Excerpt from Man, the Minister of God: A Sermon Delivered Before the Foreign Missionary Society of New-York and Brooklyn, April 15th, 1855 Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. The Christian religion is not the only religion which has obtained prevalency in the world. Though it be the only system which has truth for its nature and God for its author, there are other religions which dispute with it the empire of the world. There are Gods many and Lords many. Mohammedanism, Buddhism, and Brahmanism exert their sway, at this time, over hun dreds of millions of the human family. It is one of those problems which often task the faith of the thoughtful, Why is it that the only religion which has been revealed from the one living and true God, now so long after that revelation was finished, is yet em braced only by a minority of the human species? \vith some of the more aged and extended forms of false re ligion we have become partially acquainted in our at tempts to propagate the Christian faith. It is certain that they have attained to a great longevity, and accu mulated prodigious power. Their roots are strong and deep. They become objects of interest to us, becauseof their antiquity. They deserve a profound investiga tion, not only that we may understand how best to con duct our warfare against them, but because we would know to what secret they owe their immense dominion. We call them folly, delusion, falsehood. Such we be lieve them to be. But herein is a great marvel, that these very follies delusions, and falsehoods have reigned for so many centuries with so few signs of change and dissolution. Follies, delusions, falsehoods though they be, they certainly demand a most careful analysis. Per haps we have not inquired into their construction with sufficient patience and candor. It may be that we have been content to dispatch them with a general and in discriminate reprehension. What if we should discover that there was in each some element of truth which is the secret of its vitality? What if it should be found that these false systems are not false altogether; but that there is in the heart of each some dislocated truth, to which the mass of associated error owes its preva lence and power? Such, doubtless, is the fact. Error pure, unmixed, has no promise of continuance, and no principle of preservation. A falsehood is nothing. It has no basis on which to rest. If it can attach itself to a truth, as parasitical plants suck their sap out of the trunks of trees, it may flourish long by the force of a foreign nutriment. It has no life within itself. Sepa rate from its support, it perishes inevitably and irre trievably. But truth, like its Author, is self-existent and eternal. It is a reality subject to no change and no decay. Like the pure essences of heaven, it is vital in every part. In its own nature, it is clear as a ray of light from the sun, having no affinity with fog or dust. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.