The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1895-07-05

Of other books into the aopulohor or forget.
inlneaa have only bdghtonei the fame ~
this, There q not enc book one 0i 1000 that
lives Eve years. ANY publisher viii tell you
THAT There will not BE more than enc book
ont of 10000 that viii live a century. Yet
here o. book. much Of q 1000 yoau old and
much Oi % 5000 years old and with more r.
bound and residence and strength in il than
when the book was ani pat upon parchment
or papyrua.
Ths book cav the cradle OF all other
books, and it Wlll sea their graves. Would
you NOT think that an old book like this
some oi % forty centuries Ola, would come
along hobbllng With ago and on cruichaaf
Instead of that, more potent than any other
book Of the time More copies Of q printed
In the last ten year than Of any other book
-Waltor SCOTS Waycrley Novels. MaeHu-
lays "HIstorY Of England" Dlsraeli's "En
dymlOn' the works Of TennVa0n and Long
fellow, and all the popular books OF ouftlme
having no such sale fl che last ten yeara AZ
this old worn out book DO YOU know what
q struggle n book has IN order % got through
one century ortwo centuriosf Some old books,
during a IRE IN a senglio OF CONSTANT
noplo, were thrown into the street. A man
without any education picked up one ofthoso
books, read q. and did not see the value Of H.
A scholar looked over HIS shoulder and saw
u was the FIRST and second decades Of Livy,
and he offered the man large reward II ho
would bring the books 90 his study, but In
the excitement 0f the FIRE the two parted, and
the first and second decades % Livy were for
ever lost. Plny wrote twenty books Of his
tory. All lost. The most OF Monanders
writings lost. OF 100 comedies OF plautus.
oil gone but twenty. Eunpides wrote 100
dramas, all gone but nineteen. Hsehlyus
wrote 100 dramas all gone but seven. YarrO
wrote the laborious biographies OF 100 Ro-
mans, not a fragment left Quintilan wrote
his iayorite book on the corruption Of elo-
quence, all lost. Thirty books Of Tactitus
lost. Dion Cassius wrote eighty books, only
twenty remain. BeFoslus's history an lost.
Nearly all the old books are mummined
and are lying In the tombs Of old Libraries,
and perhaps once In twenty years some man
/ comes along and picks up one OF them and
| blows the dust on and opens it and finds Il
| the book he does not want. But this old
/ book, much Of It forty centuries old, stands
to-day more discussed than any other book,
and II challenges the admiration Of all the
good and the spite and the venom, and the
luminosity, and the hypercriicism Of earth
/ and hell i appeal TO your common sense If
| book 80 divinely guarded and protected In
/ It's present shape must not be I'm Just the way
| that God wants It 30 come 10 as. and If It
1 pleases God ought It not 10 please us?
Not only have all the attempts 10 detraet
/ from the book failed, but all the attempts TO
/ add 10 II. Many attempts were made 10 add
| the apochryphal books to the Old Testament.
/ The council Of Trent, thesynod Of Jerusalem,
/ the bishops Of Hippo, all decided that the
/ apochryhal books must be added 10 the Old
! Testament. "They must stay in, " said those
/ learned men, but they staid 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
1 Romans. Then a great many said, eve
must have books added 10 the New Testa-
ment," and there were epistes and Cos
pels and apocalypses written and added
10 the New Testament, but they have all
fallen out You cannot add anything. You
cannot substract anything, Divinely pro-
tected book in the present shape. Let no
man dare to lay his hands on It with the in
tention Of detraeting from the book or cast
Ing out any Of these holy pages.
Besides that i am opposed to this expurga-
ton of the Scriptures because ifthe attempt
were successful, it would be the humiliation
Of the Bible. Inadel biologists would say,
"Out with the Book OF Genesis" inidel as
tronomers 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;" people who do not
believe In the miracles would say, "Out with
all those wonderful stories in the Old and
New Testament and some would say,
"0ut with the Book Of Revelations" and
others would say, "Out with the entire Pen.
tateuch, and the work would 60 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 humiliation.
am also opposed to this proposed expur
cation of the Scriptures for the fact that In
proportion as the people become self-saerl
fcing and good and holy and consecrated
they like the book as it is. have yet to fine
a man or a woman distinguished for self
sacrifice, for conservation to God, for hOli
ness of life, who wants the Bible changed
Many of us have inherited family Bibles
Those Bibles were in use twenty, forty, fifty
perhaps 100 years in the generations To
day take down those family Bibles, and fin
out IL there are any chapters which hay
been erased by lead pencil or PEN and If il
any margins you can find the words, "Thi
chapter not fit to read" There has bee
plenty Of opportunity during the last hal
century privately to expurgate the Bible
Do you know any case Of such eXpurgation
Did not your grandfather give it to you
father, and did not your father give it
you2
Besides that I am opposed to the e2
purgation of the Scriptures, because the sc
called indelicacies and cruelties Of the Bib
have demonstrated no evil result A cru'
book will produce cruelty. An unclean boo
will produce uncleanness. Fetch me viz
tim. Out of all Christendom and out of a
the ages fetch me victim whose heart ht
been hardened to cruelty or whose life hS
been made impure by this book Show n
one. One of the best families ever kne
Of for thirty or forty years, morning an
evening, had all the members gathered t
gether, and the servants Of the household
and the strangers that happened to be With
the gates-twice a day, without leaving 81
chapter or verse, they read this ho
book, morning by morning, night by nigh