The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-06-09

as Shakespeare did not create his characters,
but saw them, and with genius had power to
gather them together in groups and unfold them,
not as anything that was new but as that
which was before incoherent, dispersed, NOR
ganc-so the race itself was inspired.
but lived In its lowest stages until some
result of experience had become SO
widespread that man OF large nature, feeling
the impulse of divine inspiration was able to give
l. out as truth, never. perhaps, put into regular
form and spoken-gave it out as something au-
thortatlve 1t was found out to be real and au-
thoritative before he declared it So just AS many
great things in civil law are, comparatively
speaking, law by public sentiment before they
become authoritative laws by legislative enact
ment So there are multtudes of truths that
were unfolded long before authority is given
them by anybody that says: Thus saith the
Lord" Thus God does say bat he saws SO
through the finding out through the trials
through the failures and mistakes and sue
cesses. and entertainments OF actual human ex-
perience
BIBLE RECORDS AND LEGENDS.
$50 the word of God is the record, along one
line of grand overwhelmingly, the devel-
opment of men from the lowest point possible Of
human existence with our present faculties; the
development of men through the trial Of living
through the experiment of living. Men learned
that truths and lies were different things in an
tiquity Though it is almost lost again); men
found out that the truth was better than lie
in everybody but themselves; that is the last
point in which man believes in the superiority
Men found out that the earliest conditions of
monogamy were more favorable; they lost
it, as it were; at any rate, they expert
mented upon it, In the beginning it was
not so, saith Moses. but it was not by an origin
ally recorded command of God There is
evidence that God ever said word on that SUBJ
ject, except through the actual findings out of
human experience. And every single step of
attainment that we have had by which society
is organized, by. which governments estab
hshed, by which industries are regulated, by
which political economy can become possible
by whichinternational law can become possible
all the triumphs, all the civilization of mankind
all these things have come, not by direct revela
ton, but by finding out, by species of evolu-
ton, going on step by step through ages, and
ages and ages. Well, now, if this be the sub
Ject nature OF inspiration in the Bible, see how
it strikes. The things that have been found out
and accepted of mankind-the great spiritual
results that are recorded in the Bible, the love-
whether chanted by David, or glowing in the
eloquence of Paul, or rising sweet as unutter
able music in the breast of JohI--all the ele-
ments that belong to the highest human nature
have been steadily unfolGed by the cause of
they have taken their declaration, their declared
form, i'll the word Of God. and they are never
to be stricken down. But on the other hand,
there are great many things in the Bible that
were believed in the time of it that were not
true You take the early accounts given
in Genesis. They were legends before there was
any history. They are grouped together They
were the earliest conceptions of the human race,
as 1T started on its tentative journey toward civ
llization Early thoughts, they are as precious
to us as to the mother are the earliest strains of
the babe. She remembers them. she rehearses
them she talks and thinks of them, and yet, as
compared with the later developed wisdom of
the child, they are as nothing. It great thing
to know what were the thoughts of men in the
very beginning, in their earliest stages, and the
next step, and the next step. This was the way
in nh 1nff iok<. III
came into being-six literal days of twenty-four
hours.
IGNORANT AND OBSTINATE ORTHODOXY.
There are two classes of men now and they
are the ignorant and the obstinate that still be-
lieve in it and the scientific ske ptical men who
don't believe word in it. and, therefore, throw
away the Bible as being book of falsties. 1T
can't be inspired, they say. But book that un-
dertakes to register the stages through which
men went may be inspired and book Of God.
Polygamy was tried, aud afterward commended
and purified. But if the Bible is the word of
God. according to the old theory of plenary di-
rect inspiration then Mormonism is right, this is
its stronghold to-day. They believe in the Old
Testament-they believe in it like thunder
When any man should undertake to hold at
one and the same time the absolute inspira-
ton according to the old verbal theory
of the Bible, how is he going to get
away from that declaration Mormonsm
cannot be wrong for God inspired it, and
period of time when it was great thing for q
mans life to be saved, and he was made slave
rather than be slaughtered. Little by little
men found that slavery was an inconvenience,
and in the Hebrew life first OF all the orient
nations, it was made lmpracticable; rot by the
direct forbiddng of it, but by making it SO
onerous that they could not afford to keep it up,
and so let it die out of ITSELF but that it is recog
nized, as existing without rebuke in the Old
Testament, is uncontradictabe. And in the
great controversy that preceded the great settle.
ment of the sword, this was the argument of the
prossavery pulpits of the North and of the
puipits of the South, namely slavery cannot be
wrong for it was practiced under the Old Tesla
ment laws, and SO it was authorized of God.
Well, you might just as we'll say that because
men scratched the ground with sticks God au-
thorized husbandry by sticks instead of havnga
crooked split pillow, and you might as well say
that, because early they had crooked pillow,
God authorized crooked pow instead of an iron
one. The very theory of creation has set men
with proper faculties upon the plane Of love,
sentthem forward by universal influences, beat
in upon them by all necessities, by all laws,
and let them find their way on and up.
So every flower had to come up so
every apple had to come up, so every bird, so
every beast everywhere. SO man came up, and
so all the thoughts laws, ideas and institutions
of men came from God, not directly, az light
ming strikes, but mediatey through the infu-
ence of living, through the pressure of intuition
and the influence of laws, nnconsciously to men
on whom they were acting
Tine record shows this. Slavery in the Old
Testament was an experiment, and DESTROYED
itself. We have the record. not tho authorize
ton of it. Things natural in n child are I'M
natural to grown up men. The findings out of
men lead them to clearer light, and there is in
the word of God an ascending scale from simple
to complex. Human nature ascended to a con-
dition where it was possible for the mind itself
to live in an atmosphere of God, and rs God acts
on natural law and material so he acts directly
upon the conscious faculties of men, giving them
power to discern and collect, and to authenticate
great truths.
1.-THE Bible is the record Of the progressive
unfolding of knowledge in respect to social and
spiritual thingssthrough vast ages and the in
SEPARATION of God consisted in that impulse of
natural law. of social institution. of reflection,
Of experiment and Of findings out of ife and a
record OF it by men competent TO understand and
give II the larrast &o-r, I,n,.