The Portland daily press., 1881-06-27
PULPIT AND PLATFORM.
PINE STREET CHURCH.

$1,000 1-~s~NASA SAASAsS1i'
Rev. A. McKeown, D. D., preached on ex-
change in the Pine street Methodist church
yesterday morning from John 173, his subject
being, '"The knowledge of God which consti-
tutes eternal life, and how it may be attained"
In opening he referred to the death-bed scene
of Harriet Martineau, as reported to this coun-
try in the letters of Moncure D. Conway, in
which he represented her as saying, zone life
is enough; am satisfied. There is no reason
why Harriet Martineau should live again."
and said that, if Miss Martineau, instead of
holding deistical views, had been an humble
follower of Jesus, she would have seen some
reason for living again would have had some
ground for deserving to live again. 1t was
sad to think of that great soul going down into
the darkness of the valley unsupported by even
the instincts of her nature. What had come
| over her-what vicious religious views had she
come to entertain-to kill out the innate and
| universal desire for Immortality?
But it is only i'll the gospel that life and inn
mortality are brought to Ill ht The Scriptures
! of the New Testament teach in the most ex-
e plicit and positive manner that there is fu-
ture and endless existence for all souls made in
| the image of God. Eternal life and endless
ness OF being are not synonymous terms.
| There may be a miserable as well as blessed
| LIE question Cn6 young ruler
asked the Master was not how he might gain a
] future existence, but how blessed future ex-
| iStence. 1t is the question in every heart
Men do not doubt that they shall live hereaf-
ter, but how they shall live? In happiness or
| misery? shakes the soul of the stoutest and in
proportion to the depth and power of nature
within hinr In the stress of life it burns
! through, like the handwriting on Beshazzar's
walls-How shall spend eternity?
Christ said eternal life-not mere continu-
| Of hai, Er1ox God
| Jesus Christ. This is reasonable. To know
| God-to have acquaintancowith him-to be in
| harmony and fellowship with him-is surely
| to have eternal life, while to say that stran-
| ger, an alien, an enemy to God, can have
eternal life is, upon its face, the height of alb
surdity. He who refuses to think of God, to
regard his wishes, to love him and serve him,
who holds himself in hostile attitude towards
him, separates himself necessarily from the
eternal life.
The speaker distinguished between knowl-
edge of God and a knowledge of his works. 1t
was only the former which constitutes the life
eternal. To know God was to have personal
acquaintance with him-to know him as we
know our friend whom we have met face to
face, and felt the power and spell of His pres
ence upon us. Nay, it was to feel His pres
ence upon us-to be in actual spiritual contact
God in the soul, and the soul in God. This
saving knowledge of God, through commun-
ion with God, is obtained only through Jesus
Christ granting pardon and the renewal of our
nature when we repent and believe on him,
hence the introduction of Christ's name in the
text.
The effect Of this communion with God is,
according to the laws of mind, that the strong
assimilates the weaker to itself. Here is the
philosophy Of growth in grace. We become
like God through communion with God An
explanation of that wondrous strength and
beauty of character which we sometimes see
adjoining even the lowliest stations of life.
Enshrined and filed with the Divine Pres
ence, there is no place for selfshness, weak
ness or fear. This is where Paul got his phil
anthropy, and Job his patience, and Stephen
his resignation, and Joshua his courage, and
the martyrs their composure. 1t is the legiti-
mate and only reasonable ground on which to
expect eternal life.
SECOND PARISH
AT the Second Parish church Rev. Mr.. Dick
inson preached upon the general history of the
English Bible, designing in the afternoon to
speak upon the recent revision of the New
Testament. His text was taken from Isaiah
4:S-"The grass withereth, the flowers fadeth,
but the word of our God shall stand forever"
The grass of last year, the beautiful flowers,
even some of our dear friends have passed
away; but the Divine word is with us today as
Of old. The speaker wished to speak of the
impershableness of the word Of God and con-
pecially to the New Testament. First, look at
the language in which it was first giyen-the
Greek. 1t was wonderful language in its
copiousness of expression, its power to give
delicate shades of meaning, and its permanent
+ form. Some meanings that in English can be
given only in one word have in the Greek
from two to twenty words to give the signifca-
ton. Second, look at the two manuscripts of
the Testament, for we could have no printed
edition of the early Testament. There are
four most important ancient manuscripts, the
Sinaitic, of the 4th centufy, discovered by
Tischendorf in one of the converts of Mount
Sinai and printed by the Russian government.
This is the most accurate and.important of all.
Other important ones are the Alexandrian, the
Vatican and the Clermont, dating from the
4th to the 7th or Sth centuries There are in
all more than 1900 manuscripts of the New
Testament. OF the translations from the
manuscripts there are two specially important,
the Syriac and the Latin Vulgate, so called.
But in the multiplicity of these manuscripts
how can we be sure that we have the real, an
Gent Bible? The very multiplicity Of the
copies insures their essential correctness Let
us look at the men through whom the Bible
has come down to us. John Wickliffe gave us
in English the first translation, but he gave it
not from the original Greek, but from the Vu-
gate, so it came through the Latin. This was
in the 10Th century. But in the 10th century
William Tindal translated it directly from the
Greek into Cur language, and to him we owe
the opening to us of the new world of Divine
truth in its purity and beauty. After him
many new versions were made by different
translatorS till in 1911, under King James of
England, 81 scholars were appointed by the
King to make new translation. They took
the Bishops Bible," so called, as the founda-
ton of their work, and SO they made the ver-
sion which for $50 years has been the precious
treasure of our homes. But in time the dis
covery OF new light from manuscripts and
travel, and scholarship has called for new re-
vision. In this brief review do we not see the
hand of God in all the way the Divine word
has come down to us? In the manuscripts,
their preservation, the men who have translat-
ed them, and in the perfect form in which we
have it now. Let us remember that in all the
changes it is the same Bible; that it is Gods
work; that it shall abide forever, and that
those who follow its teachings shall also stand
forever in the presence of God and enjoy the
blessedness of heaven.