The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-06-10

impure suggestion. he is either in his heart,
OF in his life. a libertine.
The Old Testament description Of wick
edness, uncIeanness OF all sorts, is pur-
posely and righteOusly a disgusting ac-
count. instead Of the Byronic and the Pa
risian Vernacular which makes sin attrac-
tive instead Of appalling. When those
old prophets point you % a lazeretto,
you understand 1t g a lazerctto. When
a man having begun 10 do right falls back
into wickedness and gives up his integ-
rity. the Bible does not say he was over
come b. the destinations OF the festive
board, or that he surrendered 10 convivi-
aiities. or that he became a little fast In
his habits. I will tell you what the Bible
SAYS. THE dog is turned 10 his own vomit
again, and the SOW that was washed 10
her wallowing IN the mire." No gliding OF
iniquity No garlands on a deaths head.
40 pounding away with a silver mallet at
Iniquity when it needs an iron sledge-
hammer.
] can easily understand how people,
brooding over the description OF uaclean-
ness in the Bible. may get morbid in mind
until they are as full of it as the wings
and the beak and the nostril and the claw
Of a buzzard is full Of the doors of car
cass: but what is wanted is not that the
Bible be disinfected but that you. the
critic, have your mind and heart wash
ed with carbolic acid.
tell you at this point in my discourse
that a man who does not like this Book
and who is critical as 10 it's contents. and
who is shocked and outraged with it's de-
scriptions. has never been soundly con-
Verted. The laying on Of the hands Of
Presbytery. or Episcopacy, does not al
ways change a mans heart, and men
sometimes get into the pulpit as we'll 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 trouble is mems natures are
not brought into harmony witb the Word
Of God. All. my friends, expurgation Of
the heart is what is wanted.
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 solacc of your kindred passed into
the skies, have in them a faint which the
strongest microscope Of honest
criticism could make visible If
men are uncomfortable in their
Indignation when the integrity of wife and
child is assaiNd. and judges aud jurors as
far as possible excuse violence under such
provocation. what ought TO be the over
whelming and long resounding thunders CT
condemnation for any man who Will stand
in a Christian pulpit and assail the more
than virgin purity Of inspiration the well
beloved daughter Of God?
EXpurgate the Billet You might as well
go to the old picture galleries in Dresden
and in Venice and In Rome and expurgate
the old paintings. Perhaps you could ind
foot of Michael Angeles Last Judg-
ment" that might be improved. Perhaps
you could throw more expression into Rap
hael's Madonna" Perhaps Won could
put more pathos into Rubcns' Descent
from the Cross" Perhaps you could
change the crests of the waves in Turner's
slave Ship" Perhaps you might 20 into
the old galleries of sculpture and change
the forms and the posture of the statues
OF Phidias and PraXitees. Such an icono-
claSt would very soon find himself in the
penitentiary. But it is worse vandalism
when man proposes TO re-fashion these
masterpieces of inspiratic=. ami TO remod-
ell 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 part and that part Jf il. go
clear over to the other side.
Let them stand behind the
devils guns. There can be no compro-
mise between inhdelity and Christianity
Give us the out and out opposition of in
fidelity rather than the work of these hy-
brid theologians, these mongrel coolest
astics, these half evoluted people who be-
lieve the Bible and do not believe it who ac-
cept the miracles and do not accept them,
who believe I'm the Inspiration of the
Scriptures and do not believe in the inspir-
alton of the Scriptures-trimming their
belief on one side TO suit the scepticism Of
the world, trimming their belief on the
other side to suit the pride of their own
heart and feeling that in order to demon
strate 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 probably be able
to make out to manage the universe a
little while after they are dead While l
demand that the antagonists of the Bible,
and the critics of the Bible so clear over
where they belong, on the DEVILS side,
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 leg
acy 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 COM
mends, there is not a sorrow but it COM
forts, there is not a good law on the stat
ute book of any country but it is founded
on these Ten Commandments. There are
no Drawer, grander people in all the earth
biographies.
OF all the works of Dore, the great art
list, there was nothing so impressive as
his illustrated Bible. What scene of Abra-
hamic faith or Edenic beauty, of domin-
ion Davidic, or Solomonic, of miracle, or
parable, of nativity, or of crucifiXion, or
of last judgment but the thought leaped
from the great pen to the skillful pencil
and from the skillful pencil TO canvas i'm
mortal. The Louvre, the Luxembourg
the National 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 be-
come gardens ana all the armores have
become academies, and all the lakes have
become Gennesarets 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 footlght to Emanuers throne
that, to all lands, and all ages, and all