The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1892-10-07

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earthquake and tempest, and battle.
1t is wonderful history, putting to
the blush all others In the accuracy of
its recital, and in the stupendous
events il records. Homer, and Thucy-
dides, and Gibbon could make great
stories out of little events; but it took
Moses to tell how the heavens and
the earth were made i'm one chapter,
and to give the history of thousands of
years upon two leaves.
There are others who come 20 the
Bible merely as antiquarians. If you
come as an antiquarian you will find
great many odd things in the Bible;
peculiarities of manner and custom,
marriage and burial; peculiarities of
dress, TUNES, sandals, crisping-pins,
amulets and girdles and tinkling orna-
ments- If you come to look at military
arrangements, you will find coats of
mail, and javelins and engines of war,
and decentralization, and encampments.
If you look for peculiar musical instru-
ments, you will find psalteries and
shigionoths, and rams horns. The an
tiquarian will find in the Bible curios-
tiles in agriculture, and in commerce,
and in art, and in religion, that will
keep him absorbed a great while.
There are those who come to the Bible
as you would to a ca binet of curiosities,
and you pick up this and say; "What a
strange sword this isl'' and "What n
peculiar hat this isl'' and "What an un-
looked-for lamp that isl' and the Bible
to such becomes British museum.
nothing in the Bible but poetry. Well,
if you come as poet, you will find in
this book faultless rhythm, and bold
imagery, and startling antithesis. and
rapturous lyric. and sweet pastoral,
and instructive narrative, and devo-
tional psalm; thoughts expressed in a
style more solemn than that of Mont
gomery, more bold than that of Milton,
more terrible than that of Dante, more
natural than that of Wordsworth, more
imprisoned than that of Pollock, more
tender than that of Cowper, more weird
than that of Spenser. This great poem
brings all the gems of the earth into
its coronet, and it weaves the flames
of judgment in its garland, and pours
eternal harmonies in its rhythm.
beautiful, from the plain stones of the
summer threshing-floor, and the daugh-
tiers of Major fillingothe trough for the
camels, and the fish pools of Heshbon,
up to the Psalmist praising God with
diapason of storm and whirlwind, and
Job leading forth Orion, Areturus and
the Pleiades. 1t is a wonderful poem;
and great many people read it as
they do Thomas Moore's "Lalla
''Roohh" and Walter Scott's Lady of
the Lake" and Tennyson's Charge of
the Light Brigade" They sit down
and are so absorbed in looking at the
shells on the shore that they forget to
look off on the great ocean of Gods
mercy and salvation.
Then there are others who come to
this book as skeptics. They marshal
passage against passage, and try to get
Matthew and Luke in a quarrel, and
would have discrepancy between Paul
and James say about faith and works,
and they try the account of Moses con-
corning the creation by modern deci-
sions in science, and resolve in all ques-
tions between the scientific explorer
and the inspired writer they will give
the preference to the geologist. These
men, these spiders, l viii say-suck
poison out of the sweetest flowers.
They fatten their infidelity upon
the truths which have led thou
sands to Heaven, and in their
distorted vision prophet seems to
war with prophet, and evangelist with
evangelist, and apostle with apostle;
and if they can find some bad trait of
character in a man of God mentioned
in that Bible, these carrion crows cav
and flap their wings over the carcass.
Because they can not understand how
the whale swallowed Jonah, they at
tempt the more wonderful feat of
swallowing the monster whale of mod
ern skepticis m. They do not believe it
possible that the Bible story should be
true which says that the dumb
ass spake, while they themselves
prove the thing possible by their own
utterances. 1 am amused beyond
bounds when i hear one of these
men talking about a future life. Just
ask man who rejects that Bible what
Heaven is and hear him befog your
soul. He will tell you that Heaven is
merely the development>of the internal
resources of a man; it is an ef1orescence
of the dynamic forces into a state of
ethereal and transcendental lucubra-
ton, in close juxtaposition to the ever
present "was," and the great Ito be, -
and the everlasting mo" Consider
ing themselves wise, they are fools for
time, fools for eternity.
Then there is another class of persons
who come to the Bible as controversial
lists. They are enormous Presbyterians,
or fierce Baptists, or violent Methodists.
They cut the Bible to suit their creed,
instead of cutting their creed to suit
the Bible. If the Scriptures think as
they do, well; il not, so much the worse
for the Scriptures. The Bible is merely
the milestone on which they sharpen
the dissecting knife of controversy.
They come to it as a government in
time of war comes to armories or arse
nails for weapons and munitions. They
have declared everlasting war against
all other sects, and they want so many
broad-swords, so many muskets, so
many howitzers, SO many colum biads,
so much grape and canister, so many
field-pieces with which to rake the field
of dispute; for they mean to get the
victory, though the heavens be dark
ened with the smoke and the earth
rent with the thunder. What do they
care about the religion of the Lord
Jesus Christ? / have seen some such
men come back from an ecclesiastical
massacre as proud of their achieve
ments as an Indian warrior. boasting
If f6a y,,,r, ~ coalre he hoe A.