The Kosciusko star. (Kosciusko, Miss.) 18??-1898, 1895-09-20
The Unbinding of the Book.

Men are always trying to get
back to first impressions, to see
and feel things at their source.
Matthew Arnold, in one of his
poems, expresses the desire thus:
<'Who can see the green earth any more
As she was by the sources of time?
Who imsgines her fields as they lay
In the sunshine, unworn by the plough?
Who thinks as they thought, breast,
The tribes who then roamed on her
Her vigorous primitive sons"
And one of the French writers has
lately expressed the same idea as
follows. "Wc can never get out
side ourselves. This is one of our
greatest sources of misery. What
would we give to see heaven and
earth for a single minute with the
eve of fly, or to comprehend ma
ture with the rude and simple
brain of the ourang-outang?" To
sac things as they are or were,
without prepossession or prejudice,
perfectly fresh and objective, and
outside of ourselves. is one of the
great experiences of the soul. We
get the rewards, but we pay the
penalties. of intimacy.
There are many who are striving
to get and who are getting the eX-
perience of seeing the Bible as a
new book We want to catch. if
we can, the first blush of the
Scriptures, to experience some OF
the delightful surprise that a
prophet felt when, after long de-
NAL, hls nation AT last favored his
message with the seal Of public
reading, and let it into thu canon
of their acceptance. We want to
realize time when the now close
ly welded chapters were perhaps
the prophets old sermons which
would not stay old. We want to
read net only the Book, but to dis
integrate the Book into the books.
To this pleasant work the Bible
student is now invited, to unbind
the book and to giveless Difference
to "the covers Of Holy Writ" as
the old expression is. and to know
the Holy Writ as it was before 1t
came into the accident OF covers.
1t was, no doubt, q great conven-
fence when, from the numerous
scrolls. the Bible came into one
volume; and it has spread the
whole revelation where only parts
might have gone. But it has its
disadvantage in the fact that most
of us know something of all the
parts, but very few thoroughly.
Very few other works would
thrive under this tight and re-
morseless crowding together.
There is sense of surfeit and of
overwhelming immediateness abou,
any mans work bound together in
one volume. 1t discourages us;
we do not !.now where to begin
Headway in Bible study is slow
measured by the whole book, but
swift, measured by the books
With a mans poems, essays, and
narratives bound up in one vol.
ume, we should lose some of the
distinct favor that belonged to
each. A sense of largeness and
dignity is given to the study of the
Old Testament when We realize
that there is within our reach q
nations literature. TO be tamil
Jar with the literature of any ma
ton is great accomplishment
Bible study needs to be extended
from the often narrowed concep
ton of getting good from it" tc
the further conception of it as ma
king US possessors of a nation;
literature and thought.
1t seems as if it might be help
full if we hal the Bible as we have
other works, in many volumes
and could feel that there along on
bookshelve5 lay a national lit r,
ture. II it were so that Isaial
might get lost or mislaid, and W,
had to borrow another, or Philip
plans and Ephesians were lost o
loaned Just when we wanted it, W.
might come back to them with al
expectancy that would do us gooG
If we ha1 the Scripturesin dczer
glorious volumes to share the hon
org we bestow on lesser books, W,
should realize how much we have
as never before. IN this fatal,
compressed volume are sixty-si,
Il II Il