Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1899-12-07
mind and heart washed with carsols

hhihu ohu Acdit WdShcu Win CdfboA1
acid!
tell you at this point in my dis
course that a man who does not like
this book and who is critical as to its
contents. and who is shocked and out
ragged with its descriptions. has never
been soundly converted. The laying
on OF the hands of Presbytery or Epis-
ccpacy does not always change a.man's
heart. and men sometimes get into the
pulpit as well as into 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, expurga-
ton of the heart is what is wanted.
You cannot make me believe that the
Scriptures, which this moment lie on
the table of the purest and best men
and women OF the age, and which were
the dying solace of your kindred passed
into the skies, have in them faint
which the strongest microscope of hon
est criticism could make visible. II
meI are uncomfortable in their indig-
nation when the integrity of wife or
child is assailed, and judges and jurors
as far as possible excuse violence I'M
der such provocation, what ought to be
the overwhelming and long resounding
thunders OF condemnation for any man
who will stand in a Chri0 ian pulpit
and assail the more than virgin purity
OF inspiration, the well beloved daugh-
ter of God?
Expurgate the Bible! You might as
well go to the old picture galleries in
Dresden and in Venice and in Rome
and expurgate the old paintings. Per-
haps you could find foot of Michael
Angeles Last Judgment" that might
be improved. Perhaps you could throw
more expression into Raphaefs Ma
donna" Perhaps you could put more
pathos in Rubens' Descent 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
the forms and the posture of the stat
ues of Phidias and Praxiteles. Such an
iconoclast would very soon find himse'.
in the penitentiary. But 1t is worse
vandalism when man proposes to re-
| fashion these masterpieces OF inspira-
ton. az / to remodel the moral giants
of this gallery of God.
or all the works of Dore, the great
| artist, there was nothing SO impressive
as his illustrated Bible. What scene
of Abrahamic faith, or Edenic beauty,
OF dominion Davidic, or Solomor!c, OF
miracle, or parable, Of nativity or u
crucifixion, or of last judgment out :ne
thought leaped from the great Drain
to the skillful pencil, and from the
skillful pencil to immortal canvas. Tle
Louvre, the Luxembourg, the National
| Gallery Of London compressed within
two volumes of Dore's illustrated Bible.
But the Bible will come to better H.
lustration than that, my friends, when
all the deserts have become gardens.
| and all the armories have become acad-
emies. and all the lakes have become
| Gennesarets with Christ walking
them, and all the cities have become
Jerusalems with lowering Shekinah;
and the two hemispheres will be clap
ping symbols of divine praise, and the
round earth a footlight to EmanuePs
throne-that, to all lands. and all ages,
and all centuries. and all cycles will be
the best specimen of Bible illustrated.