United States or Jordan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The first sin against God was a very small seed, but the tree which sprang from it was the fall of man. "Thou shalt not eat," is a small point its smallness has sometimes supplied unbelievers with wit, if not with argument but on that point a door was hung, which, turned this way, opened heaven and shut hell; turned that way, opened hell and shut heaven.
We must practice autosuggestion. It is noteworthy that the loftiest spirits have always practiced it, in their habit of daily prayer. For whatever else prayer accomplishes, it certainly brings the mind back to its ideals, concentrates it earnestly engaged in, is the best possible form of suggestion. The lapse of this habit helps to explain why unbelievers so often degenerate morally.
And now it came to pass that Alma began from this time forward to teach the people, and those who were with Alma at the time the angel appeared unto them, traveling round about through all the land, publishing to all the people the things which they had heard and seen, and preaching the word of God in much tribulation, being greatly persecuted by those who were unbelievers, being smitten by many of them.
I am inclined to say that neither believers nor unbelievers had faith as we understand it they had insufficient intellectual power. They could not trust unless they had something to see and touch and say, like their barbarous ancestors who could not make a bargain without exchange of tokens.
There is one test of religion which has been universally applied by believers and critics alike, a test which, I think, will shortly appear to deserve precedence over all others. I refer to the test of truth. Every religion has been justified to its believers and recommended to unbelievers on grounds of evidence.
But that was not all; Bartram had for some years been the leader of the unbelievers in the town; the logic of a young man who was smart enough to convince judges on the bench in matters of law was good enough for the general crowd when it was brought to bear upon religion. As one lounger at Weitz's saloon expressed himself,
For devotion was then more needful than bread, and it profited a man more to fight against unbelievers for his soul's sake than to wear hollows in altar-steps with his knees, or to forget his own name and put off his own proper character and being, as a nameless unit in a great religious order. At first the enormous disappointment of Rome had saddened and hurt him.
I did not reject the doctrine of the divine origin of the Bible and Christianity, but gradually lost it. My faith died a natural death. I was in the world, and became a worldly man. I mixed with unbelievers, and gradually came down to their level. I had supposed that a man could be as religious outside the Church as inside; but I found it otherwise.
To the stones cast at Christ by professed unbelievers we need give but little heed. They rain harmless as Parthian shafts on the shield of Achilles. Never was atheistical book written, never was infidel argument penned that touched the core of any religion, Christian or Pagan. They but serve as driving sand of the desert to scour the eating rust from the Christian armor.
And it came to pass in the commencement of the ninth year, Alma saw the wickedness of the church, and he saw also that the example of the church began to lead those who were unbelievers on from one piece of iniquity to another, thus bringing on the destruction of the people.
Word Of The Day