The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1888-04-06

the traveller goes down, and in the under
ground vaults of Ellithya he finds painted
on the wall all the process Of tending the
vines and treading out the grapes. It is
all there Familiarity sketched by people
who evidently knew all about it. and saw
it all about them every day; and in those
underground vaults there are vases still
incrusted with the settings of the wine
You see the vine did grow in Egypt,
whether it grows there now or not.
Thus you see, while God wrote the Bible,
at the same time he wrote this COM
mentary, 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 authenticity and in genu-
ineness the statutes of the Lord are right.
Again: The Bible is right in style. l
know there are a great many people who
think it is merely n collection of genea-
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 il you
commence at the four hundreth page to-
day, and tomorrow at the three hundreth,
and the next day at the first page, how
much sense or interest would you gather
from it? Yet that is the very process to
which the Bible is subjected every day.
An angel from Heaven, reading the Bible
that way, could not understand it. The
Bible, like all other palaces, has a door by
which to enter and door by which to go
out. Genesis is the door to go in and Reve-
lation the door to go out. These epistles
of Paul the apostle are merely letters writ
ten, folded up and sent by pOstmen to the
different churches. Do you read other
letters the way you read Pauls letters?
Suppose you get a business letter, and you
know that in it there are important finan-
cial 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 be-
! gin with 'FDear sir, (" and end with 'tY ours
| truly" Now here is a letter written from
| the throne of God to our lost world; it is
| full of magnificent hopes and PROPOSE
tions, and we dip in here and there and
we know nothing about it. Besides that,
| people read the Bible when they can not
do any thing else. 1t is dark day, and
/ they do not feel well, and they do not go
| to business, and after lounging about
awhile 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,
]
vision is clear walk in this paradise of
truth; and while your mental appetite is
| good pluck these clusters of grace.
I am fascinated with the conciseness of
/ this book. Every word is packed full Of
truth. Every sentences double barreled.
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 all comes down. There has
/ 4 bnQ
up one-haf Of the treasures in any verse.
John Halseback, 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 liter
ature of this age is merely the Bible di-
luted.
This book is the hive of all sweetness
1t is the armory of all well-tempered
weapons; it is the tower containing the
crown jewels Of the universe; it is the
| lamp that kindles all other lights; il is the
home of all majesties and splendors; it is
the marriage-ring that unites the celestial
and the terrestrial, while all the clustering
white-robed denizens of the sky lowering
around rejoice at the nuptials. This
booll-it is the wreath into which are
twisted all garlands; it is the song into
which are struck all harmonies; it is the
river into which are poured all the great
tides Of hallelujah; it is the armament
in which suns, and moons, and stars, and
consultations, and galaxies, and immensi-
ties, and universes, and eXternities
wheel, and blaze, and triumph. Where is
the young mans SOUL with any music in
it, that is not stirred with Jacobs lament
OF Nahum's dirge, or Habakkuk's dithy-
-ambic, or Paul's march of the Tesur-
rection, or Johns anthem? where the
elders, with doxology on their faces, re-
spond to the trumpet blast of the arch
angel, as he stands with one foot on the
sea and the other foot on the land, swear
ing by him that liveth forever and ever thaf
time shall be no longer. / will under
take to say that every great bool
that has been published since the frs
printing press was lifted, has directly ol
indirectly derived much of its power from
the sacred oracles. Goethe, the admired
Of all sceptics, had the wall of his house
at Weimar covered with religious maps
and pictures. Milton's paradise Lost" il
a part of the Bible in blank verse. Tassoh
"Jerusalem Delivered" is borrowed from
the Bible. Spencer's writings are imita
! tions of the parallels. John Bunyan saw
in dream only what st. John had befort
seen in apocalyptic vision Macaula.
rounds his most gigantic sentences will
Scripture quotations. Through Addison1
Spectator" there glances in and out thr
stream that broke from beneath tn
throne of God, clear as crystal. Waite
Scott,s best characters are Bible men ant
women under different names. Meg Mer
rifles, the witch of Endor, Shakes
- IJeare's Lady Macbeth was Jezebel
Hobbies stole from this Castle Of Trutl
the weapons with which he afterward as
saulted it. Lord Bryon caught the rugged
ness and majesty of his style from tn
! prophecies The writings Of Pope ar
,Ae.T fth ha find hf
/ most successful theme in the Messiah
] The poets Thompson and Johnson, dippe
their pens in the style Of the inspired
r Orientals Thomas Carlyle is only
{ splendid distortion Of Ezekiel; and wan
dering through the lanes and parks 0
) this imperial domain Of Bible truth, / fin
, all the great American, English, German
D Spanish, Italian poets, painters, orator
, and rbetOricians.
! am also amazed at the variety Of thi
Book Mind you, not contradiction o
? collision, but variety. just in the SON
q you have the bas5o and alto, and sOpran
. / and benor-they are not in collision wit
D each other, but come in TO make up tn
{ harmony-so it is in this Book, there ar
' different parts Of this great song Of re
4 | demption The prophet comes aud take
{ | one part, and the patriarch another part
. | and the evangelist another part, and tn
2 / apostles another part and yet they a
/ come into the grand harmony-the son
= Of 'sMoses and the Lamb" If God had in
= gpired men Of the same temperament &
> write this Book it might have bee
' monotonous; but David, and Isaiah, an
{ Peter, and Job, and Ezekiel, and Pau
0 and John, were men of different tempera
= ments, and so, when God inspired them Z
: write, they wrote In their own style. co
. prepared the Book for all classes of people
: For instance. little children would read th
. / Bible, and God knew that, SO he allow
: Matthew and Luke 70 write sweet sto
= ries about Christ with the doctors of tn
s law, and Christ at the woll, and Christ p
= the cross, so that any httle child can IN
4 l. Al