The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-08-14
THE GOOD BOOK.
The Subject of DR.. Ta!nage's
Sermon.
The Greatest of All Books and How it has
Lived-A Grand Sermon to
Great Audience.

DR.. Talmage at Chautauqua yesterday. The
big tabernacle was crowded with people.
The Sermon.
Subject: The Splendors of the Scriptures.
Text: 1.-THE statutes of the Lord are right"
Psalm 1873
Old books go out of date. When they were
written, they discussed questions which were
being discussed; they struck at wrongs which
had long ago ceased, or advocated institutions
which excite not our interest. Were thew
books of history, the facts have been gathered
from the imperfect mass, better CLASH
fed 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 sun
rise. Were they books of morals, civilization
will not sit at the feet of barbarism neither do
we want Sappho, Pythagoras and Tully to
teach us morals. What DO the masses of peo-
pie care now for the pathos of Simonides, or
the sarcasm of Menander or the gracefulness
OF Philemon, or the wit of Aristophanes?
Even the old books we have left, with few
exceptions, have but very little effect upon
our times. Books are human they have 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 de-
Many Of the national libraries are
merely the cemeteries of dead books
Some of them lived fagitious lives,
and died deaths of ignominy. Some were viz.
tuous, and accomplished glorious mission.
Some went into the ashes through inquisitor-
fal fires. Some found their funeral pile in
sacked and plundered cities. Some were neg
lected and died as foundings at the door of
science. Some expired in the authors study
others in the publishers hands Ever and
anon there comes into your possession an old
nd 10
done, and with leathern lips it seems to say:
II wish were dead" Monuments have been
raised over poets and philanthropists. Would
shat some tall shaft might be erected in honor
OF the worlds buried books. The worlds
authors would make pilgrimage thereto and
poetry and literature, and science, and religion.
would consecrate it with their tears.
Not SO with one old Book 1t started in the
worlds infancy. 1t grew under theocracy and
monarchy. 1t withstood storms of fire. 1t
grew under prophets mantle and under tho
nshermans coat of the apostles. In Rome and
EphesuS. and Jerusalem and Patmos. Tyran-
ny issued edlcts against it, and intidelty put
out the tongue, and Mohammedanism from its
mosques hurled its anathemas, but the old BIZ
BILE lived 1t crossed the British channel, and
was greeted by Wiclzliffe and James T. 1t
crossed the Atlantic and struck Plymouth
Rock, until like that of Horeb it gushed with
blessedness Churches aud asylums have gath
cred all along its way, ringing their bells
and stretching out their hands of blessing;
and every. Sabbath there are ten thous-
and heralds of the cross with their
old English Bible. But it will not have ac-
complished its mission until it has climbed
the icy mountains of Greenland, until it has
gone over the granite cliffs of China, until it
has thrown its glow amid the Australian
mines, until it has scattered its gems among
the diamond districts OF Brazil, and all thrones
shall be gathered into one throne, and all
crowns by the fires of revolution shall be
melted into one crown, and this Book shall at
She very gate ot heaven have waved in the
ransomed empires-not until then will this
glorious Bible have accomplished its mission
When my parents died the best part of the
legacy received was the old family Bible.
Dear old book! That was the book they put
on the center table after their marriage and
they consecrated their lives by chapter from
its pages. That was the book they read when
their children died. and there is the mark of a
tear at the story of the resurrection. These
chapters are all worn out with oft perusal.
There is the passage: Cast thy burden on
the Lord, and He will sustain thee" Dear
old book! 1t has no gilt edges, it has
no ridges on the cover; but it
the staff they leaned on for moro than three
score years and ten. That was the light that
shone on them when the world got dark. That
was the tree that oozed the balm for all their
heartaches Dear old book How remem-
Der you when, sitting on my mo$her's knee,
looked at the pictures, while mother looked
down into the deeper mysteries of salvation.
Dear old book! 1t ought to be wrapped up in
damask and gold. When | die | want it bv
my pillow, so that [ can see it. shall charge
my children to let everything go before they
let that book go. May all joy fly my heart,
and my sight go out into darkness, and all
sweetness turn into wormwood and gall, and
my life become to me plague, and all sweet
sounds jar into discord, and my head be pill
lowless, and my name accused, if ] ever for
get to honor and love my mothers Bible!
In carrying out the idea of my teXt-"the
statutes of the Lord are right shall show
you that the Bible is right in Authorization,
that it is right in style, that it is right in doc
trine, that it is right in its effects. Can you
doubt the authenticity of the scriptures2
There is not so much evidence that
not so much evidence that Shakespeare
wrote Hamlet not so much evidence that
John Milton wrote Paradise Lost"-as there
is evidence 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
stand? 1t would be secuted by everybody.
And I say, if that Bible had been an impos-
tion-if it had not been written by the men
who said they wrote tiff it had been a mere
collection of falsehoods, do you not suppose
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 ma
tons. If that Book has come down through
fires of centuries without a scar, it is because
there is nothing in it destructiblo. How near
have they come to destroying the Bible? When
they began their opposition, there were two or
three thousand copies of it. Now there are
two hundred millions, as far as can calculate.
These Bible truths, notwithstanding all the OPP
position, have gone into all languages-into |
the philosophic Greek, the flowing Italian, the !
graceful German, the passionate French, the |
picturesque Indian, and the exhaustless Anglo |
Saxon. Under the painters pencil, the birth,
and the cruciiixion, and the resurrection glow |
on the walls of palaces; or under the engravers !
knife speak from the mantel Of the mountain |
cabin; while stones, touched by the sculptors |
cbisel, start up into preaching apostles and |
ascending martyrs. Now, do you not suppose, |
Ii that Book had been an imposition and a |
falsehood, it would have gone down under |
these ceaseless fires of opposition?
Further suppose that there was a great pes
Silence going over the earth, and hundreds of |
thousands Of men were dying of that pesti- /
lence, and some one should find a medicine |
that cured ten thousand people, would not ey-
erybody acknowledge that that must he a good .
medicines Why, some one would say: do I
Won DENY it2 There have been ten thousand /