The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-06-14

does not say he was overcome by the
fascination of the festive board, or
that he surrendered to convivialists,
or that he became a little fast in his
habits. will tell you what the Bible
says: ''The dog is turned to his own
vomit again, and the SOW that was
washed to her wallowing in the mire."
No gliding of iniquity. No garlands
on deaths head. No pounding away
with silver mallet at iniquity when
it needs an iron sledge-hammer.
l tell you at this point in my dis
course that a man who does not like
this Book, and who is critical as to its
contents, and who is shocked and out
ragged with its descriptions, has never
been soundly converted. The laying
on of the hands of presbytery or epis-
copacy does not always change mans
heart, and men sometimes get into the
pulpit as well as into the pew, never
having been changed radically by the
sovereign grace of God. Get your heart
right and the Bible will be right.
You cannot make me believe that the
Scriptures, which this moment lie on
the table of the purest and best men
and women of the age, and which were
the dying solace of your kindred passed
into the skies, have faint in them
which the strongest microscope of hon.
est criticism could make visible. If
men are uncomfortable in their indig-
nation when the integrity of wife or
child is assaulted, and judges and jurors
as far as possible excuse violence un-
der such provocation. what ought to
be the overwhelming and long re-
sounding thunders of condemnation
for any man who will stand in a Chris
tian pulpit and assail the more than
virgin purity of inspiration, the well
beloved daughter of God?
EXpurgate the Bible! You might as
well go to the old picture galleries in
Dresden and in Venice and in Rome
and expurgate the old paintings. Per-
haps you could find foot of Michael
Angeles Last Judgment that might be
improved. Perhaps you could throw
more expression into Raphaers Madon-
ma. Perhaps you could put more pathos
| into Ruben's Descent From the Cross.
| Perhaps you could change the crests of
the waves in Turner's Slave Ship. Per-
haps You might go into the old CALLER
les of sculpture and change the forms
| and the posture of the statues of Phid-
las and PraXiteles. Such an iconoclast
| would very soon find himself in the
penitentiary But it is worse vandal-
ism when a man proposes to refashion
| these masterpieces of inspiration and
| to remodel the moral giants of this
gallery of God.
Now. let US divide off Let those
people who do not believe the Bible
and who are critical of this and that
part of it. go clear over to the other
side. Let them stand behind the DEVILS
guns, There can be no compromise
between infdelity and Chris tianity.
Give US the out and out opposition of
infidelity rather than the work of these
hybrid theolo-ians, these mongrel
ecclesiastics, these half evoluted peo-
pie. who believe the Bible and do not
believe it, who accept the miracles and
do not accept them, who believe in the
inspiration of the Scriptures and do
not believe in the inspiration of the
Scr;ptures-trimming their belief on
one side to suit the skepticism of the
world, trimming their belief on the
other side to suit the pride of their
own heart. and feeling that in order to
demonstrate their courage they must
make the Bible a target and shoot at
God.
There is one thing that encourages
me very much, and that is, that the
Lord made out to manage the universe
before they were born, and will prob
ably be able to make out to manage
the universe a little while after they
are dead. While I dema nd that the
antagonists of the Bible and the critics
of the Bible go clear over where they
belong, on the devils side, l ask that
all the friends of this good Book come
out openly and above board in behalf
OF it. That Book, which was the best
inheritance you ever received from
your ancestry, and which will be the
best legacy you will leave to your
children when you bid them good-by
as you cross the ferry to the golden
city.
Young man, do not be ashamed of
your Bible. There is not virtue but
it commends. There is not sorrow
but it comforts, there is not a good
law on the statute book of any country
but it is founded on these Ten Com
mandmentS There are no drawer,
grander people in all the earth than
the heroes and heroines which it
Biographies
OF all the works of Dore, the great
artist, there is nothing so impressive
as his illustrated Bible. What scenes
of Abraharnic faith, or Edenic beauty,
of dominion Davidic, or Solomonic, of
miracle. or parable, of nativity, or of
crucifxion, or of last Judgment, but
the thought leaped from the great
brain to the skillful pencil and from
the skillful pencil to canvas immortal
The Louvre, the Luxembourg, the ma
tional gallery of London COM
pressed within two volumes of
Dore's illustrated Bible. But the
Bible will come to better illustration
than that, my friends, when all the
deserts have become gardens, and all
the armories have become academies,
and all the lakes have become Gennes-
arets with Christ walking them, and
all the cities have become Jerusalems
with lowering Shekinah; and the two
hemispheres shall be clapping cymbals
of divine praise, and the round earth a
footlight to Emanuers throne-that,t to
all lands, and all ages, and all GEN.
turtles, and all cycles will be the best
specimen of Bible illustrated.
Two Ways of Looking at 1t.
OutartOyu (enthuSiasticallvl - CT.