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Show 320 WESTERN WILDS. Grace the Archbishop. It means that you are to know for your-selves, and not for or by another. It means that you are to receive a witness from God himself, and know of a surety whether this doctrine is true. It is not for the rich alone, or the learned; a burden is laid upon me to open the Gospel to the poor and ignorant, to help those who need it, to cheer the sorrowful, to lift up the lowly, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord," and again his glance fell upon Briarly. The latter was powerfully impressed. He had lost his old friends. He longed for sympathy. If any man could prom-ise him something better, that man was sure of a favorable hearing. The preacher continued : " You have priests who tell you that there is no more revelation, that the volume of God's word is closed. For eighteen hundred years the Christian world has received no message from the Almighty: the heavens have been shut up, the Lord has not spoken, there has been no prophet to inquire of the Lord. Where is their authority to say this? Where is it written in this book that prophecy shall cease? Our fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and were saved ; but the bread my fathers ate is not sufficient for me. I would know God for myself. Go ask your priests for a witness of their mission. They can not show it. Eighteen hundred years ago, they say, God spoke; eighteen hundred years ago He loved His people, and led them by revelation. But now the canon is full ; the world is wise enough to do without the daily word of God, and there is no longer a voice from the Most High to guide us ! What ! Is God dead? Is there less need of a living oracle now than there was eighteen hundred years ago ? Or is the world so pure that a prophet has no work to do? Do all men acknowledge God, and worship him, and is there no unbelief that God should refuse us a witness? No, my friends, I'll tell you why it is." The speaker had warmed into something like eloquence. His audi-ence were impressed, and the nasal tone which at first affected their English ears unpleasantly, seemed to have vanished. " It is because they rejected God's plan. They would not have a continuous chain of revelation. They have set up churches in which there are no prophets nor apostles ; they have not the gifts of the apostolic church, and the Holy Spirit is not with them ; they have the form of godliness, but deny the power. Should any one say to them that God had sent a prophet, they would cry out against him. But, my friends, God is not dead. The heavens are not brass to those who seek the truth. God, who so loved the world that he sent his Son to save it, loves us as much as he did the people who lived eighteen hun- |
