What Has Infidelity Done?
Has infidelity ever raised a man or woman from the haunts of vice, and made a sinful life clean? Has it ever taken the drunkard from the gutter, the gambler from his cards, the fallen from a life of shame? Has it ever found a man coarse and brutal in character and life, and made him a kind husband and faithful father? Has it ever gone out into a heathen land, and found a people ignorant and barbarous, delighting in rapine and murder, and by the power of its teaching lifted them out of their degradation, until they adopted the customs of civilized nations? Has it ever written down languages, translated literature, prepared textbooks, planted schools, established academies, seminaries, colleges, and universities? Has it ever founded hospitals, builded asylums, established orphanages, and brought blessings to the poor, the sick, the maimed, and the blind? What discoveries has it made? What improvements has it introduced? Is there in all the history of infidelity a story of its moral triumphs that will match the regeneration of the Fiji Islands under the labors of the missionaries? Has it added anything to the sum of human happiness? Does it bring one ray of comfort into the chamber of death, filling the soul of the dying with peace, and the hearts of weeping friends with hope? The religion of Jesus Christ has done all these things. "The tree is known by its fruit." Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Does infidelity bear figs or thistles?—Sel.