The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1886-08-13

1t all about them every day: ana IN those
underground vaults there are vases still
encrusted with the settings of the wine.
You see the vine did grow in Egypt,
whether it grows there now or not.
Thus you see that while God wrote the
Bible, at the same time He wrote this
commentary, that "the statues 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 authenticity and in
genuineness, the statutes of the Lord are
right.
9. Again, the Bible is right IN style. 1
know there are great many people who
think it is merely a collection Of genoa
logical tables and dry facts. That is be-
cause they do not know how to read the
book. You take up the most Interesting
novel that was ever written, and if you
commence at the four -hundredth page to-
day, and tomorrow at the three.hun-
dredth, and the next day at the first, 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 understand ID. The
Bible, like all other palaces, has door by
which to enter and a door by which to go
elation the door to 60 out.
These epistles of Paul the 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? Suppose you get q busi-
ness letter, and you know that in it 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, Be-
sides that, people read the Bible Vhen
they can not do anything else. It is
dark day. and they do not feel well, and
they do not go to business, and after
lounging about a bit they pick up the
Bible-their mind refuses to enjoy the
truth. Or they come home weary from
the store or 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
your head aches, it is also to be read in the
sunshine and when your nerves like harp
strings thrum the song of health. While
y
of truth, and while your mental appetite
is good, pluck these clusters of grace.
am fascinated with the conciseness of
this book. Every word is packed full of
truth. Every sentence is double-barreled.
Every sentence is like an old banyan tree
with a hundred roots and a hundred
branches. 1t is great arch; pull out one
stone and it all comes down. There has
never been a pearl diver who could gather
up one-half of the treasures in any verse.
John Halsebach, of Vienna, for twenty
one years every Sabbath expounded to his
congregation the first chapter of the Book
of Isaiah, and yet did not get through
with it. Nine-tenths of all the good lit
erature of this age is merely the Bible
diluted.
Where is there in the world of poetic de-
| scription anything like Jobs champing,
neighing, paving, Iightning-footed,t thun-
der -necked war horse? Dryden's, Milton's,
COwper's tempests are very tame COM
pared with Bavid's storm that wrecked
the mountains of Lebanon and shivered
the wilderness of Kadish. Why, it seems as
if to the feet of these Bible writer's noun
tains brought all their gems, and the seas
all their pearls, and the gardens all their
frankincenses, and the spring all it's blos-
SONS, and the harvests all their wealth,
and Heaven all its grandeur, and eternity
all its stupendous realities, and that since
then poets and orators and rhetoricians
have been drinking from exhausted foun-
tains, and searching for diamonds in a
realm utterly rified and ransacked.
am also amazed at the variety of this
book. Mind you, not contradiction or
collision, but variety. Just as in the song
you have the basso and alto and soprano
and tenor-they are not in collision with
each other, but come in to make up the
harmony-sO it is in this great book; there
are different parts of this great song of
redemption. The prophet comes and takes
one part, and the patriarch another part,
and the evangelist another part, and the
disciples another part, and yet they all
come into the grand harmony-"the song
of Moses and the Lamb, If God had in
spired men of the same temperament to
write this book it might have been monot-
onous; but David and Isaiah, and Peter
and Job, and Ezekial, and John were men
of different temperaments, and so, when
God inspired them to write, they wrote in
their own style.
God prepared the book for all classes Of
people. For instance, little children
would read the Bible, and God knew that;
so he allows Matthew and Luke to write
sweet stories about Christ with the doctors
of the law, and Christ at the well, and
Christ at the cross, so that any little child
can understand them. Then God knew
that the aged people would want TO read
the book, so be allowed Solomon TO COM
pact a world of wisdom in that book OF
Proverbs. God knew that the historian
would want to read It, and so he allows
Moses to give the plain statement of the
Pentateuch. God knew that to picture the
heavens as a curtain, and Isaiah the
mountains as weighed in balance, and
the waters as held in the hollow of the
omnipotent hand; and God touched David
until in the latter part of the Psalms, he
gathers a great choir, standing in galleries
above each other-beasts and men
in the first gallery; above them, hills and
mountains; above them, fire and hail and
tempest; above them, sun and moon and
stars of light; and on the highest gallery
arrays the hosts of angels; and then,
standing before this great choir, reaching
from the depths of earth to the heights of
Heaven, like the leader of great orchestr
he lifts bis hands, crying, "Praise the
LordI Let rything that hath breath
praise ye the Lord !" And all earthly
creatures in their song, and mountains
with their waving cedaTs, and tempests
in their thunder, and rattling hail, and
stars on all their trembling haFps of light,
and angels on their thrones, respond in
magnificent acclaim: "Praise ye the
LordI Let everything that hath breath
praise ye the LordI"
8. remark again: The Bible is right
I'm its doctrines. Man a sinner. Christ a
Saviour--the two doctrines. Man must
come down-his pride, his self-Fighteous-
ness, his worldliness; Christ, the annoint-
ed. must go up. II it had not been for the
setting forth OF the atonement, Moses
would never have described the creation;
prophets would not have preached. Il
seems 20 me as If Jesus In the Bible were
standing on q platform in a great amphi-