Questions of Modern Inquiry; A Series of Discussions (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 Excerpt: ..."And how impossible it is " the world would have said; "for while you mend the practices of a man you do not mend the man." We are perfectly familiar with this sort of dealing to-day. I remember some years ago hearing of a gentleman who arose to address a gathering made up largely of newsboys. Suddenly the thought came to him that he would seize the opportunity to rebuke them for using tobacco. Instantly every boy was spitting on the floor; and finally there was such an uproar and tumult that he had to stop. They would not listen to him at all. Now, what has been the method of Christianity? We find nothing in the teaching of the Saviour or the apostles attacking society in its external forms; no indignation because the Jews at that time were under the dominion of Rome; nothing said about the evils of the wine-shop, or the dangers of worldly amusements, or any of the social habits by which the world has ever been enthralled; but, on the contrary, there was a uniform effort to get into man's heart a new conception of righteousness, of redemption, and of love; a uniform effort to change the thoughts of man, that through his thoughts his heart and mind might be changed; always the attempt to plant seed in the soul which, by its own inherent force, as it grew, would change the outward life. See how this method works to-day. The world is permeated with Christianity. It is found everywhere, supplying all that is most vital and valuable in human life. The historians have hastened to record that it was the renewing force of the gospel of Christ that changed Roman society, that stopped the gladiatorial shows, that transformed the Europe of the barbarous Goth into the Europe of to-day. It was the leaven hidden in the meal that worked through it; an...