To Infidelity and Back | Page 9

he was an infidel, he thought he
had a good opportunity to give a thrust at the Bible.
"Excuse me," said the lawyer, "I take it from your appearance that you
are a preacher."
"Yes, sir," said the preacher.
"Well, now," said the lawyer, "don't you find a great many
contradictions and difficulties you cannot understand in the Bible?"
"Yes, sir," replied the preacher.
"How, then," said the lawyer, "can you continue to believe in it?"

"Why," said the preacher, "do you see what I am doing with the bones
of this fish? I lay them aside and enjoy the good of the fish. So with the
Bible. I lay aside the things I cannot understand, and feast upon the rich
spiritual food it contains, willing to wait until all mysteries shall be
removed hereafter."
If the finite mind could understand everything contained in the Bible, it
would become worthless as a revelation, for the finite mind could
produce it. But since it reveals the infinite mind, we must expect it to
contain things that the finite mind cannot understand. We can
understand the evidence that it is from God and for our good, and it is
reasonable that we should accept its great truths by faith, although we
may not now be able to see how all the truths it reveals are consistent
with each other. "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear
God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man."
As has often been said, no one can do better than to live the pure, clean,
benevolent life that Jesus inculcated and incarnated. If you imitate him
in goodness and good deeds, you are pursuing the best possible course,
even if the Bible is not true. If, on the other hand, the Bible is true, and
you do not live for Christ, you are doomed for ever and ever.
Having been delivered from the bondage of rationalism, I found my
way back to Christ with comparative ease. If experience and facts are
our ultimate guides, then we must trust the testimony of history. With
the help of the _Bi-Millennial Telescope on the opposite page_, and
limitless similar testimony, we can trace the existence of the Bible clear
to the days of the Apostles. None ever had better means of knowing the
facts they bore witness to than the Apostles, and none ever gave
stronger proof that they sincerely told the truth as they knew it. The
Gospels being genuine and reliable, the life and words and miracles of
Jesus they narrate, give sufficient proof of the divinity of Christ to
satisfy every reasonable demand of the intellect. This is especially true
concerning the resurrection of Christ, on which the proof of
Christianity hinges. "He showed himself alive after his passion by
many infallible proofs." And if he arose from the dead, he was
demonstrated by it to be the Son of God. And if he is the Son of God,

then the Bible is the Word of God, for he has endorsed it all. Thus there
were restored to me Christ, God and his Word of truth. The thing that
robbed me of these was rationalism, but it had been proven false and
therefore was ruled out of court.
Unitarians used to tell me that Christ was the Son of God, but we all are
sons of God. I now saw that Christ was the Son of God in the special
and peculiar sense in which he claimed, or he was a fool. When he was
on trial he was asked upon oath whether he was the Son of God or not,
and he answered "Yes" when it cost his life to do so. If he meant that he
was the son of God in the same sense in which we are, all he would
have had to do was to explain and he could have saved his life.
The proof that Christianity is from God as revealed in its effect upon
the life of individuals, communities and nations, is so apparent and has
been pointed out so often that I will give it but a passing notice. "If any
man willeth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is
of God, or whether I speak from myself," was Christ's challenge, and
millions have verified it in their own religious experience. Nearly all
the voluntary educational and philanthropic institutions of the world are
supported by Christian people, and the nations of the earth are
prosperous, enlightened and influential in the exact proportion as their
people are intelligent and consecrated followers of the lowly Nazarene.
It was thus that I found my way back to Christ as my Lord and Saviour,
and I never before fully appreciated the