Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

from time immencra

[ocr errors]

mese world have fänny vid kad a long previled among ! X: Luma ga mens would have incured me that false eyemem." The same gestion being put to another, he replied, I believe the tie to be the word of God in an off the pure system of religion which coming. We had a system of religion before; but look bow dark and back a system that was compared with the bright system of salvation revealed in the word of God: Here we learn that we are sinners; and that God gave Jeans Christ to die for us; and by that goodness salvation is given to us. Now what but the wisdom of God could have produced such a system as this presented to us in the word of God? And this doctrine leads to purity. There was a third reply to this question, and it was a rather singular one; but it was a native idea: 'When I look at myself, I find I have got hinges all over my body. I have hinges to my legs, hinges to my jaws, hinges to my feet. If I want to take hold of anything, there are hinges to my hands to do it with. If my heart thinks, and I want to speak, I have got hinges to my jaws. If I want to walk, I have hinges to my feet.

Now here,'

AN ARTLESS ARGUMENT.

23

continued he, 'is wisdom, in adapting my body to the various functions it has to discharge. And I find that the wisdom which made the Bible exactly fits with the wisdom which has made my body; consequently I believe the Bible to be the word of God.' Another replied, 'I believe it to be the word of God on account of the prophecies which it contains, and the fulfilment of them.""

AN ARTLESS ARGUMENT.

NAIMBANNA, a black prince, arrived in England from the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, in 1791. The gentleman to whose care he was intrusted, took great pains to convince him that the Bible was the word of God; and he received it as such, with great reverence and simplicity. Do we ask what it was that satisfied him on this subject? Let us listen to his artless words: "When I found," said he, "all good men minding the Bible, and calling it the Word of God, and all bad men disregarding it, I then was sure that the Bible must be what good men called it, the Word of God."

24

THOMAS PAINE SILENCED.

THOMAS PAINE SILENCED.

A GENTLEMAN of New York, who personally knew Thomas Paine, and was repeatedly in his company during the later years of his life, gave the following account of a conversation with him respecting the Bible:

“One evening I found Paine haranguing a company of his disciples on the great mischief done to mankind by the introduction of the Bible and Christianity. When he paused, I said, 'Mr. Paine, you have been in Scotland. You know there is not a more rigid set of people in the world than they are in their attachment to the Bible. It is their school-book. Their churches are full of Bibles. When a young man leaves his father's house, his mother always, in packing his chest, puts a Bible on the top of his clothes.' He said it was true. I continued: 'You have been in Spain, where the people are destitute of the Bible; and there you can hire a man for a dollar to murder his neighbour, who never gave him any offence.' He assented. 'You have seen the manufacturing districts in England, where not one man in fifty can read; and you have been in Ireland, where the majority never saw a Bible. Now, you know it is

SIR WILLIAM JONES.

25

an historical fact, that in one county in England or Ireland there are many more capital convictions in six months than there are in the whole population of Scotland in twelve. Besides, there is not this day one Scotchman in the almshouse, state-prison, bridewell, or penitentiary of New York. Now, then, if the Bible were as bad a book as you represent it to be, those who use it would be the worst members of society: but the contrary is the fact; for our prisons, alms-houses, and penitentiaries are filled with men and women, whose ignorance or unbelief prevents them from reading the Bible.' It was now near ten o'clock at night. Paine answered not a word, but, taking a candle from the table, walked upstairs, leaving his friends and myself staring at one another.

SIR WILLIAM JONES.

SIR WILLIAM JONES, whose interesting writings on Oriental subjects elucidated many obscure points in Scripture history, was a general scholar, and embellished and adorned every subject that passed under his elegant pen. On the blank leaf of his Bible the following finely conceived de

16

WHERE DID HE GET THAT LAW?

WHERE DID HE GET THAT LAW?

In a city in one of the Northern States of America lived a lawyer of great eminence. He was notoriously profane. He had a negro boy, at whom his neighbours used to hear him swear with awful violence. One day this gentleman met an elder of the Presbyterian Church, who was also a lawyer, and said to him, "I wish, sir, to examine into the truth of the Christian religion. What books would you advise me to read on the evidences of Christianity?

The elder, surprised at the inquiry, replied, "That is a question, sir, which you ought to have settled long ago. You ought not to have put off a subject so important to this late period of life."

"It is too late," said the inquirer. "I never knew much about it, but I always supposed that Christianity was rejected by the great majority of learned men. I intend, however, now to examine the subject thoroughly myself. I have upon me, as my physician says, a mortal disease, under which I may live a year and a half or two years, but not probably longer. What books, sir, would you advise me to read?"

"The Bible," said the elder.

(538)

B

« VorigeDoorgaan »