Milford chronicle., 1895-06-14
MILFORD DEL, FRIDAY, JUNE IA 1895.

came little fast in his habits. win tel
! you what the Bible says 1.-THE dog /,
! turned to his own vomit again and tn,
/ sow that was washed TO her wallowing IN
! the mire." No gliding Of iniquity. Nc
garlands on a deaths head. No pounding
i away with a silver mallet at iniquity
, when it needs an iron sledge hammer
can easily understand how people,
brooding over the description Of unclean-
ness in the Bible, may get morbid in mind
until they arc as full Of it as the wings,
and the beak, and tho nostril, and the
claw Of a buzzard are full of the odors of a
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 acidl
tell you at this point in my discourse
that a man who does not like this book
and who is critical as to its contents and
who is shocked and outraged with its de-
scriptions, has never been soundly con-
verified. The laying on Of the hands Of
presbytery or episcopacy does not always
change mans heart, and men sometimes
get into the pulpit as well assinto 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 with the word of God. All,
my friends, expurgation Of the heart Is
| what is wanted.
You cannot make me believe that tho
/ Scriptures, which this moment lie on the
table of the purest and best men and
women of the age, and which were the dy-
ing solace 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 uncOn-
troIlable in their Indignation when the in
tegrity of wife or child is assailed, and
judges and jurors rs far as possible excuse
violence under such prOvocation, what
ought to be tho overwhelming and long
resembling thunders Of condemnation for
any man who will stand in Christian
pulpit and assail the moro than virgin
purity of inspiration, the well beloved
daughter Of God?
Expurgate the Biblel 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 find a foot of Michael Angeles /
LAST Judgment" that might be improved. /
Perhaps you could throw more expression |
into Raphael's Madonna" Perhaps you |
could put more pathos into Rubens' "De- |
scent From the Cross. " Perhaps you could /
change the crests of the waves in Turner's |
"Slave Ship" Perhaps you might go into !
the old galleries of sculpture and change |
tho forms and tho posture Of the statues Of
Phidias and Praxlteles. Such an icono-
clast would very soon find himself in the
penitentiary. But it is worse vandalism
when 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, 60 clear
over to the other side. Let them stand be-
hind the DEVILS guns. There can be no
between infldelity and Chris
tianity. Give US the out and out Opposi-
ton of infdelity rather than the work of
these hybrid theOlogians, these mongrel
these half evoluted people,
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 ,
and do not believe in the inspi- !
ration of the criptures-trimming their ,
belief on one side to suit the skepticism of !
the world, trimming their belief on the !
other side to suit tho 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 q
very much, and that is that tho Lord made /
1ut to manage the universe before they !
we're born and will probably be able to
make out to manage the universe a little n
while after they are dead. While demand 4
hat the antagonists Of the Bible, and the :
rites of the Bible go clear over where +
hey belong, on the devils side / ask that n
VI the friends Of this good book come out =
,penly and above board in behalf Of it. r
That book, which was the best inheritance !
-ou ever received from your ancestry, and n
which will be the best legacy you will leave n
o your children when you bid them good +,
" as you cross the ferry to the golden city. n
Young man, do not be ashamed of your 4
Bible. There is not virtue but it COM
nends, there is not sorrow but it COM Fl
orts, there is nas a good law on the stat /,
tie book Of any country but it is founded VI
n these Ten Commandments. There are r.
10 Drawer, grander people in all the earth N
han the heroes and the heroines which it h.
Biographies. II
OF all the works of Dore, the great art a,
st, there was nothing so impressive as his II
Illustrated Bible. What scene Of Abra- ri
annie faith, or Edenic beauty, of domin- CO
III Davidic or Solomonic, Of miracle or
arabic, of nativity or Of crucifxion, or la
last Judgment but the thought leaped III
'om the great brain to the skillful pencil, N
nd from the skillful pencil to canvas i'm
lOrtal The Louvre, tho Luxembourg,
10 National gallery of London compressed
thin two volumes Of DOre's illustrated hs
ible. But the Bible will come to better til
lustration than that, my friends, when tn
i the deserts have become gardens, and le
I the armories have become academies, Sc
nd all the lakes have become Gennesarets
it'll Christ walking them, and all the cit lei
S have become Jerusalems, with hover to
e Shellinah, and the two hemispheres nv
iall be clapping cymbals of divine praise ca
Id the round earth footlight to Emanu or
g throne-that to all lands, and all ages, We
I'd all centuries, and all cycles, will be mi
10 best SPECIMEN of Bible illustrated
of