THE KING’S BUSINESS
351
Clement, put out a new edition. But Sixtus’ infallible” anathamais still standing. P rof . S chemerhorn , of Harvard, is cred ited with the following: “Life is not confined to the animal and plant world. The whole universe is alive, and all that lives .is conscious. Animals are; conscious and gifted with the power of thought and- imagination. Plants are con scious, and Ruskin and Goethe agree they are capable of exercising strategy and fore thought. Even Darwin said plants were sen sitive, and hence he must have believed they were conscious.” We do not like the phrase but “tommy- rot ’ suits this professorial announcement. If such rattle-brain professors would con fine their unfounded pronouncements to philosophy and science—but they are oc cupying chairs of theology and biblical crit icism and doping the minds and consciences of the unlearned and unstable with sim ilar nonsense in their departments. 'O n a Saturday a few years ago I could not fix upon either a text or a subject for the following morning. While at tea, how ever, a verse from Psalm 144 came forcibly to my mind, and opened up to me most wonderfully. I hastened to my study and made notes, lest the. thoughts given me should escape. On the Sunday morning I preached from the verse. At the close of the service a lady approached me and prof fering her hand said: "I am a stranger, sir, having only been in the town three days. Yesterday I was in great trouble, and went to my room and opened my Bible upon the very Psalm from which you took your text this morning. I knelt and read the Psalm, and when I came to the last verse I pleaded, with God respecting the terrible anxiety that was burdening my heart. Then I said: ‘Oh, Lord, if thou wilt permit me to hear a sermon in the morning from the last.verse of this Psalm, I will believe that thou wilt undertake for me.’ I hardly knew what I said. Oh, how good God is!” By inquiry, I found that the impression came at the very moment the lady was praying'— •S'. S. T.
I n a city as much in touch with the mod ern world as Cork, Ireland, travelers find amazing tokens of the pettiest debasements of faith, obviously encouraged by the Ro man church. From an issue of The Cork Examiner no long time since an American clergyman culled a collection of acknowl edgments such as the following: “ Thanks giving for favor granted through the Little Flower of Jesus” ; “ Grateful thanksgiving to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for favor re ceived through the intercession of Holy Nellie” ; “ Thanksgiving for the recovery of health through the Little Flower of Jesus and the Divine Infant of Prague on prom ise of publication.” It is too big a strain on tolerance and charity to grant that the Roman priests of Cork can honestly think there is no nearer way for their parishioners to come to the compassionate Jesus than through “ Holy Nellie,” whoever she may be in the cyclo pedia of saints. Or that they believe the shortest path from Cork to heaven to be by way of Prague. One would think that Irish nationalism would forbid this latter sort of prayer .—Pacific Presbyterian. I t is told of one o f our early American evangelists that in the course of an address he made the broad statement that all ifir fidels are fools, and that he could prove it in any given case in ten minutes. A man in the audience asked if he might interrupt, and remarked that he must take exception to the statement, since he was himself an infidel, and thought - he was no fool. The preacher looked him over rather curiously and said, “ So you are an infidel? Will you tell me just how much of an infidel?” ‘ Certainly, sir; I deny that there is any thing at all in religion.” “ Nothing at all in religion? Are you willing to go on record as saying that?” “ Go on record?” the infidel replied. “Why, I have been writ ing and • lecturing against religion for these twenty years.” . The avangelist glanced at his watch and said, “Well, I said I could prove an infidel a fool in ten minutes, and I have seven minutes left. I’ll leave it to the
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online