The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1888-04-26

and they tell us that by their own experi-
ment it is three days. journey around (ac-
cording to the old estimate of a days
Journey, and that it was literally de-
stroyed by fire and water-two antagonis-
tic elements-a part Of the city having
been inundated by the River Tigris 1.-THE
brick material in those times being dried
clay instead of burned; while in other
parts they find the remains of the fire in
heaps of charcoal that have been excavat-
ed, and in the calcined slabs of gypsum.
Who was right, the Bible or infdelity:
Moses intimated that they had vine
yards in Egypt. absurd" cried hun
dreds of voices, ''you can't raise grapes in
Egypt or, if you can, it is very great
exception that you can raise them" But
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. 1t 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. 1
know there are great many people who
yy,k &c arnIxy Of
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 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 door by
which to enter and a 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 Paul's letters?
Suppose you get 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 ''Dear SIR" and end with "Yours
truly" Now here is a letter written from
the throne Of God to our lost world; it is
f.rl1 ..fr j
tons, 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 lounSing 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,
thrum the song of health. While your
vision is clear walk in this paradise 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 paragraph 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 q pearl diver who could gather
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
allure 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; it is the
home of all smajesties 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
book-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,
or Nahum's dirge, or Habakkuk's dithy-
rambic, or Paul's march of the resur-
| 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 that
time shall be no longer. I will under
take to say that every great book
that has been published since the first
printing press was lifted, has directly or
| 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. Millions paradise LOST is
part of the Bible in blank verse. Tasso's
Jerusalem Delivered" is borrowed from
the Bible. Speneer's writings are imita-
tons Of the parallels. John Bunyan saw
In dream only what st. John had before
seen In apocalyptic vision. Macaulay
rounds his most gigantic sentences with
SAx~T x,&w. -