nhood with
infancy. No infidels try Christianity upon its own merits. If they were
candid men they would separate Christianity from all foreign and
irrelative circumstances, and test its evidences seriously, as the
magnitude of the question deserves. Apply the same unbelief to the
common and ancient records of history and you will at once get the
credit of being rash and foolish. The scoffs and sarcasms and
sophistries of infidels are not from a love of truth. Whatever the cause
or causes may be, one thing is certain, and that is, that they do not
understand Christianity itself, nor the nature and magnitude of its
evidences. They condemn that which they never gave themselves the
trouble to investigate.

Whoever investigates the religion of Jesus Christ will find that the
character of its founder is far superior to any other character, and his
apostles far superior to any other fishermen. To believe that his
religion is of simple human origin is like believing that a first-class
ship of war is the invention of a child. "The majesty of Christ and the
divinity of his religion appears in nothing more than this, that in
proportion to our acquaintance with the Scriptures of the New Testament
does the light of truth shine upon the mind." The seeming successes of
infidelity, and the multitude of apostates scattered over our country,
makes us naturally more anxious to warn the rising generation against
the errors of those who would mislead them. But there is nothing in
these fearful signs of the times to shake our faith or excite our
fears, because the faithful Bible student finds the condition of our
world just such as the Scriptures have foretold. All the surroundings
that characterize the conduct of infidels; their expertness in ridicule;
their extreme folly and resoluteness; their licentiousness and anxiety
for change in laws as well as society; the snares laid out by them to
catch the unsteadfast, and their vain professions to free the world from
slavery, while they themselves are in bondage to corruption, are drawn
by the divine pencil of prophecy with so much exactness that "he who
runs may read." By examining the word of God you will find that the
_Free-thinkers_ of our country, the _Illuminati_ of Germany, Darwin,
Strauss, Huxley, Tyndal, Renan, and the man of our own land who is most
noted in our midst for oratorical accomplishments without logic,
argument or truthfulness of statements touching the Christian religion,