The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1886-08-13
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
Dead and Living -"The
King Of Books"
The Authenticity. style, ConcIseness. va
rIety and Accuracy of the Bible Dis
cussed and Discoursed Upon
at Lakeside, o.,


sermon at Lakeside, o., in the course of
his summer wanderings. taking for his
subject "The King of Books" His text
was:
The statutes of the Lord are right.-Psalms
xix, 4.
Old books go out of date. When they
we're written they discussed questions
which were being discussed; they struck
at wrongs which have long ago ceased, or
advocated institutions which excite not
our interest. We're they books of history
the facts have been gathered from the inn
perfect mass, better classified and more
lucidly presented. Were they books of
poetry, they were interlocked with wild
mythologies which have gone up from the
face of the earth like mists at sunrise.
We're they books of morals, civilization
will not sit at the feet of barbarism,
neither do we want Sappho, Pythagoras,
and Tully to teach morals. What do the
masses of the people care now for the
pathos of Simonides OF the sarcasm of
Menander, or the gracefulness of Phile-
mon, or the wit of Aristophanes? Even
the old books we have left, with a few ex-
ceptions, have but very little effect upon
our times. Books are human; they have
a time to be born, they are fondled,
they grow in strength, they have
middle life of usefulness then comes
old age, they totter and they die. Many
of the national libraries are merely the
cemeteries of dead books. Some of them
lived hagitious lives and died deaths of
ignominy. Some were virtuous and accom-
plished a glorious mission. Some went
into the ashes through inquisitorial fires.
Some found their funeral pile in sacked
and plundered cities. Some were neglect
ada nd din6 fOy1n1Iinnc at ba HO0pa Of
science. Some expired in the authors
study, others in the publishers hands.
Ever and anon there comes into your pos
session an old book, its author forgotten
and its usefulness done, and with leathern
lips it seems to say, 81 wish I were dead"
Monuments have been raised over poets
and philanthropists. Would that some
tall shaft might be erected in honor of the
worlds buried books The worlds au.
thors would make pilgrimage thereto, and
poetry and literature and science and re.
igion would consecrate it with their tears
Not so with one old book. 1t started in
the worlds infancy. 1t grew under the
ocracy and monarchy. It withstood
storms of fire. It grew under the proph-
st's mantle and under the fisherman's
coat of the apostles; in Rome, and Eph-
esus, and Jerusalem, and Patmos. Tyran-
~ ASSAO& CAASbo aEatAASt ATS AuO AAAAol@
ity put out the tongue, and Mohamme.
danism from its mosques hurled its anath-
emas, but the old Bible still lived. It
crossed the British channel and was well
coined by Wickliffe and James /. It
crossed the Atlantic and struck Plymouth
Rock until, like that of Horeb, it gushed
with blessedness. Churches and asyIums
have gathered all along its way, ringing
their bells and stretching out their hands
in blessing; and every Sabbath there are
ten thousand heralds of the cross with
their hands on this open, grand, free, old
English Bible. But it will not have ac-
complished it's mission until it has climbed
the icy mountains of Greenland; until it
has gone over the granite cliffs of Chin;
until it has thrown it's glow amid the Aus
tralian mines; until it has scattered its
gems among the diamond districts
of Brazil; and all thrones shall be gather
cd into one throne, and all crowns by the
fires of revolution shall be melted into one
crown, and this book shall at the very
gate of heaven have waved in the ransom
ed empires. Not until then will this glor-
tous Bible have accomplished its mission.
In carrying out, then, the idea of my
text
The statutes Of the Lord are right
shall show you that the Bible is right in
in authorization, that it is right in style,
that it is right in doctrine, that it is right
in its effects.
1. Can you doubt the authenticity of
the Scriptures? There is not so much evil
dence that Walter Scott wrote "The Lady
of the Lake." not so much evidence that
Shakespeare wrote "Hamlet" not so much
evidence that John Milton wrote "Para.
a. A. A.,
Lord God Almighty, by the hands of the
prophets, evangelists and apostles, wrote
this book.
Suppose book now to be written which
came in conflict with great many things,
and was written by bad men or impostors,
how long would such book stand? 1t
would be secuted by everybody. And 1
say if that Bible had been an imposi-
tion, or if it had not been writ
ten by the men who said they
wrote it, if it had been a mere collection
of falsehoods, do you not suppose that it
would have been Immediately rejected by
the people? If Job, and Isaiah, and
jeremiah, and Paul, and Peter, and John
were impostors they would have been
secuted by generations and nations. If
that book has come down through fires
of centuries without scar, it is because
there is nothing in it destructible. How
near have they come to destroying the
Bible? When they began their opposition
there were 1000 or 9, 900 copies of it. Now
there are 200, 600 far as I can cal
culate. These Bible truths, notwith stand
ing all the opposition, have gone into all
languages-into the philosophic Greek,
the flowing Italian, the graceful German,
the passionate French. the picturesque
4bo ayrR,a
Under the painters pencil the birth and
the crucifixion and the resurrection glow
on the walls of palaces; or, under the en-
graver's knife, speak from the mantel of
the mountain cabin; while stones, touched
by the sculptor's chisel, start up into
preaching apostles and ascending
martyrs. Now, do you not suppose, If that
Sook had been an imposition and false
sod, it would have gone down under
shese ceaseless fires of oppositionp
The Bible says that Sodom and Gomor.
cah were destroyed by fire and birthstone
absurd, }" infidels year after year said;
''it is positively absurd that they could
have been destroyed by birthstone. There
Is nothing in the elements to cause such a
shower of death as that" Lieutenant
Lynch think he was the first man who
went out on the discovery, but he has been
followed by many others-Lieutenant
Lynch went out in exploration and came
TO the Dead Sea, which, by a convulsion
Of nature, has overhOwn the place where
the cities once stood. He sank the faith
oming line and brought up from the bot
tom of the Dead Sea great masses of sui
phur, remnants OF that very tempest that
swept Sodom and Gomorrah TO ruin. Who
was right, the Bible that announced the
destruction of those cities or the skeptics
Who for ages seoffed at 1T
Moses intimated that they had vine-
yards in Egypt. Absurd" cried hun
sb,eds of voices; you can't raise grapes in
IagYnt: or. II Won can. n ia q very great