Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-10-06

tinkling ornaments. II you come to look
at military arrangements, you will find
coats Of mail and jayelins and engines OF
war and decentralization and encamp-
ments. IL you look for peculiar musical
instruments, you will find psalteries and
shigionOths and rams horns. The anti
qunrian will find in the Bible curiosities
in agriculture, and in commerce, and in art,
and in religion that will keep him alb
sorbed great while. There are those who
come to this Bible as you would 10 a cabi-
net of curiosities, and you pick up this and
say. What strange sword that Isl" and
What peculiar hat this isl" and what
an unlocked for lamp that isl" and the
Bible 10 such becomes British museum.
Then there are others who find nothing
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 antithesis, and rapturous lyric,
and sweet pastoral and instructive narra-
tive, and devotional psalm; thoughts ex-
pressed in a style more solemn than that
Of Montgomery, more bold than that of
Milton, more terrible than that of Dante,
more natural than that Of Wordsworth,
more impassioned 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 it's garland and
pours eternal harmonies in its rhymth.
Everything this book touches it makes
beautiful, from the plain stones of the
summer thrashing floor, and the daughters
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 wonderful poem, and a great many
people read it as they do Thomas Moore's
"La1la ROokh," 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 saliva
tion.
BLIND UNDELIEF IS SURE TO ERR.
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 q
discrepancy between what Paul and James
say about faith and works, and they try
the account of Moses concerning the crea-
tion by modern decisions in science and
resolve that in all questions between the
scientific explorer and the inspired writer
they will give the preference to the geolo
gist. These men-these spiders, will say
suck poison out of the sweetest flowers.
They fatten their infidelity 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 apostl.
with apostle, and if they can find some bad
trait of character in a man of God men
toned in that Bible these carrion crows
cav and flap their wings over the carcass.
Because they cannot understand how the
whale swallowed Jonah they attempt the
more wonderful feat of swallowing the
monster whale of modern 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 ut.
terances.
am amused beyond bounds when hear
one of these men talking about future
life. Just ask a man who rejects that
your soul. He will tell you that heaven is
merely the development of the internal re-
sources of man; it is an efflorescence of
the dynamic forces into state of ethereal
and transcendental lucubration, in close
juxtaposition to the ever present "was,"
and the great ito be-" and the everlasting
no" Considering themselves wise they
are fools for time, fools for eternity.
VAIN AND FOOLISH DISPUTES.
Then there is another class of persons
who come to the Bible as controversialists.
They are enormous Presbyterians or fierce
Baptists or violent Methodists They cut
the Bible to suit their creed instead of cut
ting their creed to suit the Bible. If the
Scriptures think as they do, WE'LL if not,
so much the worse for the Scriptures The
Bible is merely the milestone on which
they sharpen the dissecting knife of con-
troversy. They come to it as a govern.
ment in time of war comes to armories
or arsenals for weapons and munitions.
They have declared everlasting war against
all other sects, and they want so many
broadswords, 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 warrior
boasting of the number of scalps he has
taken. Ihave more admiration for man
who goes forth with his fists to get the
championship than have for these theo-
logical pugilists who make our theological
magazines ring with their warcry. There
are men who seem to think the only use of
the sword of truth is to stick somebody.
There is one passage of the Scriptures that
they like better than all Others and that is
this: blessed be the Lord which teacheth
my hands to war, and my fingers to fightp
Woe to us il we come to Gods word as
controversialists, or as skeptics, or as con-
noisseurs, or as fault tnGers or merely as
poetsl
Those only get. into :he heart of Gods
truth who come seeking Christ We'll
come all such They will find him coming
out from behind the curtain of prophecy
until he stands in the full light of New
Testament disclosure, Jesus, the Son of
God, the Saviour of the world. They will
find him in genealogical table and in chro.
biological calculation, in poetic stanza and
in historical narrative, in profound para
BILE and in startling miracle. They will
see his foot on every sea, and his tears in
the drops of dew on Hermon, and hear his
voice in the wind and behold his words all |
abloom in the valley between Mount OIL
vet and Jerusalem.
There are some men who come and walk |
around the Temple Of Truth and merely
see the outside. There are others who |
walk into the porch and then go away. |
There are others who come in and look at |
the pictures, but they know nothing about |
the chief attractions of the Bible. It is |
only the man who comes and knocks at |
the gate, saying, II would see Jesus" For