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account for it as you may the fact stands and does not admit o f a moment’s honest denial or question. (2) But the saving power o f the Bible is not limited to the lives o f individuals. It has saving power in national life. Try to obscure the fact as you may, all that is best in America, Germany, and England, is due to this Book, and in our own day nations have been lifted out o f savagery into Christian civilization by this Book. If this Book had been heeded the awful cata clysm o f war that is devastating Germany, France and England today would have been avoided. The undermining o f faith in this Book is the real cause o f the present mur derous war with all its immeasurable calam ities and horrors. 2. But the Bible has not only a saving power,- that no other book possesses, it has also a comforting power that no other book possesses. What book as this can stay thé human heart in sickness and 1 adversity, and comfort it in the bereave ment that takes from us the light o f our eyes and the joy o f our homes. There is no heart wound for which the Bible has not a balsam. I hold in my hand a New Testament that is very precious to me because it was the gift o f my mother to my grandmother, my father’s mother, which was the stay o f her life in her clos ing years. I think it was given to my mother at the time o f my grandfather’s death. On the title page o f this Bible is written in my mother’s hand, “ Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.” This is true, but thank God something better is true, and that is, earth has no sorrows that the Bible cannot heal even in the life that now is. 3. Furthermore, the Bible has a joy-giv ing power no other book possesses. There is no joy so great, so exceeding, so over flowing, and so enduring as those know who study and discover the truth o f this Book. This is a fact that any o f you can discover by observation, and better yet, that all o f you can know if you will by blessed experience. There are many who have
of the philosophy o f the art, and the genius o f the Greeks. Let him tell, he continued, “o f the wondrous metaphysics, myths, and religions o f India and Egypt. Let him make his congregation conversant with the philosophies of the world, with the great thinkers, the great poets, the great artists, the great inventprs, the captains of industry, and the soldiers o f progress.” This suggested scheme o f Col. Ingersol’s was no new scheme, it has been tried over and over again, and I challenge any man who has eyes and is honest to say that the pulpits that have tried it have the power to elevate, save and gladden, that the pul pits have that preach the supernatural relig ion o f the old Bible. The man who thus talks is either talking about something o f which he has made no careful and candid study, or else he is deliberately shutting his eyes to very evident facts. In either case he is playing the hypocrite in posing as a teacher. In what directions does the Bible show a power that no other book or books pos sess? É First o f all, in its saving power. Does it need any proof that thé Bible has a sav ing power that no other book has, and that all other books together do not possess? ' (fl) The Bible has a unique saving power in individual lives . . What book or books can match the Bible’s record o f men and women saved from sin and vice in all their forms, saved from drunkenness, drugs, lust, greed, ruffianism, barbarism, mean ness, selfishness, by the power o f this Book? Worthless sots transformed into honest citizens and fathers; degraded pros titutes transformed into holy women of God ; savages who drank blood from human skulls transformed into noble lovers o f friends and fobs; murderers transformed into ministering angels. Single verses o f this book have more saving power than all other books put together. John 3:16 has saved more men from sin to holiness, from degradation to honor, from bondage to the Devil to sonship o f God, than all books outside o f the Bible. Try and
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