The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1888-04-06
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A Discourse on the Authenticity and
GenuinenesD Of the Bible.


Genuineness Of the Bible.
The Greatest Of An Books, Adapted q
Every Condition In Life and the
One Source Of eolace When
An Else Fan.
In q recent sermon delivered at the
Second Presbyterian Church, st. Louis,
/ Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage took for his sub.
ject ssThe Authenticity Of the Bible" his
text being:
The statutes Of the Lord ore risht-Psalm
xix. g.
He said:
Old books go out Of date.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, OF
| advocated institutions which excite not
our interest. Were they books Of history,
! the facts have been gathered from the i'm
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.
| 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 people 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 q few excep-
tons, 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 a middle life
of usefulness, then comes old age, they
totter and die. 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 virtuous, and accomplished glori-
Gus mission. Some went into the ashes
through inquisitorial fires. Some found
their funeral pile in sacked and plundered
cities. Some were neglected and
died as foundlings at the door of science.
Some expired in the authors study, 9TH
ers in the publishers hands. Ever and
anon there comes into your possession an
old book, its author forgotten and its use.
fulness done, and with leathern lips it
seems to say: 81 wish I were dead"
Monuments have been raised over poets
and philanthr0pists. 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-
ligion would cOnsecrate it with their
tears.
Not so with one old book. It started in
the worlds infancy. 1t grew under theOc-
racy and monarchy. 1t withstoOd storms
of fire. 1t grew under prophets mantle
and under the fisherman's coat Of the
apostles. In Rome, in Ephesus, and Jeru-
salem, and PatmOs. Tyranny issued
edicts against it, and infidelity put out the
tongue, and MOhammedanism from its
mosques hurled its anathemas, but the old
Bible lived. 1t crossed the British Cham
mel, and was greeted 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 Of blessing; and every Sabbath
there are 10000 heralds Of the cross with
their hands on this open, grand, free, old
English Bible. But it will not have nc
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 scat
tered its gems among the diamond dis
tricts of Brazil, and all thrones shall be
gathered into one throne, and oil crowns
BY the fires of revolution shall be
melted into one crown, and this book
shall at the very gate of Aeaven have
waved in the ransOmed empires-nOt I'M
til then will this glorious Bible have &C.
cemplished 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
authorization, that it is right in style,
that it is right in doctrine, that it is right
in its effects. Can you doubt the anthem
ITCHY of the Scriptures? There is not so
much evidence that Walter Scott wrote
the "Lady Of the Lake," not SO much evil
dence that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet"
not so much evidence that John Milton
wrote 'Paradise LOst''-as there is evil
dence 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 a great many things, and was written
by bad men or impOsters, how long would
such q book stand? It would be secuted
by everybody. And 1 say, il that Bible
had been an impOsition-if it had not been
written by the men who said they wrote it
If it had been a mere collection Of false
hoods, do you not suppose that it would
have been Immediately rejected by the
people? II Job, and Isaiah, and jeremiah,
and Paul, and Peter, and John were i'm
posters, they would have been secuted by
generations and nations. If that book has
come down through fires Of centuries with
out scar, it is because there is nothing in it
lestructible. How near have they come
to destroying the Bible: When they began
their OBJ osition, there were two thousand
or three thousand copies Of it. Now there
are two hundred million, as far as can
calculate. These Bible truths, notwith-
standing all the opposition, have gone in
to all languages-intO the philosophic
Greek, the flowing Italian, the graceful
German, the passionate French, the pict-
uresque Indian, and the exhaustless An
slO-SaxOn. Under the painters pencil,
the birth and the crucifxiOn, and the res
direction glow on the walls Of palaces; or
under the engraver's knife speak from the
mantel of the mountain cabin; while
stones, touched by the sculptor's chisel,
start up into preaching apostles and as
cending martyrs. Now, do You not sup
pose, if that book had been an iE2o sition
and falsehoOd, it would have gone down
under these ceaseless fires of opposition?
Further, suppose that there was great
pestilence going over the earth, and hum
ilreds Of thousands of men were dying of
that pestilence, and some one should find a
medicine that cured ten thousand people,
would not everybody acknowledge that
that must be good medicine: Why,