pretentions could be
more preposterous. Methinks that those stalwart farmers of New England,
who on a wintry Sabbath, sat and eagerly devoured for an hour the strong
meat of such theological giants as Jonathan Edwards, and Emmons and
Bellamy and Dwight, would laugh to scorn the ridiculous assumption of
the present day congregations, many of whom have fed on little else
during the week but novels and newspapers. This revolutionary spirit is
expert in pulling down; it is a sorry bungler at rebuilding. Nothing is
too sacred for its assaults. The iconoclasts who belong to the most
extreme and destructive school of "higher criticism" have reduced a
large portion of God's revealed word utterly to tatters. King David has
been exiled from the Psalter; but no "sweet singers" have yet turned up
who could have composed those matchless minstrelsies. Paul is denied the
authorship of the Epistle to the Romans; but the mighty mind has not
been discovered which produced what Coleridge called the "profoundest
book in existence." The Scripture miracles are discarded, but
Christianity, which is the greatest miracle of all, is not accounted
for. The "new theology" which has well nigh banished the supernatural
from the Bible pays an homage to the principle of "evolution," which is
due only to the Almighty Creator of the universe. Spurgeon has wittily
said that if we are not the product of God's creating hand, but are only
the advanced descendants of the ape, then we ought to conduct our
devotions accordingly, and address our daily petitions "not to our
Father which is in Heaven, but to our father which is up a tree."

I do not belong to that class which is irreverently styled "old fogies,"
for I hold that genuine conservatism consists in healthful and regular
progress; and it has been my privilege to take an active part in a great
many reformatory movements; yet I am more warmly hospitable to a truth
which has stood the test of time and of trial. There are many things in
this world that are improved by age. Friendship is one of them, and I
have found that it takes a great many new friends to make an old one.
My Bible is all the dearer to me, not only because it has pillowed the
dying heads of my father and my mother, but because it has been the sure
guide of a hundred generations of Christians before them. When the
boastful innovators offer me a new system of belief (which is really a
congeries of unbeliefs) I say to them: "the old is better