The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1892-09-30

and battle. 1t Is a wonderful history
putting TO the blush all others in the ac
curacy Of its recital and In the stupen
dous events ii records. Homer and Thu
cydides and Gibbon could make grea
stories ont of little events; but II took |
Moses to tell how the heavens and thu
earth were made in one chapter, and I.
give the history of thousands Of year.
upon two leaves.
MISUSE OF THE BIBLE.
There are others who come to tn,
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, tunics, sandals, orisping 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 wa,
and decentralization and encampments
If you look for peculiar musical instru
ments, you will find psalteries and shig
ionoths and rams horns. The anti
quarian will find in the Bible curiosities
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 a cabinet of curiosities, and
you pick up this and say,"Whata strange
sword that isr' and "What a peculiar
hat this isI' and "What an unlocked
for lamp that isw and the Bible to such
becomes British museum.
Then there are others who find moth
ing in the Bible but the poetry. Well,
if you come as poet, you will find in
this book faultless rhythm, and bold i'm
agery, and startling antithesis, and rap.
turous lyric, and sweet pastoral, and
instructive narrative, and devotional
psalm; thoughts expressed in style
more solemn than that of Montgomery,
more bold than that of Milton, more ter.
rible than that of Dante, more natural
than that of Wordsworth, more impas-
stoned than that of Pollock, more tender
than that of Cowper, more weird than
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 eter-
nal harmonies in its rhythm.
Everything this book touches it makes
beautiful, from the plain stones of the
summer thrashing floor, and the daugh-
tiers of Major filling the 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, Arcturus and
the Pleiades. 1t is a wonderful poem,
and great many people read it as they
do Thomas Moore's "Lalla Rookh," and
Walter SCOTS "Lady of the Lake." and
Tennyson's "Charge Of the Light Bri-
gade." They sit down, and are so alb
sorbed in looking at the shells on the
shore that they forget to look off on the
great ocean of Gods mercy and saliva
ton.
Then there are others who come to
this book as skeptics. They marshal
passage against passage, and try to get
Matthew and Luke in quarrel, and
would have discrepancy between what
Paul and James say about faith and
works, and they try the account of
Moses concerning the creation by
modern decisions in science, and resolve
that in all questions between the scien-
tifc explorer and the inspired writer they
will give the preference to the geologist.
These men-these spiders, I will say
suck poison out of the sweetest flowers.
They fatten their infdelity upon the
truths which have led thousands 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 man of God
mentioned in that Bible these carrion
crows cav and flap their wings over the
carcass. Because they cannot under
stand how the whale swallowed Jonah
they attempt the more wonderful feat of
swallowing the monster whale of mod
ern skepticism. 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.
l am amused beyond bounds when l
hear one of tnTese men talking about
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 man; it is an eff
forescence of the dynamic forces into
state of ethereal and transcendental lu-
cubration, in close juxtaposition to the
ever present twas" and the great "to
be" and the everlasting mo" Consider
Ing themselves wise, they are fools for
time, fools for eternity.
AS TO VAIN DESIGNATIONS.
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; if 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 arsenals for
weapons and munitions. They have de-
clared everlasting war against all other
sects, and they want SO many broad
swords, SO many muskets, SO many
howitzers, so many columbiads, so much
grape and canister, so many fieldpieces
with which to rake the field of dispute,
for they mean to get the victory though
the heavens be darkened 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 achievements as an Indian war
rior Boosting of the number of scalps he
has taken. have more admiration for
man who goes forth with his fists to
get the championship than have for
these theological puoilists who mako n, r