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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks on Personal Problems (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 14. The Best Book on Christian Evidences.
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The Best Book on Christian Evidences.
All men are controlled in their thinking either by prejudice or by conviction. Prejudice is prejudgment. It is reaching a conclusion before getting all the information there is to be gotten. Conviction is matured judgment formed after getting and weighing carefully all available information. All men are influenced to some extent by prejudice. I suppose a really unprejudiced, unbiased man cannot be found. There is always that in his training that influences him for or against, quite apart from his reasoning powers. There is nothing harder to overcome than prejudice, especially early prejudice, that coloring that has come through home surroundings, circumstances, schooling, companionships, and friendships. It can be overcome. Yet no task is more difficult.
I was a guest once in the home of an old family of New England stock, and from my host got this story. He was a civil engineer, a man of mature judgment, and like the old, typical New Englander gave a large place to facts, without much play to imagination. As a boy he had a boy friend who later became a lawyer, an orator, and one of the best known lecturers on infidel subjects. The father of this boy friend was pastor of one of the churches in the village. He belonged to a certain old type of ministers whose preaching was of a stern, logical, unsympathetic sort, and his home life was sadly in keeping with it. A hard, hot temper, a domineering spirit, rank selfishness, did not make a very lovable sort of man in the home. For months before this boy was born into that home his mother was in bitterness of soul. Her daily experiences led to much bitterness, rebellion, doubts of God's love, and grave doubt about the Christian faith. And in such an atmosphere her son was conceived and born.
That was a terrible birthright for any one to overcome. Yet mark you keenly, it could have been overcome, even though its tinge might remain over all the life. Where there is the earnest, seeking spirit, any bent of early prejudice can be practically overcome, even though its finger marks may remain.
Let it be understood at once that Christianity has counterfeits. That fact helps greatly in believing it. Could it have a greater compliment than a counterfeit? The counterfeit emphasizes the value of the real. Nobody ever tried to counterfeit a piece of common brown wrapping-paper. It is the finely engraved government bill or bank bill that is counterfeited. And let the other fact, the sad fact, be put down too, that Christianity must not be judged by some of its followers, indeed by many of its followers. It must indeed be judged by its influence upon men's lives. And from that test it has no reason to shrink, for the most enlightened nations, the strongest nations, are those that have been under Christian influence.
And there are countless instances close at hand everywhere of individual lives wholly and beautifully transformed under the influence of the Gospel of Christ; indeed miraculously transformed, so sharp is the change from old to new, with no explanation other than that of the power of God. One single instance of that sort is quite enough to prove the living power of God. One Jerry McAuley or one Samuel Hadley is the best volume on Christian evidences to be found.
That there may be found many selfish, worldly Christians does but indicate how many unanchored people there are that are swept along by the tide of their times. Christianity is the popular religion of the western world. Entrance to much society is through the church door. And many who have been and are true in their attachment to it have not the strength of character to rise above the prevalent type of Christianity by which they are surrounded. Christianity has been severely wounded many times in the house of its friends. All this should make the honest doubter the more eager to get to the fountainhead of the stream. Jesus stands the test of any examination. To Him one should go who would know.