George Stearns - The Mistake of Christendom ; or, Jesus and His Gospel before Paul and Christianity

READER, be not in haste to judge of what this book evolves, from the seeming triteness of its essential theme. I grant that something called the Gospel has had many preachers. In the little city where I reside are twenty-five or more clergymen, whose proper business it is to study and teach the precious lore of Jesus. Every Sunday we have some fifty
' sermons in Lowell ; in our whole nation perhaps fifty thousand ; and in all Christendom not less than five hundred thousand. According to a rough calculation, as many as five hundred million discourses have been publicly pronounced, on this one great subject, since the days of the nominal founder of the Church. Now, when such statistics are duly considered, as well as the specious fact that all these pulpit demonstrations have been and are performed by a class of men who have nothing else to do, being maintained at the public charge, and otherwise rewarded for their diligence
by certain sacred dignities and no uncertain secular perquisites of their calling; that they are generally men of reputed intelligence and honesty, to whom is conceded a sort of divine commission and qualification, for their work; that to men of such character and position there should be little inducement to hide their light under a bushel, but rather the most earnest and incessant promptings to utter the truth; that every ecclesiastical teacher takes up the significant and subduing confession of Paul, "Woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel  " and " if any man preach any other gospel "but that of Jesus, "let him be
accurse :" considering, I say, all these circumstantial facts, together with the means to. ample information on the part of every doctor and student of Christian theology, who will be bold enough who will dare such a seeming of impudence, as to say that the Church does not know Jesus, and that his Gospel has never been fairly preached?

320 Pages
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