St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1886-08-21
TAI,.iAUE'S SERMON.
Deed and Living Literature" fhe
king Of Books"
ehe Authenticity. Style. Conciseuess. Va
riety and Accuracy of the Bible Dis
eussed and Disooursed Upos
ut Lakeside o.

ut Lakeside. o.
Rev. r. Dewitt Talmage delivered q
sermon at Lakeside, O., in the course OF
mis- summer wanderings. taking for his
subject 1.-THE King Of Books" His text
was:
The statutes of the Lord are right.-Psalms
xix, y.
Old books 20 out of date. When they
were 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. Were they books Of history,
che facts have been gathered from the inn
perfect mass, better classified and more
Nucidly presented. Were they books of
poetry, they were interlocked with wild
mythologies which have gone up from the
face of the earth like nists at sunrise.
Were 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 or the sarcasm of
Menander, or the gracefulness of Phife-
mon, or the wit of Aristophanes? Even
the old books we have left, with few ex-
ceptions, have but very little effect upon
our lines. Books are human; they have
@ time to be born, they are fondled,
they grow in strength, they have a
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 fiagitious lives aud died deaths of
ignominy. Some were virtuous and accom-
plished a glorious mission. Some went
into the ashes through inquisitorial fires.
Not so with one old book. 1t started in
the worlds infancy. 1t grew under the
oeracy and monarchy. It withstood
storms of fire. 1t grew under the proph.
cts mantle and under the fisherman's
coat of the apostles; in Rome, and Eph-
esus, and Jerusalem, and Patmos. Tyran.
ny issued edicts against it, and infidel-
ity put out the tongue, and Mohamme.
danism from its mosques hurled its anath.
crossed the British channel and was well
coined by Wickliffe and James I. 1t
crossed the Atlantic and struck Plymouth
Rock until, like that of Horeb, it gushed
with blessedness. Churches and asylums
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 &C.
comll;shed its mission until it has elm bed
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
ed 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-
ious Bible have accomplished it's 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
i'm Authorization, that it is right in styl @,
that it is right in doctrine, that it is right
in its effects.
/. Can you doubt the authenticity Of
the Scripturesf 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-
disc Lost,n as there is eviden that the
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 standf 1t
would be secuted by everybody. And /
say If that Bible had been an impose
ton, or if it had not been writ
ten by the men who said they
wrote it, If it bad been mere collection
of falsehoods, do you net suppose that it
would have been Immediately rejected by
The peoples If Job, and Isaiah, and
Jeremiah, and Paul, and Peter, and John
were impostors they would have been
secuted by generations and nations. II
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
Bibles When they began their opposition
there were 1000 or 900 0 copies Of it, Now
there are 2O0.O00,0Oo as far as can cal
culate. These Bible truths, notwithstand-
ing all the opposition, have gone into all
ianguages-into the philesophic Greek,
che flowing Italian, the graceful German,
the passionate French. the picturesque
Indian aud the exhaustless Anglo. Saxo n.
Under the painters pencil the birth and
the crucifxion and the resurrection glow
ON the walls of palaces; or, under the en-
graver' knife, speak rom the mantel OF