The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1892-09-28


alypse. know there are great many
people who do not find Christ in the
Bible. Here is a man who studies the
Bible as a historian. Well, IL you come
as a historian you will find in this
book how the world was made, how
the seas fled to their places, how en-
pires were established, how nation
fought with nation, javelin ringing
against harbegeon, until the earth was
ghastly with the deed. You will see
the coronation of princes, the triumph Of
conquerors, and the world turned upside
down and back again and down again,
cleft and SCARED with great agonies OF
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
it records. Homer, and Thucydides
and Gibbon could make great stories
out Of little events; but it took Moses
to tell how the heavens and the earth
were made in one chapter, and to give
the history of thousands of years upon
two leaves.
There are others who come to the
Bible merely as antiquarians. II you
come as an antiquarian you will find a
great many odd things in the Bible; pc
culiarities Of manner and custom, mar
riage and burial; peculiarities of dress,
tunics, sandals, crisping-pins, amulets
and girdles, and tinkling ornaments. II
you come to look at military arrange
ments you will find coats of mail, and
javelins and engines of war, and cir
cumvallation and encampments II you
look for peculiar musical instruments,
you will find psalteries, and shigio-
moths, and rams horns. The anti
quarian will find in the Bible curiosi-
ties in agriculture, and in commerce,
and in art, and in religion, that will
keep him absorbed great while. There
are those who come to this Bible as you
would to cabinet of curiosities, and
you pick up this and say: "What a
strange sword that Isl" and "What q
peculiar hat this ISL and "What an un-
looled-for lamp that isl" and the Bible
to such becomes British museum.
Then there are others who find moth
ing in the Bible but the poetry. Well,
II you come as poet, you will find in
this book faultless rhythm, and bold
imagery, and startling an tithesis, and
rapturous lyric and sweet pastoral and
instructive narrative, and devotional
psalms, thoughts expressed in style
more solemn than that of Montgomery,
more bold than that of Milton, more
terrible than that of Dante, more natu'
raj than that of Wordsworth, more Inn
passioned 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 IT.
coronet, and II weaves the flames Of
Judgment in its garland, and pours eter
nal harmonies in its rythm. Everything
this book touches IL makes beautiful
from the plain ones Of the summer
threshing floor, and the daughters o.
Nahor filing the trough for the camels
and the fish pools Of Heshbon, up TO thu
Psalmist pTaising God with diapason o
storm and whirlwind, and Job LEADING
forth Orion. Arcturus and the Pleiades
II is wonderful poem, and a grea
many people read 1t as they do Thonral
, Moores "Lalla Roolh," and Waite
Scotts Lady Of the Lake" and Tenny
sons Charge Of the Light Brigade.
They sit down, and are so absorbed ii
looking at the shells on the shore tina
they forget TO look OF on the grea
ocean OF Gods mercy and salvation.
Then there arc others who come h
this book as skepticS They mavha
passage against passage, and try to go
Matthew and Luke in quarrel, ant
would have q discrepancy betweel
! what Paul and James say about faitl
and works; and they try the accoun
Of Moses concerning the creation b.
modern decisions in science, and resolv
| that in all questions between the scien
tifc explorer and the inspired write
! they will give the preference to tn
geologist. These men-these spiders,
will say-suck poison out of the sweetes
I flowers They fatteu their in6delit
upon the truths which have led thou
sands 10 Heaven, and in their distorte
} vision, prophet seems to war wit
prophet, and evangelist with evGngt
: list, and apostle with apostle; an
| II they can find some bad trait G
4 character in man of God mentione
in that Bible, these carrion crows cay
/ and flap their wings over the carcass
= Because they cannot understand HOY
the whale swallowed Jonah, they al
: tempt the more wonderful feat Of swa
' lowing the monster whale Of moder
= slkepticism They do not believe 1t poi
? sible that the Bible story should be tru
/; which says that the dumb ass spSk'
D while they themselves prove the thin
Q possible by their own utterances / M
5 amused beyond bounds when hear on
I of these men talking about futur
Q life. Just ask man who rejects tina
I Bible what heaven Ia, and hear hir
D befog your soul. He will tell you tina
heaven Is merely the development {
4 the internal resources of a man; II Is a
efflorescenee Of the dynamic forces int
. state of ETHEREAL and transcendents
, lucubration, In close juxtaposition
Q the ever present twas" and in the greS
ito be-" and the everlasting mo.
s Considering themselves wise, they ar
Q fools for time, fools for eternity.
a Then there IL another class Of person
, who come to the Bible as controvel
0 sialists. They are enormous Presby
a terians, or fierce Baptist, or violen
Methodists. They cut the Bible to SUI
' their creed, instead Of cutting the