Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1895-06-10

book of Revelation; and others would
say. "Out with the entire Pentateuch, !"
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 cxpurgation of the Scriptures means
their humiliation.
The Family Bible.
I am also opposed to this proposed ex-
purpation of the Scriptures for the fact
that in proportion as people become self
sacrificing and good and holy and con-
secrated, they like the book as it is. I
have yet to find q man or a woman dis
tinguished for self sacrifice, for conse-
Grafton to God, for holiness of life, who
wants the Bible changed. Many of us
have inherited family Bibles. Those BIZ
bles were in use 20, 40, so, perhaps 100
years in the generations. Today take
down those family Bibles, and find out
if there are any chapters which have
been erased by lead pencil or pen, and
if in any margins you can find the
words, 'This chapter not fit to read !"
There has been plenty of opportunity
during the last half century privately
to expurgate the Bible. Do you know
any case of such expurgation? Did not
your grandfather give it to your father,
and did not your father give it to you?
Besides that [ am opposed to the ex-
purgation of the Scriptures, because the
so called indelicacies and cruelties of
the Bible have demonstrated no evil re-
suit. A cruel book will produce cruelty
An unclean book will produce I'M
cleanness. Fetch me a victim Out of
all Christendom and out of all the ages
fetch me 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 80 or 40 years, morning
and evening, had all the members gath
cred together, and the servants of the
household, and the strangers that hap
pened to be within the gates-twice a
day, without leaving out chapter or q
verse, they read this holy book morn
ing by morning, night by night. Not
only the older children, but the little
child who could just spell her way
through the verse while her mother
helped her, the father beginning and
reading one verse and then all the mem
bers of the family in turn reading q
verse. The father maintained his integ-
rity, the mother maintained her integ-
rity, the sons grew up and entered pro-
LESSONS and commercial life, adjoining
every sphere in the life in which they
lived, and the daughters went into fam
lilies where Christ was hOnOred, and all
that was good and pure and righteous
reigned perpetually. For 80 years that
family endured the Scriptures. Not one
of them ruined by them.
No Gliding of Sin.
Now, If you will tell me of a family
where the Bible has been read twice
day for 80 years, and the children have
been brought up in that habit, and the
father went to ruin, and the mother
went to ruin, and the sons and daugh-
ters were destroyed by tiff you will
tell me of one such incident, | will
throw away my Bible or I will doubt
your veracity. I tell you if a man is
shocked with what he calls the indelica-
cies of the word of God he is prurient
in his taste and imagination. If q man
cannot read SOlomOn's Song without
impure suggestion, he is either in his
heart or in his life a libertine.
The Old Testament description of
wickedness, uncleanness of all sorts, is
purposely and righteOusly a disgusting
account, instead of the Byronic and the
Partisan vernacular, which makes sin
attractive instead of appalling When
those old prophets point you to Il laza-
rettO, you understand it is q lazaretto.
When a man having begun to do right
20 1c lon 5r,tn
his integrity, the Bible does not say lie
was overcome by the destinations Of the
festive board, OF that he surrendered to
cOnvivialities, or that he became a lit
tie 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 il
the mire' No gliding Of iniquity No
garlands on a death S head. No pound
ing away with silver mallet at iniq-
uity when it needs an iron sledge ham
mer.
I can easily understand how people
brooding over the description Of unclean-
ness in the Bible may get morbid in
wings, and the beak, and the nOstril,
and the claw of buzzard are full of the
odors of q carcass, but what is wanted
is not that the Bible be disinfected, but
that you, the critic, have your mind and
heart washed with carbolic acid.
I tell you at this point in my dis
course that a man who does not like
this book, and who is critical as to it's
contents, and who is shocked and out
ragged with it's descriptions, has never
been soundly converted. The laying on
of the hands Of presbytery or episcopa-
cy does not always change a 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. The