Orleans independent standard. [volume] (Irasburgh, Vt.) 1856-1871, 1868-12-01

COu1IduulHS SIOduOnOO,a ico "S1"Po6
tion to move the masses, and the eX-
tent to which the masses have been
moved and instructed by it ever since
the canon of scripture was closed, and
how vast the amount of intellectual
activity which has flowed from this
inexhaustible fountain. as
There is nothing like it in the his
tory of the world. The names OF Ho-
mer, Plato and Aristotle are known
to but select few, while the writers
of the Bible are household names in
every part of christendom. &. 5
The Psalms of David, and the
words of those few unlettered fisher
men of GaIilee whom Tacitus IN his
history brands with the eplthets OF
uosplcaUle barho r'iane and slaves"
superseded the admired history, poe
try, oratory and philosophy of the
Greeks and Romans even i'll the Roman
Empire itself; and they are now in
the hands, on the lips, and in the
hearts of the men, women and child
rem of every nation which is acting
any important part in history. The
productions of the Eastern world be-
fore the christian era have been for
gotten, but the Bible has been pre-
served. And it has stimulated more
study and thought, more reflection
and research, more intellectual activi-
ty, than all other productions the
world has seen.
There are indirect influences also
seen in history Our own language
owes in part its very structure to the
influence of the English Bible. 1t has
been said that "no Englishman or
American knows we'll his mother tongue
till he has learned it in the vocabulary
and idioms of king James Transla-
ton" And this influence goes down
into all the crevices and channels of
other literature. 1t has supplied the
seeds OF thought, the suggestive hints,
the little germs, the dim conceptions,
the outlines Of some of the sublimest
poems or passages of poems to be
found in modern literature.
Spen ser and Shakespeare, Pope and
Cowper, and even Lord Byron have
drawn largely in their imagination
/ from the imagery and doctrines of the
Bible.
"The psalmody of the scriptures
has wrought nightly in the birthright
of more than one revolution for the
sake of liberty"
England owes her existence in
part to the psalm singing of Crom-
wells armies. And what are the OBJ
legations of American freedom to the
word of God? Its beginning is not
found till we 90 back to the wrench
ing Of the Bible from the IRON grasp
of an insolent hierarchy. The princi-
pal freight of the Mayhower was a
free Bible. Plymouth rock in history
is forever linked with the English Bi-
bic of the puritans. We are told that
Thomas Jefferson was indebted for his
conception of our American govern
ment to the polity Of an obscure cal
whistle church in Virginia, but its
pattern was the republicanism of the
Hebrew Commonwealth three thous-
and years before the settlement of
jamestown. 1t is the Bible that has
refined and enlarged the limits of our
civil and religious liberty.
Who doubts that it is the Bible
that has stimulated industry, develop
ed national resources and growth, till
now, free people in fact, as in name
we span the continent, and lay hand
on either ocean? Our standing ar.
my is composed of sabbath schools
where the Bible is the text book, and
our police of secret watch are the
prophets and apostles.
! The very vigor of infdelity, also
shows the power of the Bible. 1t
draws its life blood from the gospel.
1t feeds upon christianity. The Pill.
grim's Progress and Paradise Lost
are not more indebted to the Bible
than are many of the most thrilling
conceptions in the anti christian pro
tductions of the times. That misguid
ed mind, who for twenty years stood
as the prophet of infdelity at the Mu-
sic III al | in Boston, unconsciously
drew his great ideas, those by which
he reused the popular conscience and
swayed the popular heart, from the
very Bible which as an authority be
| disowned That atheism which of
T late has been working so disastrously
among the artisan classes of Eng
land, would have no power if it did
not hold on to so much scriptural
thought.
Its grand ideas are Biblical ideas
but it seeks to enforce them without
the God of the Bible; christianity
having shamed away some of the gross
er errors and vices of the popular
mind, the unbeliever now seizes upon
some of its doctrines in order to gain
a hearing. Thus scriptural truth is
working its way down deeper and
deeper into the convictions of men
stimulating everywhere mental activity
fostering liberty, fertilizing the sol
even of infdel opinion, and causing il
often to accumulate new resources of
destructiveness, while it works on il
Gods purposes, Fastening its results
in higher and still more perfect forms
of civilization. What power has the
Bible in this manifest adaptation.
, II. The poaoer of the aOord Of God a
manifested IN a still hsgher form an 1T
odaptatioa to quicken the Conscience