Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1886-08-14

1870 |% -
burned, while in other parts they find
coal that have been ~excavated, and in
the calcined slabs Of gypsum. Who
was right, the Bible or inidelity?
Moses intimated that they had vine
yards in Egypt. Absurd" cried hun
drcds of voices; ''you can't raise grapes
in Egypt; or, if you can, it is "A very
great exception that YOU can raise
them" But the traveller goes down,
and in the
UNDERGROUND VAULTS
of Eilithya he finds painted on the wall
all the processes of tending the vines and
treaiing out the grapes. II is all there,
Familiarity sketched by the people who
evidently knew all about it, and saw it
all about them every day; and in those
underground vaults there are vases
still cncrusted with the settings of the
wine. You see the vine did grow in
Egypt, whether 1t grows there now or
not.
Thus you see that while God wrote
the Bible, ut the same time He wrote
tins commentary, that 'the statutes of
the Lord are right" on leaves of rock
and shell, bound in clasps Of metal, and
lying on mountain tables and in
the jeweled vase of the sea. In anthem
ticity and in genuiness the statutes of
the Lord are right.
.. Again: The Bible is right in
style. | know there are a great many
people who think it is merely a collec-
ton of genealogical tables and dry
facts. That is because they do not
know how TO read the book. You take
! up the most interesting novel that was
ever written, and if you m at
the four hundreth page to-day, and to-
morrow at the three hundredth, and
the next day at the first page, how
much sense or interest would you get
from it? Yet that is the very process
to which the Bible is subjected every
day. An angel from heaven, reading
the Bible in that way, could not under
stand it.. The Bible. like all other pal
aces, has
by which to enter and a door by which
to 70 out. Genesis is the door to go
in and Revelation the door to go ont.
These epistles of Paul tho Apostle
are merely letters written, folded up
and sent by postmen to the different
churches. Do YOU read other letters
the way you read Paul's letters? Sup
pose You get "A business letter. and you
know that in il there are important
financial propositions, do you read the
last page first and then one line of the
third page, and another of the second,
and another of the first? No. You
begin with '.Dear Sir and end with
Yours Truly" Now, here is a letter
written from the throne of God to our
lost world; it is full of magnificent
hopes and propositions, and we dip in
here and there, and we know nothing
about it. Besides that, people read the
Bible when they cannot do anything
else. 1t is "A dark day, and they do
not feel well, and they do not 90 to
business, and after lounging about 4
bit they pick up the Bible--their mind
refuses to enjoy the truth. Or they
come home weary from the store OF
shop, and they feel, if they do not say,
it is a dull book. While, the
BIBLE Is TO BE READ
on stormy days and while you head
aches, it is also to be read in the sun
shine and when your nerves like harp
strings thrum the song of health.
While your vision is clear, walk in thi.
paradise of truth, and while your men
tai appetite is good, pluck these clus-
tiers of grace.
/ am fascinated with the conciseness
of this book. Every word is packed
full of truth. Every sentence is double
barrelled. Every paragraph is like an
old banyan tree with a hundred roots
and a hundred branches. 1t is a great
arch; pull out one stone and it al
comes down. There has never been Il
pearl diver who could gather up one
half Of the treasures in any verse. John
Halseb&ch, of Vienna, for twenty-one
years every Sabbath eXp0unded to his
congregation the first chapter of the
book of Isaiah, and yet did not get
through with It. Nine tcntls Of all the
GOOD literature of this age is merely
the
BIBLE DILUTED,
Goethe, the admired Of all skeptics.
b. i the walls Of bis Eouse at Weimar
covered with religious maps and pic
lures. Millions paradise Lost is
part OF the Bible in blank verse. Tas-
SOS "Jerusaiem Delivered" is Dor
rowed from the Bible. Spenser's writ
ings are limitations Of the parallels.
John Bunyan saw in a dream only what
Saint John had seen before in AcOpa-
lyptic vision. Macaulay crowns his
most gigantic sentences with Scripture
quotations. Through Addison's ''Spcc-
tator' there chances in and out the
stream that broke from the throne of
God clear as crystal. Walter SCOTS
best characters are Bible men and
women under different names, as Meg
Merrilies. the witch of Endor. Shake
spere's Lady Macbeth was Jczebel.
Hobbies stole from this castle of truth
the weapons with which he afterwards
assaulted it.
ORD BYRON
caught the r~uggedness and majesty of
his style from the prophecies. The
writings of Pope are saturated
with Isaiah. and he iinds his most sue