ; you will not see the Saviour to inform you that it is done : " Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Blessed are those who believe the Saviour's word as it stands on the page ol CTJUE QF INfiDJiLliy. 243 his book, as promptly as they would believe his word, if they had with him a personal interview. Question 5. If I were to ask for the remission of all my sins, and were to believe that my words were regarded, and my transgressions blotted out, I should surely rejoice : might I thus take comfort ? Answer. If you ever believe Christ's real stat«i- ment as it stands in the Bible, it will be faith, and joy is one concomitant of faith. There was one who once declared, that under a hope of recently pardoned sin, his predominant feeling was a desire never to offend God again. Such a wish is connected with repentance. It is often the strongest feeling observ- able at the time. Often, the sinner does never no- tice the goodness of Grod; and never has his attention turned towards that affecting kindness of the Saviour, until his own case brings it before him, and until a hope of pardon arouses his observation. Farewell. Reader, if you believe that you never sinned, we bid you farewell in despair ; for sin has benumbed your soul into a stupidity which is hope^ less. If you know you are a sinner, seek pardon forthwith, for this is the only wise course. If you wish pardon, our farewell advice, as to the manner of seeking it, is to act just as you would do if you saw the Redeemer. Without seeing the Saviour, ask as you would if you did see him ; without hearing him speak, attend to his written words just as you would do if you heard him speak them. " Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." Without seeing the white throne, before which we must certainly 11* 250 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. stand in judgment, act as you will wish you had when you do see it : without seeing the bright glory of the peaceful ahode, and the joyous features of the white-robed society, act as vigorously as the worth of such a residence should prompt : without looking down into the red atmosphere, where are thrown to- gether " the fearful, and the unbelieving, and abom- inable, and murderers, and dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and all liars," act so as to avoid their company and their eternity. Farewell. THE AUTriOa'S RESCUE. 251 CHAPTER XLVI. THE AUTHOR'S UNBELIEF-MEANS OP RESCUE. One way to make plain the cure of infidelity, is to give examples of deliverance. Facts are not read with less interest from being presented as the lever by which other minds have been moved ; and as the particulars of our own history can be given with more accuracy than others, the following may not be out of place. Before entering upon the means of escape from unbelief, it is necessary to notice the mode of descend- ing into that abyss. My parents were professors of religion, with a plain education, but well informed in holy things. Firm, ardent, and unassuming, infidelity came not before their thoughts. It seemed to be their impres- sion that entire unbelief very rarely existed, and that where it was avowed it could scarcely be sincere. I never remember to have heard the truth of inspira- tion questioned by mortal lips until the age of six- teen ; when, having passed through the usual college course too hastily, I went to read medicine in Dan- ville, Kentucky. As soon as I mixed with society, 1 of course entered the company of some who were admirers of the French philosophy. I was not as much with the world as others, but I heard them 252 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. speak occasionally. When talking of religion their feelings were always awake. They seemed to be- lieve that in disregarding inspiration there was some- thing peculiarly original and lofty. The sparkle of the eye, the curl of the lip, and the tone of voice, if interpreted, seemed to say that the rest of mankind were contemptible fools, but " we are not." Theii remarlis impressed me, but not deeply. That theii .sarcasms and jeers influenced me towards infidelity, was because men love darkness more than light ; for their arguments were so destitute oi fact for foun-' dation, that ignorant as I was, I could sometimes see that they in reality favored the other side. I had some longing after the character of singu- lar intellectual independence, and some leaning tow- ards the dignified mien ; but I did not assume either as yet, for my habits of morality remained, and my reverence for superior age and deeper research. It was necessary that I should receive praise from some source, before all diffidence or modesty should be swallowed up in self-esteem. And this intoxicating poison was not wanting. After the expiration of three years, I became surgeon's mate, or second phy- sician, to a regiment of Kentucky militia which win- tered near the northern lakes. The approbation of many around me there, led me to feel as though I was one of the actors on life's wide stage. After this, as f frequented the wine- club or the card-party, rev- erence for the Bible diminished ; and as my respect for holy precepts diminished, my sinful habits in- creased. Infidelity inclines us towards pride, festiv- ity, and dissipation, while these engender infidelity, THE AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 253 Like two ponderous metallic globes hung together on the side of a declivity, they mutually assist each other down the steep, and the further they proceed, the greater is their momentum. After this I became first surgeon to a regiment of Tennessee troops which served at Mobile. There I became acquainted with many officers of the regular army, whose intimacy was not calculated to lead me towards God or heaven. During this time, and after this, all worldly success only injured me. It increased my haughtiness, or added to my means of profuse pecuniary expenditure. Revelry darkened the cloud that enveloped my soul, and of course I advanced rapidly in unbelief. In my race of infidelity I never reached entire atheism. I was what was called a deist. After a time I began to have moments of doubt whether or not God ex- isted ; and moving still onward, it was not long before those short seasons of atheism began to lengths'* and to blacken — when I was mercifully arrested. The means of my escape employ our next attention* 254 CAUSE ANJ) CURE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER XLVII. MEANS OF RESCUE— FALSE STATEMENTS. I HAD not been brought to embrace infidelity by perusing the writings of unbelievers. I had nevei read a volume of their productions. I knew that some of these authors were renowned for their liter ature, and distinguished for their talents. I felt etrengthened in my creed by the recollection that many of the great and intellectual believed as I did. I might have asked myself the question, If I am an infidel without assistance, what shall I be when aided by the arguments of all those books? I was led, casually, to read a book whose author I knew stood at the head of the infidel army. The man with whom I boarded bought at auction Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary, and cast it into his library. I read it, and some months after, not knowing but I might have been mistaken in my first impression, I read the work again. When I state different impressions made on me by this and other productions, in different months and years, I cannot be accurate as to date or order. J cannot vouch for time or priority, only that such itnd such influences were made on my mind by such and such arguments. I did not renounce infidelity at once. The struggle, occupied many months. I opened the volume already named, and read the remarks of the author on a verse where he quotes Solomon as speaking of wine sparkling in the glass. This he avowed could not have been written by Sol- THE AUTHOR'S RiESCUE. 265 omon, for there was no glass, he said, in Solomon's day. My blood ran somewhat cold on reading this ; but T had then read some history. I knew that Archimedes was said to burn the Roman fleet with burning-glasses, which no one thinks of disputing ; and we have no more account of glass in the days of Archimedes, than we have in the days of Solomon. I knew that Voltaire knew this, and it was not through ignorance that he penned his assertions. I knew that the author knew that ten thousands of boys and ploughmen would read who would know nothing of the facts, and of course the statement of the ]")ictionary would appear to them plain and con- clusive. I was aware that if I had known nothing of ancient history, this false position would have appeared to me an incontrovertible argument. How strikingly were my impressions of the unfairness of this author afterwards confirmed, by finding that the words quoted by him, "sa oouleur brille dans le verre" — "it giv- eth its color in the cup," Proverbs 23 : 31 — stand in the common French Bible, " sa couleur dans la coupe ;" and that the word which he will have to be glass, isj in the original Hebrew D15, kis, " a common cup, such as is used for drinking out of at meals," with- out the slightest implication that it was glass. But I was compelled to feel, when standing in the infidel ranks, " We should not blind the uninformed . We surely should support our .side by sound fact, and not by half-way lies. But thi.s, perhaps, is merely a weak page of the author ; I will read on and notice his masterly positions, and his unanswerable objections against the Bible." 256 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER XLVIII. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. I AT once opened the Philosopliical Dictionary again, and my eye rested on an article concerning Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guard, to whom Joseph was sold in Egypt. The author informed the reader that this captain was called a eunuch. He then added his witticisms concerning eunuchs, and the wife of this man whom he called such. This was the amount of his assault. As I closed the book, my feel- ings were not easily described. I knew that eunuchs were employed in king's palaces for so many centu- ries, as managers, directors, superintendents, etc., that it would be strange if the two words eunuch and officer, had not become in those days synonymous, so as to mean nearly the same thing, or so, at least, as to be used interchangeably. I knew that Hebrew schol- ars agreed among themselves in calling the words alike so far, that they were in ancient days used indis- criminately. The author of the Dictionary did not inform the reader of this, although his information extended to all such things. To the minds of the teii thousand times ten thousand untaught readers, I knew that the language of the learned author would appear to hold up the page of Moses to deserved ridicule ; but I had reason to exclaim, " Our leaders should use fair argument, founded on truth and not quibble, and that quibble on falsehood. Surely we have actual THE AUTHOfi'S RESCU.!. 2J7 objections to offer against the Bible ; why should we use lies, or trust in them? But surely these two articles were written at an unguarded hour, or an some unthinking moment of levity. It cannot be thai the grey-headed philosopher made use of wilful perversion, or false painting continually. If he did, I am in bad company. I must see further into this matter. I must read again. I read again, and what was my surprise to find every article of thi^ description ! I read on and on, and there was a seeming objection to the Scriptures, but to the unlearned only. That which was painful was, that these objections were mostly built upon a statement really false j and if a half-read youth could see its fallacy, then the learned writer could of course He must have known its falsity at the time of writ- ing. I then continued to read on until I passed through the book ; and, in the entire volume, there was not a solitary article which was not a kind of ridicule, which proved nothing for our side ; or a lit- tle castle erected on historic falsehoods, but of such a shape, that those who had never read a tolerable course of history, could not tell but they were truths. I knew that those who had made no more than one year's close perusal of ancient liistory, could detect these lies of my champion, the leader of the army of sceptics, as easily as a skilful judge of money can tell a counterfeit dollar from one that is genuine ; yea, as readily as the naturalist can tell a goat from a sheep. The thought' passed through my mind, that a good cause never did need a stream of falsehood to sustain it. I must ask myself, why resort to lies as 258 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. weapons, if ours is the right side in this controversy ? It seemed strange, that in the Philosophical Diction- ary, a book written by one so able and so famous, there should not be one fair argument, one truth un- mixed with a lie. I could have felt more like retain- ing my infidelity, if there had been only a few posi- tions based on historic fact, a few fair, truthful objec- tions to the Bible amid the chapters of misrepresen- tation ; but I could not find one. I looked over it again, and I could not find one. I knew that a mask might be so painted, that a child of one year old might take it for a human visage, but one more grown could not be thus deluded ; and the maker of the mask, especially, would know that it was not a hu- man face. Thus I was forced to remember, that the paintings of the great Voltaire would seem reality to the infants in history, while those more advanced could not be so deceived. But the most painful of all to the heart of the deist is, that the philosopher himself was not deceived, but knew his productions would blind the ignorant alone. I found that I must read on. "Was it so in other authors, or in other writings of the same author ? I continued to read, and I must give the reader other examples of what I found, that it may not appear either prejudice, exag- geration, or passion, when I state again, that I could find no seeming argument in any book advocating my system of unbelief, which any boy who had made a moderate research in history, could not see was a mixture of hatred and untruth. THE AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 259 CHAPTER XLIX. SEEMING TRUTH, BUT ACTUAL FALSEHOOD. Afi"er reading the Philosophical Dictionary, the inquiry presented itself, " May not something more able be found in other productions of this author, whose fame has reached around the earth ? May he not have reserved his strongest weapons for other vol- umes and other times ?" I opened another book and read. "What was my surprise to find there the same spirit, the same manner, and the same texture of plausible falsehood and expert ridicule. I might pre- sent the reader with volumes of instances, but it is not expedient here. It is, however, necessary that a proper number of fair examples should be presented, to show what is meant by a mixture of untruth and irony. It is a matter of perfect indifference from what page these examples are taken, or from what author. I shall continue for a time to notice items from the author already before us ; and I shall take such articles as come first to my recollection. I read from the pen of this prince of philosophers, the following declaration : " Men saw Isaiah walking stark naked, in Jerusalem, in order to show that the king of Assyria would bring a crowd of captives out of Egypt and Ethiopia, who would not have any tiling to cover their nakedness. Is it possible that a man could walk stark naked through Jerusalem with- out being punished by the civil power ?" 2G0 CAUSE ASD CURE OF INFIDELITY. "What impression must this make on one who had opened the book in search of support in his system of infidelity ? I had read the Bible and heard it read often, through necessity, when I was young. I knew that many who read this would think it true, and make their inferences without further examination; but I knew it false, and I knew that the author must have known its untruth. He knew that the man with- out arms was and is called naked, in a military sense Armed troops, and naked troops, are terms in common use. Those who are not only despoiled of arms, but destitute of robes and upper garments, as slaves com- monly are, were called naked. No one means by this, stark nakedness, except those who choose so to un- derstand ; and those who thus choose, have something in their hearts which so actuates them. I began to feel as though I was not to look for much support from those who had received Europe's applause. I did think it strange, that men of so great talent could not offer some argument of weight in their cause, and having truth for its basis. I read again, in another place, " How could God promise them that immense tract of land, the coun- try between the Euphrates and the river of Egypt, which the Jews never possessed ?" I was under the necessity of making the folkw- ing remarks : "All that prevents this being argument is, that the Jews did possess it. Joshua did not con- quer it, but David did. If others should choose to swallow lies without investigation, and build their whole creed upon them, it cannot make the same course safe for me. The objections of the greatest THE AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 261 man on earth must have a portion, at least, of truth in theii composition, or I cannot receive them." I read again, " How could God give them that little spot of Palestine for ever and ever, from which they have been driven so long a time since ?" I knevF that the author of this question must have known that God had told the Israelites over and again, that if they disoheyed him, they should be driven away and scattered over all the earth. I knew that all who had read the Bible, had seen these promises were made conditionally ; and I thought that my companions in unbelief ought to have honesty enough to confess that which they knew, even if it did favor the Bible. I read again, "Among the Jews, a man might marry his sister." All I could say to this was, " Among the Jews, a man was forbidden to marry his sister." All the reason why my unbelief was not strengthened by this assertion was, that I felt there was some difference between a falsehood and the truth. I knew that if an instance could be produced where a Jew, contrary to their law, had married his sister, it would prove that this marriage was allowed among them, in the same way that a case of murder in America proves that murder is allowed with us. I began to feel startled for my creed and for my relig- ious views, hut I did not yet renounce them. I was an infidel still. The heart of man in these cases receives error readily, and relinquishes it slowly and relucj;antly. I continued to read, " It is said in the book of Joshua, that the Jews were circumcised in the wil- 262 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. derness.'- All the difference between this and fact is, that it is said in the book of Joshua, that the Jews were not circumcised in the wilderness. It is true, (hat upon this false assertion and ethers like it, a very ingenious infidel argument is based; but what influence was that to have upon one who had read ? I read over the foundation to that very plausible in- ference once more. " It is said in the book of Joshua, that the Jews were circumcised in the wilderness." The following was the language of my feelings: " This would support the argument attempted against the Old Testament, only the opposite is asserted in the book of Joshua. Are these the kind of assertions which so many ten thousands are believing implicitly and repeating triumphantly, and upon which they build their entire belief? Out of the millions who applaud, and who oast away the Bible, do none of them pause and investigate ?" I began to see that things said against that book were certainly popular. I began to have some little discovery of the fact that able arguments in favor of inspiration were not read, or if read, not noticed or remembered, while such things as I have quoted were loved and applauded at once. I did not, however, know the reason of this : I saw something of the fact, but did not at that time suspect man's fa'] en nature of giving him more love for darkness thar for light THE AflHOR-S RESCUE. 263 CHAPTER L. SEEMING TRUTH, BUT ACTUAL FALSEHOOD, I WOULD not continue to place before the reader the cases of falsehood after falsehood, and perversion after perversion, were it not that it is scarcely credi- ble to those who have never examined, that nations should have been turned away from Christianity by volumes of unmingled untruth. In order to make the impression of this fact as perfect as the naked truth deserves — the fact, that there is no one truthful statement from which an important argument is drawn, in any volume of Voltaire I have ever read, but every article is either partly or totally made up of falsehood — I must continue the presentation of instances longer, and until there is danger of these items becoming wearisome ; then I shall turn to other authors of the same belief. I read a page where the learned author concluded that the Jews were anthropophagi, cannibals, eaters of human flesh. The first argument which seemed to bo presented in favor of this opinion was, that there had been cannibals in other parts of the world. This did not seem to me altogether conclusive. I read on until I -came to the most commanding proof given by the philosopher, that the Jews did indeed eat human flesh. This he gave by telling us that Ezekiel promised them the flesh of horses, and of captains, and of mighty men ; and if they were prom- 264 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. ised the flesh, no douht it was that they might eat it, etc. I knew that this might be read and be- lieved by myriads who never would take the trouble to read the prophet referred to — by thousands who would rejoice in it without consulting the Bible ; but as for myself, I had read it when a boy. I knew that the call and the invitation by the mouth of Ezekiel, was to the birds of the air and carnivorous animals of the forest. They were told that they might eat the flesh of horses, and the flesh of their riders ! I felt that if the prophet were ordered to declare the approach of a bloody battle, and in order to impress all hearers with the amount of the threatened devas- tation, was directed to call upon ravenous beasts and birds to come and fill themselves, it was a low kind of lying to tell those who never read, that the call was to men to come and fill themselves. I did not think it any more excusable because there were mill- ions who were reading and joyfully adopting all such statements, without ever reading the prophets, or a sentence penned by any one in their favor. Still, this was the kind, and the only kind of reasoning written by any one, as far as I could discover, who had received admiration and applause be}''ond measure. I thought that if I could find nothing stronger among reputed giants, I should be under the necessity of reviewing my system, and noticing once more the objections which I myself had fabricated against holy writ, lest they should resemble in some respects those which I was reading in the works of my infidel brethren. THE AUTHOa'S RESCUfi. 265 CHAPTER LI. SEEMING TRUTH, BUT ACTUAL FALSEHOOD. About this time, when passing from place to place, it was no uncommon night's occurrence to meet a circle around the tavern fire, and tefore the evening passed to hear remarks on Christianity. I listened, and the objections were all of the same class of those I had been reading, or weaker. It is strange that I should have remained an unbeliever ; but as yet, I was only sufficiently shaken to cause me to read, inquire, and listen. I observed that those who hissed at the Bible were very impatient, if any one on the opposite side crossed them in argument. Even when talking with each other, their eyes flashed, and the countenance assumed an expression singularly vindictive. Others, again, chose irony for their weapon, and laughed aloud where others were not always able to 'discover any thing indubitably jocular. But that which gave me most pain, was that which I met so frequently, and which occurred ahnost hourly, from day to day. I saw those who assumed the lordly look, as soon as the subject was mentioned. They put on the consequential air of high authority, and with the tone of emphatic decision they pronounced others more than idiots, while at the time it was evident that they did not know Alex- ander the Great from Alexander the coppersmith. It was true of the most positive and the most over- SiOG CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDSLITV. bearing in this controversy, that they were unac- quainted with all ancient history, and would not know Peter the apostle from Peter the hermit, had you seriously tested the matter by particular exam- ination. I was not surprised that men should be un- informed. That this was so with most of our raca was no new discovery. Being ignorant myself to my own consciousness, I was not disposed to judge harshly of a man merely because he did not possess know- ledge. I must have included myself in the same condemnation, had I spoken severely of the unin- formed ; but that those who had never read a hun- dred volumes "of any thing, should so confidently and so repeatedly sneer at the learned, and the grey- headed, and the meek, who had been toiling in a fifty years' research, began to make me suspect that men hated Christianity with a spontaneous and a special dislike. I did not hear the ploughman decid- ing, with oaths, sarcasm, and vehemence, in matters of navigation, wherein he was totally ignorant. I did not hear the apprentice-boy pronouncing all who did not IkjM his theory of astronomy deluded or hyp- ocritical. I doubted whether in any thing, religion excepted, men would so generally decide so quickly and so haughtily, while they were uninformed. After the most common order of objections against the Bible began to grow somewhat old and worn, a new class of jeers came into much-admired fashion: I will give an example from the multitude. In different parts of the world where fuel is scarce, there have been those of the poorest class who wore THE AUTHOR'S RESCUE 267 lu the habit of making a fire from dried manure and trash. This sun-dried manure did not only make a fire, but by such a fire their bread was often baked. In order to apprize the Israelites of the poverty and wretchedness to which they were certainly to be reduced, Ezekiel was ordered to bake his bread with such fuel and eat it in their sight. This was perhaps all in vision, but this does not matter, nor alter the case, nor change the point we have in view. The learned of France and of America pretended to un- derstand it, that the prophet was told to spread fresh manure on his bread and eat it. They wrote and so asserted it, again and again, for the perusal and the exultation of those who never would read the page of prophecy. They multiplied their joyous jests and their untiring witticisms on this favorite point, talk- ing of the prophet's breakfast, of his sweetmeats, etc. How much this pleasing and refined irony would have influenced me as I read it, I am unable to say ; but unfortunately for my coadjutors, being the son of an old, praying man, who had compelled me to hear the book he loved read twice every day, I knew that all the merriment and all the jeering was founded on a lie, and I do not remember that I ever laughed in the midst of our hilarity. I had built what seemed to me walls between me and Christianity. I had my jstrong objections, as I thought them, such as will be mentioned after a time ; but those arguments which would have been powerful, only that they started in lies naked to all who had read the Bible thrice with attention, gave me more pain than pleasure. But this example of a fondness for filthy jesting 268 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. is not the whole truth. It does not reach the summit of entire fact. A kind of indecent jesting, still more indelicate, became much practised and more loved They would take some case of crime recorded in 4he Bible, some case of adultery or of fornication, and name it and repeat it, and place it in different attitudes with unusual delight. This was one more kind of warfare which did not fix my principles of infidelity. It rather rendered me more uneasy if I saw it settle the creed of others, for I knew well enough that the Bible nowhere enjoined adultery, praised incest, or recommended fornication. I remem- bered, that if the book had given us the history of faultless men, we should have pronounced it lies, because the volume says there are none such, and because it would have contradicted our observation of the human race. I also recollected, that if the history of individuals is given to us, we should prefer that the truth, and the whole truth, should be hon- estly narrated, rather than faults concealed and vir- tues extolled. When I heard my companions of the hotel circle seize upon some case of unchastity, recorded to the dis- grace of a patriarch perhaps, and besmear it all over with the pollutions of a filthy imagination, and love to dwell upon it, and speak as though this was what the writers wished to teach or what the Scriptures recommended, I could not but see that there was an unfairness there, which proved that the alleged filthi. ness existed in the heart of the jester, and not on the page of scripture history, indeed, sometimes when I witnessed the self-esteem of my brethren in infi- IHE AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 269 delity, their dictatorial puffing, united with ignorance visible to the unlearned, I could not help making secret and severe remarks upon them, for it was my day of haughty wickedness. I have said to myself in language yet more ungentle, that of which tho following is the import : " Self-admiring worm, an expert man could frame in half an hour a more in- genious lie against any narrative that ever was writ- ten, than any which you are capable of repeating after the last one you heard talk." Strange to tell, these discoveries, these facts, and even these feelings, had no further influence upon me than to strengthen my resolve to read further, and examine my old doubts with more accuracy. 210 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER LII. MEANS OF RESCUE— VOLNET'S RUINS. After I had gone througli all the writings of the renowned Voltaire, I could not find one argument or position which was unmixed truth. Since then I have seen letters of certain Jews to Voltaire. I could not discover in them any evidence of a solitary misrepresentation. This proves to me that those who feel right do not wilfully, and of course do not often mistake. These Israelites, in writing to this great man, tell him that he took his thoughts from Bolinghroke, Morgan, Tindal, etc., who in their turn had copied them from others. It really did seem to me as though it was not on account of their weight or superior excellence, that we need suspect any one of originality who copies them. My disappointment was great, and my astonishment indescrihahle, to find writings which had revolutionized provinces or per- haps nations in their religious creed, destitute of truth and full of falsehood. Pure, lovely truth, art thou discarded? Is falsehood, black, ungainly falsehood, loved in place of truth ? Only in matters of relig- ion. The carnal mind loves darkness there, but in other things men prefer light. I resolved to read the works of others of the re- nowned and of the talented; for perhaps it was in these hooks that I might find united in one lovely circle, strength, mildness, truth, candor, and philan- THE ALTHOR'S RESCUE. 271 Hiropy. I took hold of Volney's Ruin of Empires, most commonly and familiarly called Volney's Ruins, I had heard this work extolled long and loud, and I read it attentively. The style was excellent and the manner captivating ; but that which was more pleas- ing still, was this — the profusion of bitter misstate- ment, that constant stream of malignant untruth in which I had been wading, was wanting here. The most of his text was truth, real truth. The impres- sion made on my mind by this volume, I shall not be able to make the reader fairly comprehend without his passing through some previous course of expla- nation. I think this can be made plain by relating the substance of an interview which took place between a minister of the gospel and an infidel. They held a long conversation on a point which cannot be over- looked or misunderstood, if one would understand Volney or his doc/.rines. This dialogue between the deist and the preacher cannot be given verbally, but only substantially. I can give very correctly the sentiment expressed on that occasion, but accuracy of words I cannot attempt, nor is it necessary. The substance of their conversation was as follows : Deist. Another, and the strongest reason why I can never receive the religion you profess is, that it speaks of visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. I have too much respect for my Creator to believe he will ever do this in any case. Preacher. Perhaps you did not notice that the verse does not speak of visiting the punishment due 272 CAUSE AND CUllE OF INFIDELIIY. to the father upon the children. It is the iniquity of the fathers which God speaks of visiting upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. Deist. 1 do not believe that he would visit any thing of the father's upon the child, in any way or in any shape. I have a higher esteem for my Maker than this would amount to. I do not helievc it, and I will not believe it. Preacher. You do believe it, for you see it al' around you every day and every hour, and you con- sent to it, and you approve of it. Deist. I do not understand you, sir. Preacher. You may understand if you will, fo. nothing is plainer in matter of fact. I knew a man, Mr. S , who had one son, his only child. This man would not work. He would not humble him- self to honest labor. He seemed to have an invinci- ble aversion to bodily toil. Here his iniquity began, for the Grod of the Bible had ordered him to work. He must have food and raiment, and he frequented horseraces, and frequently made a considerable sum by betting. He would attend card-parties, and fre- quently filled his pockets from the losses of those less skilful than himself. In this way I knew him to spend nearly twenty years. His little son was very lively and healthful, and promisingly intellectual. As tliia active little boy grew up, he did not work any more than his father did, and no one expected he would. He loved best to go with his father from place to place, and from village to village. He mingled in different kinds of company, saw new faces continually, and all childish embarrassments wore away. He be- THE AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 213 came skilful in riding fleet horses and in different games. His father's character became his. No one expected it to be otherwise. It was easier to teach him a love for loose amusements than for toil. The tavern-house revel was more attractive for the youth of sixteen, than was the corn-field employment. But mark you, the father was not happy. Indolence opens the door to other vices. He lost the respect of hia fellow-citizens. He loved intoxicating drinks; he became otherwise abandoned, and was miserable. His iniquity was punished much here in this life. But his son was unhappy too. His father's charac- ter descended to him. God has declared in the hear- ing of all parents, that it is not his plan to prevent it. He became a practiser of the same sins which his father had loved. He became unhappy in proportion to his guilt. The iniquity of the father descended to the son. He followed the same course of idleness and profligacy as closely as his features followed those of his father in expression. If this, sir, had been the only case where the character and the iniquity of the father had become the son's over again, it would over- turn your attempt to be wiser or more amiable than Omnipotence. But you know of cases all around you, and they are all over the earth, where children take after their fathers in their vices, and of course Buffer as their fathers suffered, in proportion to their guilt. We will consider this case, when I have placed before you one of an opposite character. Mr. T ', whom you knew, was not poor ; he possessed a valu* able tract of land, and did not refuse to plough it 12* 274 CAUSE ANjD cure OF INFIDEiillY. He earned his bread from day to day, although the sweat dropped from his brow while obtaining it. He had no time to go to the horserace, for he would not neglect his harvest. You know how comfortable and quiet was all around him. He had the confidence of his relatives and friends. He seemed to be very hap- py. His sons all took after him. "When not in the school-house, he had them in the field. They now work as hard as he did, and begin to be as much re- spected. The father's character and his peace have descended to them. You know very well that the father could have taught them idleness as easily as he taught them industry, and God would not have prevented it. There are singular cases of exception to be seen in the process of every common plan, but they prove nothing. God has promised seed-time and harvest, and we have it. A few unseasonable weeks, or a failure of harvest, does not disprove the assertion that we have harvest. "Winter is a cold season, and a warm day in January does not disprove that truth. Summer is a warm season, and a cold day in June does not falsify the declaration. That father could have taught his sons habits of mirth and revelry, as easily as he taught them months of toil, and God would not have interfered. By refusing to interpose coercively, he visits the evils of the fathers upon their offspring. If that man who was punished at W n Circuit court for stealing — ^his father waa notoriously dishonest, and all his neighbors knew it— if that man had spoken as follows to the jury and to the judge, what would have been their reply? "Fel- low-citizens, I cannot see how I am to blame for THE AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 275 stealing, for my father did so before me. I always loved it, and I always practised it. My father alwaya preferred taking his neighbor's property to work, and I have only copied him. I cannot be to blame, for I Was reared to dishonesty." You know that the judge would not tell the jury to acquit because he had shown his father to be also guilty, and to be the cause of his son's unloveliness. The murderer never is excused, even if his father practised it in his sight, so as to make him a mur- derer in heart from his earliest day. The iniquitous character of the father going down to the son and acting itself out there again, does not become more lovely because it was a garment worn before. Neither God nor man excuses it. Grod has warned parents in the hearing of heaven, earth, and hell, that this descent will take place, and the features of the soul be "vis- ited" as certainly as the features of the body. I knew the father who, in habits of filthy debauch, had ac- quired disease which descended to his children, and they were born with feeble, unsound frames, incapa- ble of meeting the hardships of life and suffering with every morning's sun. Why do you not pretend to have too high an opinion of your Creator to believe that diseases are "visited" to the third and fourth generation? Go and tell physicians that you do not believe them, when they assert that many diseases are hereditary, because you have a more exalted view of your Maker than to suppose he wouJd make things thus. Poor, innocent child, groaning there on ac- count of the father's licentious and detestable indul- gences. You might speak very pathetically and very 276 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELIir. zealously, and at last not be either as wise or as be- nevolent as the Creator, who has made things thus. But to go back again to moral disease, to that iniquity which does descend: when you know there are ten thousand cases all around you, where the son is more inclined to copy his father's vicious habits than to fol- low virtue ; when you know that all who fall into evil practices suffer for their character more or less ; and this visiting of the iniquity upon the children God has never altered since he said he would not; why be trying to be wise, and to look l&fty, and to ■disbelieve that which you have seen t very day of your life when you mingled with society ? The deist confessed that he had known idle fa- thers rear idle children, and that men dislike them for their worthlessness. He confessed that he had known evil-tempered, jealous, or envious parents have families that felt as they did, and were considered unlovely and hateful, in proportion to the amount of malignity which they had copied of their parents. He confessed that it did not excuse the criminal in any court of justice on earth, to say that the murder, or the adultery, or whatever the crime might be, was copied of father or mother, who had acted it out before them. Finally, he confessed that if a father had succeeded in train- ■ ing a son in vice and hateful crime, so that this black- ness of soul and monstrous deformity caused the suf- fering of its possessor for fifty years in this life, and then brought him to perish on a gibbet, perhaps it might forbid his joy in the next existence. On the same principle that if I may not take many thousand THE AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 277 pounds, unfairly, I may not take a single ponny; on this principle, if a certain amount of unlovelinesa acquired in a given way, may detract from the hap- piness, or cause the suffering of any one for half a century, it may do so much longer, for aught we know. Now, reader, in the next chapter we have a cer- tain application of this truth to make, which will prevent our misunderstanding each other when wfl look together on the ruins of empires. ■278 CAUSE AND CUKE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER LIII. THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. There was a man living on the shore of lake Eria who taught his children that adultery might offend Crod, but fornication was not amiss in any way. His was a false religion. His children believed it and suffered for it. His sons looked with entire indiffer- ence upon the ruin of their sisters. They would bar- gain for the prostitution of any female relative, ii money were to be realized by it. All the family were brought down near the level of brutes by such false tenets, for other parts of their character soon corre- sponded, and they suffered from their father's teach- ing, and that greatly, whether we think it proper or not that they should have been left thus far under his influence. Reader, the Bible shows that you can teach your children a false religion, and succeed equally well in bringing them to adopt it, if you try. We know this is true from observation, because not one in the whole nation or tribe to which the man mentioned belonged, ever found any difficulty in training his family to the sin he practised. There was a man at the foot of an Asiatic moun- tain, who taught his children that God was some- times pleased with the sacrifice of a child, nay, that often nothing short of this would answer. In pro- cess of time his daughter had a little son, whom she loved, but she strangled him. The mother suffered, THE AUTHOR'S RESCLE 279 and the child suffered. The iniquity belonging to the false tenets of this false religion descended, and was felt to the third and fourth generation. The Bible says that we may teach our families tenets equally iniquitous, if we try. Observation teaches the same, because a hundred families living around this man taught as he did, and none failed to rear their chil- dren in their own likeness. The God of heaven says, reader, that if we teach our children thus, he will let it take its course ; and we believe he will, for he has in every nation since the world was made, visited the fathers' teaching in this way to distant generations. Application. On reading Volney's Ruins, I dis- covered two main pillars supporting the whole super- structure. 1. The first great pillar which he shapes out is, that a man is born a Christian, or he is born a Mo- hamedan, or he is born a Pagan. Now this is almost true : with some slight varia- tion it is what the Bible taught several thousand years before the author of Ruins of Empires was born. I knew while I was reading, that if a child was born of Mohamedan parents, and these parents trained the child in religion, it would be a sincere follower of that prophet. I knew that the same was true of Paganism. I knew that a child born of Chris- tian parents might be a sincere Christian, and was more ready to become such in proportion to his faith* ful training But it is true that he is not as ready to become a sincere Christian as he is a sincere Pagan, or Mohamedan, because men prefer darkness to light," they have not that natural relish for Christianity 280 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. which they have for false religions. Mr. Volney's plainest inference I did not see so clearly. The amount of his inference or deduction seemed to be, that if any number of parents, at any time or place, might teach their families any amount oi false relig* ion, therefore there was no true religion. A large portion of his page was true. It was urging the same doctrine which Moses said Jehovah spoke aloud to the people from the top of Sinai, long ago. A small part of his text only seemed false. Some declare that the most dangerous falsehoods on earth are those pre- sented in company with a large measure of truth. They say that poison by itself might be rejected, be- cause of its bitter taste ; but if presented in a large quantity of pleasant and healthful food, it may be taken. In this way a production having one part falsehood and nine parts truth, or correct principle, is very captivating. The truth quiets apprehension, and the lie is the salt to an appetite for darkness rather than light. Even where we do not love truth, we look around for a portion of it to keep the con- science calm. In short, I found the French philoso- pher urging protractedly that which I had read, or heard read from the Scriptures from infancy — like fathers, like children. I do not know what influence his work would have had on me if I had not from boyhood known this to be one of the Bible's principal doctrines, and one of God's prominent threatenings. 1 am inclined to believe, judging while observing ethers, that this book would have drawn me after its author with great attraction. As it was, it informed me of nothing new, and it gave me no prop for my THE AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 281 infidelity. I knew that if God existed, he must do right ; that as sure as he existed he always had de- clined, or refused to interfere in any way, to prevent falsehood descending to the children of false teachers, and that this was what the Bible said ke had de. dared he would do. I confessed to myself that I did not see any thing more strange in his saying he would do a thing, than in his actually doing it. I knew that, although sitting on a throne of omnipotence, he did not interpose, and he did permit the lies of the fathers to visit the children to the third and fourth generation, and there would have heen no more harm in his saying that he would thus act, than in acting it. Having always been familiar with the fact that I could teach my child a false creed and an evil practice, if I chose, I was not so well prepared to adopt the rest as logical inference and fair dedaotion, that one creed was as true as another. I thought that if the Maker of the world had said in his denunciatory threatenings, " If you do set fire to your house and your granaries, in your wanton madness, it shall not end with yourself, for your chil- dren shall suffer the gnawings of hunger to as many generations as are under your roof," it would have been only saying that which is fact ; and I could not say that therefore one practice was as good as anoth- er, or that among all the diflferent opinions concerning parental conduct, one was as correct as another. I thought that if the Creator had said, " If yoti do paint your soul black, the minds of your children as far down as your influence reaches, shall be stained with the same falsehood," it would only have beou 282 CAUSE AND CURE OP INFIDELITY. telling us what has been and still is; but I could not be certain that this proves that no one knows truth from falsehood, or correct principle from error. 2. The following is the amount of the other great principle which supported his system, namely, that all religions, as well as Christianity, present their prophets, their sacred books, their martyrs, and their miracles; and who is to decide between their claims? or in other words, we are not expected to decide between various and plausible claims, zealously and tumultuously attested. Does Grod expect every one to be a critical judge? I thought there was something very forcible in this. I was ready to exclaim, I have some support Acre. I was only determined to examine it closely from this recollection — that a principle seemingly directed towards the mark of truth, sometimes varies from it the further it is pursued. Just so the man who aimed his rifle against the mark with perfect accuracy, and then varied it only the tenth part of an inch, could not perceive the difference unless he looked along the gun ; but the further the false track for the ball was pursued, the wider was its variation from the proper course. I concluded to extend the essence of this second principle or pillar of our au- thor's to other things, and notice the result. I did so, and I should still have been pleased, and should etill have floated along smilingly on the current oi the author's thoughts, had it not been for a few facts which I could neither persuade, nor cut, nor drag out of my way. These stubborn, ungainly, and anti-sopo- rific facts I must reserve for the next chapter. THE AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 283 CHAPTER LIV. JIEANS OF RESCUE—COUNTERFEITS. A MAN once handed cae a piece of silver coin ; it .ooked very bright and beautiful. One with whom I was about to exchange it, suspected its purity. This called for the judgment of others. Some pro- nounced it genuine ; others called it counterfeit. At length it was taken to a man in whose judgment all confided, and found to be impure. There was a school-teacher needed at a certain point, and one offered whose qualifications seemed to be sufficient. He was employed, and afterwards it became evident that his literary pretensions were all unfoundedi and the community suffered because they were not better judges in the first instance. Some had pronounced him incompetent at once, but others he deceived. A poor man became possessed of a large bank- note. It looked well in his eye, but it was spurious. His children felt the loss which he sustained by be- ing overreached. When he thought or when he con- versed on the subject, he remembered or he heard the following sentiments, namely, that things most ■ precious are most counterfeited ; and that of course our interest in every thing is threatened in propor- tion to its value, from art or deception. Secondly, in every case under the sun we decide for ourselves, and if we judge incorrectly we take the consequences. There was a man who appeared to be one of S84 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. worth and of modesty. He solicited the hand ot a young female in marriage. Some told her that they believed him to be destitute of principle, and that his seeming virtues were all counterfeits. Her parents judged differently, and she thought differently. She hecamt; his, and lost her property, and her health, and her peace, to the last item of each. To see her sink, blighted all the earthly enjoyments of her parents. The following are the plain facts which I have mentioned as standing in my way : 1. We are acquainted with nothing valuable which has not its counterfeits. "We might offer a reward to any one who would point us to an ex- ception. "We know that all the virtues, and all the correct sentiments or doctrines, together with every excellent trait of character or lovely grace, may be counterfeited ; therefore piety, or true religion, can- not be made a solitary exception, for it is made up of correct principles, lovely doctrines, and lovely graces or traits of character. If any religion should actually point us to a life which would not close, and to pleas, ures without a defect, I should call it more valuable than much wealth. 2. The counterfeit often appears, to the incompe- tent, brighter and more captivating than the genuine original. S. We are called upon to struggle for qualifica- tions to decide, and to aim after superior judgment, in proportion as our interest is threatened, and in accordance with the value of the thing presented, No one can become skilled in any branch of useful knowledge, without thought, industry, and research. THE AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 286 The acquisition of that which is most valuahle, gen- erally calls for most toil. The same benevolence which gave iron for our use, planned that we Bhould dig it from the hills. The same kindness which formed the grains for our table, determined that we should rako the fields in the sun, before our bodies were thus nourished. To judge ably of things exceedingly valuahle is worth uncommon industry. 4. Men never complain of any thing being liable to counterfeit pretensions, religion excepted ; and they never complain of the necessity of their exer- tions to qualify themselves for judging between truth and falsehood in any case hut in that of religious truth. 5. Men never say that because it is difficult to tell false gold or silver from the genuine coin, there- fore they will cast all away; though thousands and millions are poor judges in such cases, from want oi attention. 6. Men do not say that there is no such thing as honor, or probity, or modesty, or benevolence, or sen- sibility, because such things may be skilfully coun- terfeited, so as to call for judgment and experience to detect the falsehood. 7. We might make out a very pathetic case, of thousands of the youthful and inexperienced who had little opportunity to become judicious, and were liable to imposition every hour, and in connection with every coin and every character which could be named. We might say that we did not believe that our Creator would leave these unskilful crea- tures of his, to be liable to the loss of every earthly 286 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. blessing every hour, and even to the loss of that lift' which his own kind hand had bestowed. We might declaim with marvellous wisdom, and apparent sensi- bility, yet it would not alter the case in any respect : ho has made the millions around us as we see thera exposed, and calls to them for action. Application. After observing that Grod had made every thing which I had ever noticed, liable to false pretensions, and had called upon me to learn, and to improve, and to act wisely in all life's pursuits, I was afraid he had done so in one more instance ; and if exertion were necessary to obtain knowledge by which earthly blessings might be acquired or re- tained, then it might be necessary where things of still greater value were at stake. Perhaps the Cre- ator might be so consistent, that a train of uniform- ity could be seen to run through all his works. These and similar facts, with their collateral truths and unavoidable deductions, caused me to lay down the volume of the Ruins of Empires, un- quieted and unsupported. Indeed, I felt much more restless when, upon looking down into his notes at the bottom of his page for historic references, I there found again, falsehoods unalloyed with other material, and these untruths of the most notorious kind and of the most malignant texture. I was in- deed discouraged, as these facts thus influenced me ; end, since the controversy has been settled in my mind, I have made certain discoveries, and here js the proper place for their introduction. THE AQTHOIl'S RESCUE. 287 CHAPTER LV. COUNTERFEITS CONTINUED. I ASKED a man on the bank of the Illinois river, a swearing, Sabbath-hating man from New England, something concerning his observance of Bible pre- cepts. He raised his broad face with a satisfied grin, and asked me which Bible. He stated that the Mor- mons had a Bible, and that being a poor, illiterate man, he was unable to decide which was the word of God. The exultation within him seemed to say, " I have at last found out how to cast away that thirty years of preaching which I was compelled to hear in the land of the pilgrims." The following are some of the facts which I was able to see plainly before me at that time. 1. This man is very capable, when it is necessary to distinguish between a valuable horse and one that is inferior. He can tell a dollar of real silver from one of copper, only plated with silver, as speedily as many a chemist. 2. He is a better judge of a good or a bad bargain than many of the most able arithmeticians of the ration. It would be easier to cheat many a profound mathematician than to overreach him. He has la- bored to qualify himself in many things, and has succeeded so far that his knowledge in these matters surpasses that of millions of his race. 3. He has not striven to acquaint himself with the 268 CAUSE A.SD CURE OF INFIDELITY. Bible ; for, although reared in a land of Bibles and of schools, he is not able to tell the most common incidents on the holy page. Of tlie^ chronology of scriptural events, he is perfectly ignorant He does not know whether Abraham or Cyrus of Persia lived first. You might tell him that Pilate and Cesar wore Israelites, and he would know no better. 4. If he had put forth one half of the vigorous research after Bible knowledge, which he has ex- pended after skill in gainful pursuits, he would not have been ignorant; yet his ignorance is now his excuse why he is unable to judge concerning reve- lation. If we were to receive a kind letter from some powerful earthly monarch, some splendid king, mak- ing us many very rich oiFers, and proposing to us honor and wealth, telling the terms over and over, that we might not mistake, it would be expected of us that we should inform ourselves perfectly as to who brought it, its contents, its authenticity, etc. If we were to have it a full year, and never read it at all, it would be deemed strange indeed. 5. Most unbelievers, lilve this man, do not know one fortieth part of the great King's letter, nor one fortieth part of the evidence of its genuineness, nor one fortieth part of its beauties, its grandeur, its pro- posals, promises, or threatenings ; while one half th", time they waste in wickedness, or at least in non- sense and frivolity, would be enough to furnish tliern with that knowledge the want of which aids in theii ruin. Finally, the decisive characteristics and ilistiii- THE AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 289 guishing marks between the true and false religions in the world, are more numerous and more noto- rious than are the marks between counterfeit coin and pure gold or silver ; yet men become judges in the last case, and remain uninformed in the other. If a young man were to hold up an article formed of brass, hut made to resemble gold, and were to ex- claim, " I can see but little difference between this and gold ; I do not know that there is any : this seems as bright, and as smooth, and As beautiful as any I have seen;" his friends would tell him that there was a difference between pure and pretended gold — ^that they were to be distinguished by the sight, and by the ring, and by trial or chemical tests. They would tell him that unless he would inform himself in this matter, he must suffer ; but that by noting two or three signs scrupulously, he might decide without danger. A FEW SiaNS IN RELIGION. 1. True miracles are usually performed in the presence of enemies and haters of the religion about to be introduced, while false miracles are only pretended to be done in the company of the friends of the sys- tem upheld. 2. True miracles are performed year after year so as to call the attention of all, and before the eyes of vast crowds of opposers ; while the opposite of this belongs to pretension. S. True miracles reach all the diseases to which the human frame is liable, not touching those only which frequently disappear of themselves and suddenly, and Cauie and Cure. T ') 290 CAUSE AND CUKE OF INFIDELlII. also extend to every variety of influence upon all visi- ble matter ; while counterfeit marvels command alone those things which often, with a spontaneous impulse, transpire of themselves. The same difference exists that there is between commanding fire to devour fifty d3n, or the sun to stand still, or the man born blind to see at once, or the lame one instantly to leap, and the art of charming the headache into ease, the agi- tated nerves into tranquillity, or commanding the mternal and vigible disorder to disappear. 4. A system of truth sent from heaven always I'orbids what man is much inclined to love ; forbids sensual indulgence, fraud, wickedness, injustice, im- purity, revenge, hatred, feasting, revelry, and all that man by nature is prone to reach after. The Koran allows of many wives, of revenge, and unending or exterminating war. The pagan creeds enjoin or per- mit gluttony, intoxication, and sensuality of every kind, to any possible extent. 5. God's revelation orders the doing of that which men do not love. A wicked man would rather go through days of painful toil than to hold prayer in his own house, or to spend one hour in heart devo- tion. It requires a change of soul, and promises a paradise of holiness. The false volumes claiming to be from heaven, ask for no regeneration or holiness of heart, and promise a futurity of carnal indulgence and satiated appetites. 6. A true prophet is not applauded by a majority of the wicked, or by the mass of the depraved. He is generally disliked by those furthest from God, and spoken evil of by those who sink deepest in sin. Ho THE AUTHOK'S RESCUE. 291 is often not only reviled, but put to death if the lawa permit ; but the false prophet is neither stoned nor sawn asunder. He is often extolled greatly by the most dissolute, and is at least tolerated or praised to some extent by the leaders in depravity or the offioeia of sin. Amidst the many marks or evident distinctions betv^een true and false religion, we have not room here to notice more than one, and this may only be named and not dwelt upon at large. This last one is the test. In detecting false gold or marking pure, the chemical test deceives no one. The trial of the pure religion never fails those who test it by actual experiment. No other evidence is wanting; but it is hard to prevail on those who hate it to make this trial, to obey its precepts. 298 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. CHAPTER LVl. FURTHER INQUIRY". After laying down the book called Volney's Ruins, more doubtful of the strength of my own army than I had ever been, I asked after Paine's Age of Reason, having heard of its making much noise and stir in the world. I read it through and laid it aside, and I must not detain the reader by giving a protracted history of its contents. The reader will scarcely believe me, or he will esteem me as having deserted the infidel ranks before I read it, if I tell him fully the impression it made on me. If the reader has pursued a course of ancient history, or will go and do it, or will look into the re- marks of Bishop Watson in his volume called "An Apology," he will be able to understand me when I tell him that the writings of Paine drove me further from his belief than I had ever been. I certainly ex- pected to find something excellent in a book which had caused tens of thousands to desert their faith, and millions to clap their hands. I read it, and I could not say that I found in it either suavity oi pliilanthropy, dignity or sublimity, honesty or truth, but the opposite of them all — the opposite, although the writer was a man of talents; what then must his subject be, or the side which he failed to sustain ? I was ready to exclaim, " If this moves the multi- tude, then what may not move them ? If this THE AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 293 pleases them, then they must surely love the side they advocate. If they are thus easily pleased, then it is \yith that for which they surely have a natural relish." I determined that I would read some on the oppo site side, and that I would also at the same time take a more thinking review of my own objections to the religion of Christ. I inquired after a Bible which might have Christian notes in it. An old lady lent me hers, which I had often seen her poring over hours at a time. From her oast of mind I knew that in the work there must be thought, or she could not be thus engaged. It was Scott's Family Bible. In the year 1818 some copies had found their way to the forests of Tennessee. I read the Bible with Scott's notes. My objec- tions to the holy book, which were based upon my ignorance, disappeared as soon as I was informed. Before I describe this influence upon my mind, I must notice the sophism which was used to keep me from reading it, and which is still urged by many of Satan's able assistants, in many parts of the "world, to keep others from reading commentaries on the Bible. " Read for yourself," they exclaim ; "judge for yourself. Do not permit others to impose their belief upon you." The danger of this sophistry is that which ren- ders every other position which has peril in it danger- ous. It is half truth and half falsehood. The truth- ful, and therefore imposing part, is, that we never should copy the thoughts of others with neutral ser- vilHy, so as to let others judge for us. The erroneous 294 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. part consists in this, that it seems to teach as though we could not avail ourselves of the labors of others without adopting their judgment. The truth is, we may avail ourselves of their toils without following their peculiar notions. We may make profitable use of their researches without adopting their ideas in the room of our own. We can use forty years' toil ol another, and judge for ourselves all the time. Thia is done in every thing. When the little boy, or an unlettered Indian savage, asks his teacher concerning the component parts of gunpowder, their number and character, he can explain the whole to him in ten minutes. If he were to tell him, " There is the pow- der ; take it, look for yourself, examine for yourself, do not let others think for you ;" it might require years of investigation to discover that which a few minutes' explanation could teach ; and facts would so corroborate the statement, that it might be seen at once to be true. A commentator may remind us of a point of history which elucidates a chapter of holy writ, which history we may have known before, but never thought of applying; or if not known before, we may look into the proper volume and be informed of its correctness ; while, although so important, we never should have thought of its use, had it not been for the labors of our author. Just so a man may show and explain to us a valuable piece of machine- ry, and as soon as he points out the main parts and explains their use, we see it at once, but we are judg- ing for ourselves all the time ; although, were it not for his instructions, it would take us a long time to n^ake each discovery. A commentator tells of one or THE AUTHOR'S RESCUB. 8'J5 fwo verses in different parts of the Bible which ex- plain fully the one we are reading. "We look at these and find it so, and feel that it is perfectly satisfactory, judging for ourselves ; although we might not have known of their existence or remembered seeing them in years of reading, had it not been for his assistance. 1 read an author on philosophy or chemistry, and ho tells me of many things which instruct me, and I rejoice that his labors preceded mine ; but if he ad- vances theories which I cannot credit, I do not receive them. A commentator may give me an explanation of a passage which does not seem satisfactory, and I cast it aside ; but when he refers to a certain verse of prophecy as describing a political event some cen- turies before it took place, I look at the verse, consult history, and compare dates, and rejoice that others toiled before me. I am in this way brought to exam- ine that with close attention which I otherwise might have passed over without seeing for half a lifetime. It does seem to be an ohject of moment with some invisible evil one, to prevent inquirers reading the Scriptures with notes, if we may judge from the uni- formity with which unconverted men avoid it with- out any proper cause. Much of the information which they need, and which they might have acquired in the morning of life, they have neglected to seek, and the time is much spent, and too far past to recover. Unless they receive it now by the aid of others, they never will know the fourth part of it. I never myself felt inclined to obey the counsel •which said, " Do not read the opinions of others in matters of Scripture," for I never intended to take 296 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. the views of others in any thing, unless they appeared to me as correct, and then I was resolved not to be persuaded away or frightened from them. The de- sire to gratify the pride of originality should never keep us from being instructed, when that favor offers itself. After I had read Scott's Family Bible, I felt like reading it again. It is true that I was half driven from infidelity by the infidel authors. To find no aid, and no truth or loveliness where I had looked for it, inclined me to listen with more calmness and impar- tiality to the other side. Tn Scott I found no controversy tinctured with smutty, indecent filth. I found no self-complacent ridicule, no coxcomical jeerings, no truth twisted, or mixed up with nine tenths of actual untruth. The difference between the two styles and the two modes is only known to those who have felt the sudden transition from one to the other. The unbelieving writers seemed unwilling to allow that the slightest lovely or commendable trait belonged to Moses, or Samuel, or Paul, or John, or any other good man. They seemed all more than ready to credit at once, and on any authority, any thing of such men. They seemed to have an appetite for attributing to them things the most enormous and inexpressibly hateful. .1 had heard, when very young, that this indicated the condition of heart belonging to the possessor, and invariably proved something to be amiss in his own bosom ; but I did not see this so distinctly, and feel so sensibly that it was true, until I witnessed the way Scott wrote of his adversaries in debate and the haters of the system he loved. Although thoy might THE AUTHOR'S HESCUE. 297 be infidels, it appeared to me that he would have avoided telling a lie about them. 1 could not detect a wilful falsehood — shall I say, not one in a page ? — no, not one in the whole work ; for my life I could not. This made a strange impression upon me after the company I had been keeping. It seemed from the way he wrote, as though the salvation of infidels in heaven, or their preparation for it, would give him more exultation than it would to have the world believe a thousand slanders about them. This differ- ence of temper between the advocates and the oppos- ers of Christianity, made me more willing to read on ; but it was what I afterwards discovered which settled me as on the rock of truth. "While reading Scott, 1 found that some passages which had appeared dark- ness itself to me, were indeed full of instruction, of beauty, and of glory. I discovered that my infi- delity had been based upon my ignorance, encircled with the love of sin, while its practice had beclouded and deformed my soul. Different parts of the sacred Scriptures which had appeared to me contradictory, or without meaning, were inoontrovertibly shown to harmonize, and full of light to strengthen and sup- port each other. Let not the reader suppose that I could say un- doubtingly, " I believe this book to be the Book of on it. The hum of the grove and the gush of the waterfall were calculated to communicate happiness through the ear In short, the indications of a Cre- ator's kindness were in every direction, and in num- ber really countless. I thought that nothing was more rational than to fix upon it as a certain truth, that the Maker of all things is good. To settle down upon this doctrine was pleasing enough, except that certain contingent facts intruded themselves. They were calculated to produce some degree of uneasiness, especially if followed out in all their hearings. The first fact and the inquiries it excited were as follows ; The Christians speak as loudly of the kindness, the daily kindness, and the benevolence of God as we do. Have they learned it of us, or have we learned of them ; or how is it that we agree ? Second fact. Although we think that our reason has discovered the goodness and the purity of God so plainly, yet pagans who had no guide but reason, have always worshipped him as revengeful and pol- luted. The ancient enlightened nations, the Greeks, and then the Romans,- with so much learning, sung about the intrigues and adulteries, the frauds and the cruelties of their deities, although they had no Bible to interrupt their reason. Out of all the nations that do exist, or ever did exist without our Scriptures might not reason have taught some one of them the goodness and the purity of God? Might not their pages be able to give a character of God, something nearly as correct as we can hear from the most un- learned with us? In the following unadorned Jact, there was something fitted to excite the fear thatth? Cftuse kod Cure. j j 366 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELITY. army of deists had received their knowledge, (jither directly or circuitously, from the book which they dis- owned. It is a fact, that were I to go to ten hundred thousand of the most learned Asiatics or other pagans now alive, one after another, and hear them speak of G-od, I should not receive a character half as correct, according to the creed of deists, as that which I might obtain from the first ten ploughmen I met, provided there was a Bible and a meeting-house in the laad where they lived. I knew that reason could see through the mysteries of gunpowder in the course of a minute after it is explained ; but it was long before the discovery was made. I knew that reason assents to the first principles of astronomy, as soon as they are presented ; nothing appears plainer : but reason waa long in finding out these truths. Thus I could not tell but that, although, as soon as the Bible informs those who hate it in Christian lands of certain truths about God, nothing appears plainer to them, they may think they have always known it, while the most en- ergetic minds where the Bible is not do not learn so fast. They certainly never have been known to find- out the excellence and purity of Omnipotence, unas- sisted. Although somewhat suspicious that this doc- trine of the unbounded goodness, and wisdom, and power, and purity of God, had first been taught by one book alone, knowing it to be true I concluded to rest upon it as so, and to look around for other facts, or for rational anil plain inferences. Doctrines inquired after. The following ques> tions and facts commingled would pass in succession through my mind. THE AUTHOfi S RESCUE. 387 Wo agree that God is good, and wise, and kind, ake a tender parent. Having oast away the Scrip, tures, we agree, that God has not told us certainly whether we live again after death or not. He has not told us, if we do live, how long it is to be — seventy years again, or longer ? I knew that reason could not decide these inquiries; because no three of my associates, the advocates of reason, out of all I could meet with, ever agreed on these particulars. Accord- ing to our belief, he has not told us, if we live here- after, whether it is to be in connection with a body or not. I should like to know. We are not told whether we are to be judged or not for .what we do to-day. It would be well to know this. Shall we live always ? Will our judgment be severe ? Will there be sickness in the next state, or is it all health ? Those who admire reason most do not know, for two of them do not believe alike. Reason has not taught ; of course it is an uncertain guide, or there is no in- formation given us. I thought the color of the rain- bow a token of the Creator's kindness ; hut I would rather it had been black, than not to have known whether I am to live after I am buried. I wish he had told me. I thought that our Father made the color of the forest leaf green, because it fits the eye ; but I would agree it should be red always hereafter, if I could only find out whether or not I am to he judged for my conduct. Is my every-day conduct to be reviewed hereafter ? I wish our Father had told us It would not have been hard for him to have done this, or cost much time. Thus I was tossed from point to point of several sharp prominences. 388 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDELIXK. To say that reason was our heavenly lamp, and that her worshippers had never yet discovered theso things, or that they discovered differently, for they thought differently, was somewhat awkward. To say that 1 must act every minute, and yet it was not very im- portant for me to know whether or not I was ever to be tried for my actions, did not sound smoothly. To say that reason had taught us what our Creator hated most, was too hard, because the disciples of reason all differed fundamentally here also ; some thought one way and some another. To say that I need not Know what pleased or displeased him most, was still unharmonious. I began to doubt whether " the celes- tial lamp" of reason would show me objects more distinctly than the page of Matthew, TUS AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 389 CHAPTER LXIX THE LAST RESORT. If I sat down and inquired of reason soberly^ whether the great First Cause had made man as we now find him, or we are a fallen race, I found tlie pathway more than cloudy. If I said that man is a fallen creature, and did not come as he now is from the pure hand, I seemed to be running into the old Bible track. If I said that men were not wicked, that a majority of them were not depraved, it seemed to sound sweetly, and to harmonize with what all my companions said when together and while disputing on religious doctrines. But when deists talk else* where, when they speak, having forgotten all contro. versy, their testimony is not the same. I heard one of them speaking of a class of men opposed to him in politics. He pronounced them utterly destitute of principle. He declared them dishonest in every thing ; and when excited, would mingle curses with his expressions of contempt. When speaking of those who were called the pious, the devotedly pious, he was also severe. Their zeal he called either fanaticism ■3T hypocrisy, often both. "When dealing with his fel- low-men, he always took notes, bonds, etc., and was as certain to treat every one as though he was de- fective, as they are who believe in man's depravity. In short, I found the three following facts to exist in the world. 390 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDKLITT. 1. Those who denied the fall of man spoke as complainingly, when not discussing the doctrine, of the prevalence of slander, of avarice,_selfishness, etc, as did the disciples of the Bible. 2. They spoke from day to day of having discov- ered something censurable in those of whom they had thought hetter ; but it was not a matter of cor., tinuous occurrence for them to speak of surprise at having found one and another more honest, disinter- ested, and amiable than they were supposed to be. 3. The following question is answered hy the candid with entire agreement. Suppose you were to take a number of children and try to teach them all that is lovely and good ; again, take an equal number, and try to teach the.m all that is bad and unlovely : in which case would you most readily succeed ? In which are children the more apt scholars, in honor, honesty, self-denial, temperance, humility, etc., or in haughtiness, self-conceit, ignorance, sensuality, injus- tice, etc.? I believed that the man who would say " our race is not fallen into sin so as to make it easier for us to be taught vice than virtue," had been hand- ling sin himself, and that it did not appear unlovely to him. I helieved that those who admit the three facts stated above, might as well admit the fall of man. I believed that he who, after looking fairly around on his fellow-creatures, denied these three facts, had certainly fallen himself, if others had not. THE AUTHOB'S RESCUE. 391 , CHAPTER LXX. CONCLUDING SUMMARY. 1 HAD been told, and I could not dispute it, that God was a being of infinitudes. Christians and un- believers agreed that there was no boundary line belonging to his wisdom, his power, or the number of his days. They said that there was no possibility of numbering the animals or the worlds he had made ; that there was no limit to creation. And all the glasses through which the philosopher looked spoke the same language. If endless might be written on his works around us, I could not tell but that it might be his plan for our existence to be endless. I hoped it might be so, for annihilation always looked dark to me. At times it seemed as though it would be cruel, if, after maK- ing me taste the cup of existence, he should dash it from my lips. I should prefer never having been, te giving up my identity at death. I was ready to ex- claim, " My Maker might have told me how long I am to exist ;" but the Bible seemed to reply, " He has." If my feelings called out that a Being of infi- nite goodness might have offered me the glorious prize of unending happiness on some terms, the Bible seemed to reply, " He has." I knew that the soul which inhabits these bodies was in the habit of craving. It has been so made that it craves, and craves much happiness, hating any decay in its felicity. I thought that if in a shin- 392 CAUSE AND CURE OF INI'IDELIT r. ing country, where nothing cold or gloomy was ever to enter, and in a society of beings peaceful and beau- tiful, I should be offered joys which were never to diminish, it would indeed be a prize. what a prize ! This would resemble what it would take a God to offer, a God of benevolence. Who knows bat our God may have made us this offer ? The Bible seemed to say, " He has." I thought if any one man had this offer, he had good reason to leap for joy. Has this offer been extended to any one? The Bible seemed to answer, " To all." And are the terms easy? I knew that, if I listened to that book, the' answer was bare acceptance ; and I could not com- plain that it was added, " Nothing unjust or unclean must be taken into that abode." A collateral inquiry presented itself, which was this, "What does reason say concerning the offer,' if it is made, or if it ever should be intended. Can man reject, or forfeit it ; neglect or turn away from it ?" I looked around me ' upon facts which none could question. I saw that amidst the train of our mercies and enjoy tnents health is not the least, yet thousands are casting it from them utterly and for ever. 1 looked into a family — peace would sweeten all their joys ; yet how many oast it from them, and theii happiness expires. I could not look at any good thing between the earth and skies, which man might not trample on. And I did not know but in one more instance he might turn away from an offered favor, namely, the offer of heaven. If the Crpator does not depart from his usual method, he will not compel me ^o receive any favor THE AUTHOR'S RESCUE. 393 What if he should act eonsistently with every other feature of his work, and leave it possible for me to turn away from everlasting joys ? I found that wherever I turned, and in whatever direction I looked, common-sense, reason, and reflec- tion pronounced a solemn amen to every doctrine taught in that fearful and precious book. I found that all the truth to which reason ever assented had been first taught by revelation. After reading a book called " Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul ;" also " Bax- ter's Saints' Everlasting Rest ;" after wading through many mistakes concerning the way in which a soul was directed to turn to God, I came to certain con. elusions, like the following. Conclusion. If I am ordered to live peaceably with all men, hoping at last to reach the land of peace, it would not hurt me if I tried to ohey . I need not hlame the Bible if it prohibits all glut- tony, sensuality, and improper indulgence of appe- tite ; for greater energies of body and of soul are secured to those who listen and comply. I am not injured when I am told to compassion: ate the suflFering, because those who strive to relieve the afflicted are always made more happy. I need not grow angry at the page of inspiration, if all profanity is forbidden there ; for those who vio- late that precept, only have their dignity lessened in the eye of others, while they reap no profit and re- ceive no gain. If I am told that life is hrief and its termination hastening, that pleasures around us here are very 3S4 CAUSE AND CURE OF INFIDfiLlTI. transitory, and that afflictions will meet us, I need not complain, for it is certainly true. These admo- nitions do not delude me. There is no unkindness in the call, if I am invitecj to think of a habitation very bright, exceedingly beau- tiful, where death can never enter, and where tho tear-drop was never seen. If I am told to lift my eyes towards a world where want was never known ; 'where the song is always singing; and where the lovely, the splendid company may increase, but never will diminish, I am not unwise, if I ask, " How am I to get there ?" If I am told that those who desire this prize are directed to express their wishes for it to One who can hear the lowest whisper, I cannot say there is any great difficulty in such an undertaking. If I am told that this Hearer of requests once became man, and that all my ill deserts — I have done wrong so often, that I do not know how much of his frown I do merit — he bore in his own body on the tree, that I may escape suffering, I can never say the offer is not a kind one. If all are invited to apply, I am included in the number. I may conclude that I am sincere in my requests, if I am willing to begin a battle now with sin. I will try, and I will ask for help. For ever is a distant journey, and I will try. Boundless joys may be coveted. The struggle shall be commenced to-day, and I will seek for aid. There is a loveliness in doing right. " Lord, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am not worthy to be called thy son." BRIEF SKETCH. THE AUTHOR'S LIFE The author of this striking work, which has been blessed in bringing scores of infldels to Christ, and of which not far from 100,000 copies have been circulated, was eminent as an intel- ligent infidel physician, and then as an able minister of Clirist, He loved much, for he had much forgiven. He was born September 24, 1793, near Jonesborough, East Tennessee; and died at Quinoy, Illinois, October 17, 1844, aged 51. His parents were from Vi-ginia, his father an officer of the church, and his mother, who was of Scotch descent, eminently pious. In childhood and youth he was sedate and contemplative, his mind seeming to receive an impress from the lofty and ro- mantic scenery around the Nolachucky, near the banks of which he was reared. At twelve he thought himself converted, and soon entered Washington College, near his father's residence, at wliioh he graduated at sixteen, when he proceeded to DanvillS, Kentucky, where his elder brother was then settled in the min- istry, and entered on the study of medicine with the celebrated Dr. Ephraim McDowell. At nineteen, just as he was entering on the practice of medi- cine, he joined himself as surgeon to a Kentucky regiment then proceeding to Canada in the war with Great Britain, where he suffered every privation. In one march, in the severe cold "and deep snows of a wild Indian territory, exhausted by hunger and fatigue, he suffered himself to be left unobserved, and resolved there to lie down and die. But his friend and cousin, the brave 396 SKETCH OF THE AUTHOK'S i,IFE. Col. Allen, who afterwards fell at Tippecanoe, missed him, went back, roused hira from his deathlike slumher, took him on his powerful horse, and thus saved him for the work God had ap- pointed him to do. Returning from his northern campaign, he entered on the practice of medicine in Jonesborough; hut at the call of Generals Jackson and Goifee, he enlisted again as surgeon of a regiment for the South, and in the wilds of Alabama flooded with rain was seized by fever, reduced to the utmost extremity, but raised up, and at Mobile on the eve of an expected battle, received the news of peace. He returned to Jonesborough, resumed his profession,- at twenty- two married a daughter of David Deaderick, to whonj allusion is made in his work as a highly respected in&del mer- chant of Tennessee, and became eminent as a physician, hia practice extending into neighboring counties, and bringing him an income of some $3,000 a year, which he at length relin- quished that he might win souls to Christ in the ministry. In the pursuit of medical science, while infidelity swayed the higher circles, and the works of Volney, Voltaire, and Paine were in high repute, Dr. Nelson — like many who in early life obtained a false hope of their conversion — was led to believe that he had been self-deceived, and that all religion, and the Bible itself, waa a delusion. He became an honest unreflecting deist, in which scepticism he was but confirmed by his connection with the, army and his subsequent relations in life. The wonderful processes of his mind in giving up this infi- delity, by reluctantly detecting the dishonesty and unfairness of Voltaire and other infidel writers, and by a patient, intelligent examination of the whole subject in his own heart, in the lives and conduct of believers and unbelievers, in practical writings, and especially in the word of God, form perhaps the most inter- esting portion of his now celebrated work. It is hard for any reader to question his sincerity, the stern integrity, patience, and thoroughness of his investigation, or doubt that he was led by the Holy Spirit in the true and right way. At the age of twenty-five he joined the Presbyterian churoh, of which his father was an elder, deploring his long rejection of the Saviour he now delighted to honor, and resolving to reJfsen SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE _ 397 the time by the unreserved consecration of all his powers to him. At first his diffidence scarcely allowed him to lead others in prayer; hut his inventive mind, warm heart, and ceaseless energy found many means of usefulness, including the wide circulation of good books, while in his extensive medical practice. It is stated that a sermon he heard from the lamented Dr. Cornelius, who passed through Tennessee, fired his mind with the most enlarged missionary spirit, which expired only with his life. At about the age of thirty-three he gave himself publicly to the ministry of reconciliation, assisted for a time in editing a religious periodical, and was soon installed in Danville, Ken- tucky, where he had imbibed his infidelity, as successor of his worthy deceased brother, who had done so much for the church and college there. He soon proved that he had indeed been called to the work of the ministry. He became " a burning and a shining light," not only to his own congregation, but far and wide throughout the state, where the rich efiiisions of the Spirit abundantly attended his labors ; and it was those revivals which were the manifest precursors of the great revival of 1831, which extended throughout the land, and added to the churches more than one hundred thousand souls. He seemed to imbibe, in measure, the whole spirit of our Lord. In personal efforts foi the salvation of individuals, he labored like Harlan Page. In the pulpit, his tall, manly form and kindled eye, his frankness and generosity of spirit, the gushing 4o\e of "his heart for souls, his bold, free, original eloquence, his powerful appeals to the heart and conscience, his full and clear exhibition of Christ and his salvation, attracted and fixed the attention of his hearers. And his missionary spirit was large as the world. Especially was his attention directed to the moral wastes, and the training of pious young men, who were then brought into the church in »uch numbers, for the ministry and missionary work at home and abroad. It wa." this spirit that led him to plan and lay the foundation of Marion College in Missouri, for which he visited our Eastern cities, where his fervent appeals at once for money and for the salvation of his hearers, endeared him to tens of thousands. Unexpected events thwarting his expectations in Missouri, he 398 SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LJFE. transferred his efforts to forming a somewhat similar estsblizli- raent at Quincy, Illinois, freely to educate young men as minis- ters and missionaries. But in the midst of these exhausting efforts, in which he expended all his personal means, he was attacked with epilepsy or paralysis, which gradually unfitted hiia for lahor, and terminated his life at the age of 51. He wrote the Cause and Cure of Infidelity about 1836, in the first summer of his residence in Illinois, chiefly under the shade of four large oaks, drawing mainly frdm the resources of his own mind and memory. He also wrote another treatise en- titled "Wealth and Honor," breathing a missionary spirit as expansive as the ruins of the fall, summoning the whole energies of the church of God for the world's redemption, and showing that her wealth and her honor were in rescuing lost souls, and adding them as gems to the Redeemer's crown. He carried this work to the East for publication, but it is now supposed to bo irrecoverably lost. In his declining health, and often in severe suffering, he mourned mainly that he could not preach the gospel and labor to win sinners to Christ; but he murmured not against the divine will. When the hour of his departure drew nigh, he called to him his wife and so many of his eleven children as were near, saying, " My Master calls. I am going home. Kiss me, my children, and take your last farewell, for I shall soon be in a state of insensibility, and shall not know you." He expressed his wishes in various respects, and then said, " It is well," ane" slumbered till the resurrection-morn. His body rests in the cemetery at Woodland, near Quincy, II linois, where a neat monument bears the following inscription . " Rev. David Nelson, M. D., author of the Cause and Cure of Infidelity, born in East Tennessee, September 24, 1793 — 8 surgeon in the United States army — a distinguished physician in his native state — a devoted minister of Christ in Danville, Kentucky — a messenger of grace to multitudes — a founder of institutions of learning. Died October 17, 1844, aged 51. " Erected by friends in New York." SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE 399 Dr. Nelson -well knew the power of sacred musio, and Kbinetimes composed hymns which were sung on the oceaiiioTis on v/hich he preached, two of which are annexed. REST IN HEAVEN Sleep not, the Saviour cries, On this low, earthly ground ; Press on — above the skies, There shall your rest be found. Chokue — Where the pilgrim reposes, the fields are all green, There day never closes, nor clouds intervene : the forms that are there, such as eye hath not seen; the songs they sing there, vrith hosannas between, While the river of life liov^s freely. On earth cold storms arise. And clouds obscure the sun ; For rest the pilgrim sighs — But there his work is done. — Chokos. My soul, be not dismayed, But gird thee for the race : I '11 ask his hourly aid To reach that happy place. — CiiOBUS. A FAIRER LAND. 'T was told me in life's early day, That pleasure's stream did ilow Gently beside life's peaceful way — I have not found itso. I thought there grew on earthly ground Some buds without decay ; But not a single flower I 've found That does not fade away. I wish to see a fairer land — I 've heard of one on high. Where every tear by one kird hand Is wiped from every eye. 'T is said the King of that bright place Still welcomes travellers there : O come, then, let us seek his grace- Unseen, be hear.s our prayer.