The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1899-12-08

Do you not know that tho catalogue
.She books OF the Old and New Tesla
ments as we have 1t, is the same cat
| alogue that has been coming on down
through the ages? Thirty-nine books
of the Old Testament thousands OF
years ago. Thirty-nine now. TWEEN
| ty-seven books Of the New Testament
sixteen hundred years ago. Twenty
seven books of the New Testament
now. Marcion, for wickedness, was
| turned out of the church in the second
century, and in his assault on the b.
BILE and Christianity he incidentally
gives a catalogue of the books OF the
Bib,e-that catalogue corresponding
exactly with ours-testlmony given by
the enemy of the Bible and the enemy
of Christianity The catalogue is now
| just like the catalogue then. Assault
ed and spit on and torn to pieces and
burned, yet adhering. The book today,
in three hundred languages, confront
ing four-fifths Of the human race IN
their own tongue. Four hundred MIL
lion copies of 1t in existence. Does
not that look as II this book had been
divinely protected, as If God had
guarded it all through the centuries!
Nearly all the other old books are
mumifled 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 oil,
and opens it, and finds it the book he
does not want. But this old book, much
of 1t forty centuries old, stands today
more discussed than any other book,
and it challenges the admiration OF all
tho good and the spite and the venom
and the alimosity and the hyper-criti-
cism of earth and hell. | appeal to
your common sense,if a book so divine
ly guarded and protected in its pres
ent shape, must not be in just the way
that God wants it to come to us, and
If 1t pleases God, ought it not to please
us?
Not only have all the attempts to
detract from the book failed, but all
the attempts to add to it. Many at
tempts were made to add the apochry-
phal books to the Old Testament. The
Council of Trent, the Synod Of Jerusa-
lem, the bishops of Hippo, all decided
that the apochryphal books must be
added to the Old Testament. They
must stay in" said those learned men;
but they stayed out. There is not an
intelligent Christian man that today
will put the Book of Maccabees or the
Book of Judith beside the Book of
Isaiah or Romans. Then great many
said: I'VE must have books added to
the New Testament" and there were
epistles and gospels and apocalypses
written and added to the New Tesla
cannot add anything. You cannot sub
tract anything to the divinely protect
cd book in the present shape. Let no
man dare to lay his hands on it with
the intention of detracting from the
book, or casting out any of these holy
pages.
| am also opposed to this proposed
eXpurgation of the Scriptures for the
fact that in proportion as people be-
come self-sacrificing and good and holy
and consecrated, they like the book as
it is. | have yet to find man or
woman distinguished for self-sacrfice,
for conservation to God, for holiness of
| life, who wants the Bible changed.
Many of us have inherited family BIZ
bles. Those Bibles were in use twenty,
forty, fifty, perhaps hundred years in
the generation. Today take down
these family Bibles, and find out if
there are any chapters which have
been erased by lead pencil or pen, and
if in any margins you can find the
words, This chapter not fit to read"
There has been plenty of opportunity
during the last half century privately
to expurgate the Bible. Do you know
any case of such expurgation? Did
not your grandfather give /. to your
father, and did not your father give it
to you?
Beside that, | am opposed to the ex-
purgation of the Scriptures because the
so-called indelicacies and cruelties OF
the Bible have demonstrated no evil
result A cruel book will produce
cruelty-an unclean book will produce
uncleanness. Fetch me victim. Out
of all Christendom and out of all the
ages, fetch me victim whose heart
has been hardened to cruelty, or whose
life has been madeT impure by this
book. Show me one. One of the best
families | ever knew, for thirty or
forty years, morning and evening, had
all the members gathered together and
the servants of the household, and the
strangers that happened to be within
the gates-twice a day. and without
leaving out a chapter or a verse. they
read this holy book. morning by morn
ing, night by night. Not only the elder
children, but the little child who could
just spell her way through the verse
while her mother helped her. The
70