News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1892-09-29

mail and javelins and engines Oh wal
and decentralization and encampmenUs'
IF YOU look for peculiar musical lnstru''
ments, you will find psalteries and sing
ionoths and rams horns. The anu
o. lrian will find in the Bible curiosltles
in agriculture, and in commerce, and III
art. and in religion that will keep him
absorbed a great while. There are
those who come to this Bible as you
would to a cabinet of curiosltles, and
YOU pick up this and say, ''What strange
sword that ISL and "What a peculiar
hat this ISL and "What an unlocked
for lamp that ISL and the Bible to such
becomes a British museum.
Then there are others who find noth-
ing in the Bible but the poetry. Wen,
if you come as poet, you Will nno Ill
this book faultless rhythm, and bold I'M
agerv, and startling antithesls, and rap
turous lyric, and sweet pastoral, ana
instructive narrative, and devotlonal
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 1mpas-
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 a great many people read it as they
do Thomas Moore's "Lalla Rookh," and
Walter SCOTS ''Lady of the Lake." and
Tennysons "Charge of the Light Br1-
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 a 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, 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 spal1e,
while they themselves prove the thing
possible by their own utterances.
| am amused beyond bounds when l
hear one of these 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 ''was" and the great ''to
be" and the everlasting ''no." Consider
ing themselves wise, they are fools for
time, fools for eternity.
AS TO VAIN DESTINATIONS.
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. II 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
ulssecr1ng knife OF controversy. Tney
war comes to armories or arsenals for
weapons and munitions. They have de-
clared everlasting war against all other
5ects, and they want so many broad
swords, SO many muskets, so many
hOwitzers, so many columbiads, so much
grape and canister, so many ieldpieces
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 boasting of the number of scalps he
has taken. have more admiration for
a man who goes forth with his fists to
get the championship than have for
these theological 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 pas
sage of the Scriptures that they like bet
ter than all others, and that is this:
BLESSED be the Lord which teacheth my
hands to war and my fingers to fight"
Woe to us if we come to Gods word as
controversialists, or as gkeptics, or as
connoisSeurs, or as fault finders, or mere
ly as poets!
Those only get into the heart of Gods
truth who come seeking Christ. Wei
come all suchl They will find him COM
ing out from behind the curtain of pro-
phecy 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 chronological calculation, in po-
etc stanZa and in historical narrative, in
profound parable and in startling mira
Gle. 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 Olivet and Jeru-
salem.
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. 1t is only the man who comes
and knocks at the gate, saying, 81 would
see Jesus" For him the glories of that
book open, and he goes in and finds
Christ, and with him peace, pardon,
life, comfort and heaven. "All in all is
Jesus" in the Bible.
Iremark again that Christ is every
thing in the great plan of redemption