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

being the only mode of admission, and
that he saw there in the wastebasket for
| kindling for the fires manuscript of
the Holy Scriptures. That night he cop
led many Of the passages Of that Bible,
but it was not until Is years had passed
of earnest entreatv and prayer and coax
ing and purchase on his part that that
COPY of the holy Scriptures was put into
| the hand of the emperor of Russia
that one copy so marvelously protected.
Do you not know that the catalogue
of the books of the Old and New Tesla
ments as we have it is the same cata-
logue that has been coStng down
through the ages? Thirty-n. " books of
the Old Testament thousandsy Of years
ago. Thirty-nine now. TwtA ty-seven
books of the New Testament 1 800 years
ago. Twenty-seven books of the New
Testament now. Marcion, for wicked
ness, was turned out Of the church in
the second century, and in his assault
on the Bible and Christianity he Incl
dentally gives catalogue Of the books
of the Bible-that catalogue correspond
ing exactly with Ours-teStimOny given
by the enemy Of the Bible and the enc
my of Christianity. The catalogue now
just like the catalogue then. Assaulted
and spit on and torn to pieces and
burned, yet adhering. The book today,
in 800 languages, confronting four fifths
of the human race in their own tongue.
Four hundred million copies Of it in ex-
istence Does not that look as if this
book had been divinely protected as if
God had guarded it all through the cen
turies?
Book Epidemics.
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 in
to the sepulcher of forgetfulness have
only frightened the fame Of this. There
is not one book out of 1 900 that lives five
years. Any publisher will tell you that.
There will not be more than one book out
of 20, 900 that will live a century. Yet
here is book, much Of it 1 600 years
old and much Of it 1000 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. Would
you not think that an old book like
this, some of it 40 centuries old, would
come along hobbling with age and on
crutches? Instead of that, more potent
than any other book of the time. More
copies of it printed in the last ten years
than of any other book-Walter Scott s
Wouor1ou Novels Maoo177or'c sc HI
of England - DisraeIi's "Endymion,"
the works Of Tennyson and Longfellow,
and all the popular books of our time
having no such sale in the last ten years
as this old worn out book. Do you know
what struggle a book has in order to
get through one century or two centuries?
Some old books, during a fire in a serag-
lilo of Constantinople, were thrown into
the street. A man without any educa
ton picked up one Of those 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 20 books of history. All
lost. The most Of Menander's writings
lost Of 1870 comedies of Plautus, all
gone but 20. Euripides wrote 100
dramas, all gone but 10. Hschlyus
wrote 100 dramas, all gone but seven.
Varro wrote the laborious biographies Of
700 Romans, not fragment left. Quln-
lillian wrote his favorite book on the cor
ruption Of elOquence, all lost. Thirty
books of Tacitus lost. Dion Cassius
wrote so books, only 20 remain. Berosi-
u.s. history all lost.
Attempts to Add to the Bible.
Nearly all the old books are mummi
fed and are lying in the tombs of old
libraries, and perhaps once in 20 years
some man comes along 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 40 centuries old, stands today more
discussed than any other book, and it
challenges the admiration of all the
good and the spite, and the venom, and
the animosity, and the hypercriticism
of earth and hell I appeal to your COM
mon sense if a book SO divinely guarded
and protected 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 book failed but all the
attempts to add to it, Many attempts
were made to add the apochryphal books
to the Old Testament The council of
Trent, the synod of Jerusalem, the bish
ops of Hippo, all decided that the apoch
ryphal books must be added to the
Old Testament. ''They must stay in,
said those learned men, but they staid
out. There is not an Intelligent Chris