Mexico weekly ledger. (Mexico, Mo.) 1855-1956, 1897-05-20
THE BIBLE INSPIRED.

tne IunuamentdlS OF CnrlSIlaHlly. LII
arguments by which Christians sup
port their doctrine of the inspiration
of the Bible are many. Granted, first
that there is a God, it is reasonable
that He should make revelation o.
His will to His creatures. That the
Bible has come off victorious III every
attack that h as been made on it is 8
fact beyond dispute, and leads us tC
believe that iI will continue its victo-
ries. That the predictions and proph-
ecies of the Old Testament were
spoken, in some instances, hundreds
of years before their fulfillment, and
were yet fulfilled to the letter is be-
yond dispute and proves the super
natural origin of the Book. That
Moses wrote the Pentateuch is not
only accepted by the best Biblical
scholars of the day, but is also being
confirmed by almost every turn of the
spade in the excavation of ancient
many of its books, was written in an
age OF corruption and vice, and yet
that it presents the best code of NOR
ais the world has ever known, are
facts, and thus warrants us in saying
that it must, then, have come from
God. That no land that has for any
number of years been without the
Bible has prospered, is a fact. Wit
ness Greece, with its poetry and art,
worshipping Venus, the personitlca-
tion of lust, and thus descending,
stage by stage, until even her women
lost their shame and blind despair was
the fruit of an unchristianized philos-
ophy. Witness Rome, with its law
and its system Of ethics, as taught by
Cicero, yet failing to lift man up into
a life of moral purity. Witness France,
the nation that once tried to do with
out this Book, caused it to be tied to
the tail of an ass, to be dragged in
contempt through the streets. What
was the consequence? France was
sea of blood, and Lamartine wrote:
"The Republic without a God was
quickly stranded"
On the other hand, the people that
have had the Bible-from these alone
flow the streams that arc beautifying
the moral wastes in our world. The
Sandwich Islands, once cannibal, are
now civilized, and that by the Bible,
and the great moral levers of the
world are to- day, as one says, Bible
England, Bible Scotland and Bible
America.
The Bible freed Italy ana 1t is to- day
striking more shackIes from the feet
of slaves, clothing more naked and
feeding more hungry, and housing
more homeless and purifying more
degraded than all the other literature
of the world. Paul believed in the
Bible and said it was all inspired, and
Christ, whom even His enemies ad-
NIT to be the best man that ever lived
and the greatest figure in history, held
to the inspiration of the Bible and be-
ieved that the Books of the Old Test
ament were penned under Gods di-
rection by the men whose names they
bear.
If the Book is forgery, and not
what 1t claims to be, then we have the
paradox of men who, while claiming
as facts things which they knew to be
false, were yet teaching the purest
truth the world has ever known.
If the Bible is not from God, then
we have this stranger thing to accounG
for, viz: The greatest statesmen, pro-
foundest thinkers, bravest soldiers
and most scholarly scientists believ-
ing in and drawing their noblest ideas
and impulses and purposes from a
book whose every word is an untruth.
If it is false (and therefore a bad
book how can you account for such
testimonies as the following:
Sir Walter Scott, shattered in for
tune and health, said to his son-in
law, l'Bring me the Book" "What
book?" asked Mr.. Lockhart. "There
is but one Book" was the answer.
The famous author was correct, if it is
true that "God spake all these words";
and that it Is true may be fairly pre-
sumed from the character of the wit
ness, from the nature and extent of
his influence, and from the "Words''
themselves
Moses lived thousand years before
Herodotus, "the Father of History"
and according to the historian, at least
five hundred years before Homer,
"the Father of Poetry" although Mr..
Gladstone places the date of the poet
a little earlier. "These words" in
four brief propositions, sum up our
duty to men; and although written so
long ago, they constitute the basis of
the jurisprudence of the civilized
world.
Cardinal Gibbons has truly re-
marked in a recent sermon:
The Decalogue is 700 years older
than the Jurisprudence of Lycurgus; it
is 2, 200 years older than that of JUS
tinian; it Is 2,700 years older than that
of the Magma Charta; it is $500 years
older than the code of Napoleon, and
almost as many years older than the
American Constitutlon-and yet the
Decalogue is better known to- day and
more universally inculcated than any
laws framed by the hand of man. It'll
Is an historical monument that has re- |
mained impregnable for thousands of
years, and has successfully withstood
the violent shocks of the most for
midable assailants. There is not a
single arch, or column, or keystone
in the sacred edifice that does not
show some marks of foreign of domes-
tic assault. But there 1t stands, as
firm as the pyramids, unshaken and
unriven by the upheavals and revolu-
tions of centuries.
1t is said that Earl Cairns, one of
the ablest and most successful lawyers
OF recent days, told a father who con-
suited him about the books his son
needed to study as preparation for
the practice Of the law, "Let him be-
gin with the Bible; for there he will
find the foundation of all law, as well
as of all morality" The same senti-
ment has been expressed again and
again by eminent lawyers.
Sir Matthew Hale, for example, re-
cords his opinion: 81 have been ac-