The Sully County watchman. (Clifton, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1894, 1893-01-27
FEAR>OF THE LORD.
1t Should Have Been "Rever-
ence" in the Revision Says
Rev. p. Il. HOiD.
No Terror and No Torture in the
Sentence---The Author
tiles Quoted.

Inc lear OF tne LOrd is the begin
ming of wisdom" We must have a
beginning in order to be wise, but
the sentence ''The fear of the Lord"
is a beginning misinterpreted by the
majority of people. The wise men
are united in their explanation, the
plain people united in their
explanation, but the one is the very
opposite of the other. By ''fear" the
majority of the people seem to under
stand that trembling, terror, torture
that we experience when we think of
ghosts and goblins, and when we
speak of the fear of the Lord they
seem to indicate the same relation
ship toward him.
A minister returning from a Sun
day morning service met the son of a
parishioner and said: II hardly
think your father fears God" The
innocent, unsuspecting youth replied,
II am sure that he does for he took
his gun with him."
Every commentator assures us that
there is no terror, no torture in the
sentence THE fear of the Lord" |
believe that the plain people have
been living upon the bitterness of
the shell. while the wise men have
enjoyed the sweet, life-giving kernel.
| am not inclined to superstition
with regard to the number thirteen,
but have noticed that this sentence
occurs thirteen times in the book of
Proverbs and the general misunder-
standing concerning it would lead me
more than anything else to be super
stitious of that number. II we get
the foundation of building wrong,
the superstructure is necessarily
wrong. If we get misinterpretation
Of this sentence it makes wrong
understanding of the teaching Of the
whole of the Old Testament
Scriptures. | know that ministers
are charged with eXaggeration of
every theme that they discuss. l am
sure that l cannot eXaggerate this
one. | wish that / might have all
the people from Sea-shOre to sea-Shore
within the sound of my voice and
that | might be able to drive a
locomotive and twenty cars through
this false understanding of the fear
Of the Lord.
DR.. Richards, who is leading medi-
Cal authority, says that fear is one of
the influences most destructive of
vitality. Solomon declares in
another proverb that 1.-The fear of
the Lord prolongeth days" We know
that the plain people are wrong and
the wise men are right because God
would not have us encourage d
passion that would tend to the
shortening of life. Again, the
Prophet Isaiah declares Of the COM
ing Christ: ellis delight shall be in
the fear of the Lord" Some men
and women cannot be happy unless
they are miserable, but we know of
the Son of God that he could not
delight in anything except what was
a delight in the judgment of his
God.
Thoughtful men have in all ages
tried to account for the existence of
man in this universe. Some philoso-
pher says that it originated by
chance; others by fortuitous con-
course of atoms. Some have said
that air, light, water, mud and fire
were the originators of the universe.
Man has long been out in the wide
world seeking the lost reason Of
things. He has sought by all the
sea-shores where the tides come and
sink back: he has carried on his
search in the fields and woods where
tree and leaf and fruit delight and
amaze; he has continued his studies
at night under the silent stars. He
has been still more deeply thought
full among the multitudes OF men as
they have triumphed or suffered, and
at last he has come in from his long
wandering and declares that no
system will for a moment compare
with the divine philosophy, which
says God originated us and this
universe. The divine philosophy
makes the existence Of supreme
being its starting point. All systems
are compelled to start with an
assumption. Materialism assumes
that matter never began. Atheism
thus starts upon an assumption that
contains not one trace OF reason not
possessed by those who assume the
existence of God. God as start
ing point is superior to the cold
assumption of the eternity of matter
Maa, being at liberty to select either
origin of the cosmos, he would better
assume the eternal mind. No mans
life is secure under any flag or school
house shadow or beside any group OF
inventions and simply because there
ara murdnrars swarminv forth from