Christ the Root of all true Religion – Charles Spurgeon

I LIKE that story of the Sandwich Islanders who had been converted through some of our missionaries, and the Gospel had been preached to them for years. At last two or three gentlemen in long black gowns landed there, and the people asked them what they had come for. They said they were come to instruct them in the true faith, and to teach them. Well, they said, they should be glad to hear it if their teaching was true, and if it was like the Scriptures, so they would listen to them. By-and-bye there was a little diagram exhibited to the natives, which represented a tree. Now, this tree had many branches. The twigs which were farthest off were the different saints, the believers, those who do good works; then the limbs, which were a little larger, were the priests; the bigger boughs were bishops; the biggest boughs were the cardinals; and at last these all joined on to the trunk, which was the Pope, and that went all the way down to the bottom until it came to Peter, who was the root. So the natives asked about all these twigs, and branches, and so on, which they had to show, and there were certain rotten branches that were tumbling off into a fire. What were they? Well, they were Luther, and Calvin, and all those other heretics who had been cut off from the true tree of the Church. Well,” said one of the islanders, “and pray what is the root of the tree?” Well, that was Jesus Christ. So they clapped their hands at once for joy, and said, “Well, never mind about the branches, and stems, and those things; we have never heard of them, but we have got the root, and that will do to grow on.” So, brethren, we can say tonight, if we have got Christ, that we have got “the root out of the dry ground.” We have got the root of the matter, the basis, the sum, the substance of it.