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

now. The Book to-day, in three hun
dred languages, confronting four fifths
of the human race in their own tongue.
Four hundred million copies of it in
existence. Does not that look as if
this Book had been divinely protected,
as if God had guarded it all through
the centuries?
Is it not an argument plain enough
to every honest man and every honest
woman. that book divinely protected
and in this shape is in the very shape
that God wants it? 1t pleases God and
ought to please us. The epidemics
which have swept thousands of other
books into the sepulcher of forgetful-
ness have only frightened the fame of
this. There is not one book out of
thousand that lives five years. Any
publisher will tell you that. There
will not be more than one book out of
twenty thousand that will live a CEN
fury. Yet, here is a book, much of it
sixteen hundred years old. and much
of it four thousand years old, and with
more rebound and residence and
strength in it than when the book was
first put upon parchment or papyrus.
This Book saw the cradle of all other
books, and it will see their graves.
Do you know what struggle book
has in order to get through one century
or two centuries? Some old books.
during fire in a seraglio of Constan-
tinople, were thrown into the street.
A man without any education picked
up one of these books, read it, and did
not see the value of it. A scholar
looked over his shoulder and saw it was
the first and second decades of Livy,
and he offered the man large reward
if he would bring the books to his
study. but in the excitement of the fire
the two parted and the first and second
decades of Livy were forever lost.
Pliny wrote twenty books of history;
all lost. The most of Menander's writ
ings lost. OF 1870 comedies of Plautus,
all gone but twenty. Euripedes wrote
a hundred dramas. all gone but nine
teen. Eschylus wrote a hundred
dramas. all gone but seven. Varro
wrote the laborious biographies of zoo
Romans, not a fragment left. Quin-
titan wrote his favorite book on the
corruption of eloquence, all lost. Thir-
tv books of Tacitus lost. Don Cassius
wrote eighty books. only twenty re-
main. Berosius' history all lost.
Nearly all the other old books are
mummified and are lying in the tombs
of old libraries, and perhaps once in
v, lnngr
and picks up one of them and blows
the dust off and opens it and finds it
the book he does not want. But this
old Book. much of It forty centuries
old, stands to-day more discussed than
anv other book. and it challenges the
of ali the good and the
spite and the venom and the luminosity
and the hypercriticism of earth and
hell. l appeal to your common sense
if book so divinely guarded and pro-
tected in its present shape, must not
be in Just the way that God wants it to
come to US, and if it pleases God,
ought it not to please US?
Not only have all the attempts to de-
tract from the Books failed, but all the
attempts to add to it. Many attempts
were made to add the apochryphal
books to the Old Testament. The COun-
ell of Ten. the synod of Jerusalem, the
bishops of Hoppe. all decided that the
apochryphal books must be added to
the Old Testament. They must stay
in" said those learned men; but they
stayed out. There is not an intelligent
Christian man that to-day will put the
book of Maccabees or the book of
Judith beside the book of Isaiah or
Romans. Then a great many said:
I'VE must have books added to the
New Testament" and there were epis-
ties and gospels and apochlypses writ
ten and added to the New Testament,
but they have all fallen out. You can
not add anything. You cannot sub
tract anything from the divinely pro-
tected book in the present shape. Let
no man dare to lay his hands on it with
the intention of detracting from the
Book, or casting out any of these holy
pages.
Beside that, am opposed to this ex-
purgation of the Scriptures, because if
the attempt were successful it would
be the humiliation of the Bible. In
fdel biologists would say: ''Out with
the book of Genesis" inidel astrono-
mers would say: ''Out with the book
of joshua" people who do not believe
in the atoning sacrifice would say:
Out with the book of LeviticuS;' peo-
pie who do not believe in the miracles
would saw: 'Out with all those won
derful stories in the Old and New Tes-
taments;" and some would say: "0ut
with the book of Revelations" ana
others would say: Out with the entire
and the work would go
on until there would not be enough of
the Bible left to be worth as much as
last years almanac. The eXpurgation
of the Scriptures means their annihila-
ton.
Beside that, am opposed to the ex-
purgation of the Scriptures, because
the so-called indelicacies and cruelties
of the Bible have demonstrated no
evil result. A cruel book will produce
unclean book will produce
Fetch me a victim. Out
of all Christendom and out of all the
ages, fetch me a victim whose heart
has been hardened to cruelty. or whose
life has been made impure by this
book Show me one. One of the best
families ever knew of, for thirty or
forty years, morning and evening, had
all the members gathered together,
and the servants Of the household, and
the strangers that happened to be
within the gates -twice day, without
leaving out chapter or a verse, they
read this holy book, morning by morn
ing, night by night.