The Yale expositor. (Yale, St. Clair County, Mich.) 1894-current, 1899-12-08

WlckedneSS, uncleanneSS Oh all SOrLs
is purposely and righteously disgust
ing account, instead of the Byronic and
the Partisan vernacular which makes
sin attractive instead of appalling.
When these old prophets point you to
a lazaretto you understand 1T Is
laZaretto. When a man having begun
to do right falls back into wickedness
and gives up his integrity, the Bible
does not say he was overcome by the
destinations of the festive board, or
that he surrendered to convivialities,
or that he became a little fast in his
habits. | will tell you what the Bible
says: THE dog is turned to his own
vomit again, and the SOW that was
washed to her wallowing in the mire.
No gliding of iniquity. No garlands on
a death's-head. No pounding away with
a silver mallet at iniquity when 1t
needs an iron sledge hammer.
can easily understand how people,
brooding over the description OF un-
clcanness in the Bible, may get morbid
in mind until they are as full of 1T as
the wings and beak and the nostril and
the claw of a buzzard are full of the
odors of carcass; but what is want
ed is not that the Bible be disinfected.
but that you, the critic, have your
mind and heart washed with carbollc
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-
copacy does not always change n 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! nay 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
ihto the skies, have in them a faint
which the strongest microscope of hon
est criticism could make visible. If
mel 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 Christian pulpit
and assail the more than virgin purity
of inspiration, the well beloved daugh.
ter of God?
EXpurgate the Bible! You might as
we'll 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
iconociast would very soon find himself
in the penitent!ary. But it is worse
vandalism when man proposes to re-
fashion these masterpieces of inspira-
ton. aEi to remodel the moral giants
of this gallery of God.
OF 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 Solomonic, of
miracle, or parable, of nativity or OF
crucifiXion, or of last judgment but the
thought leaped from the great brain
to the skillful pencil, and from the
skillful pencil to immortal canvas. The
Louvre, the Luxembourg, the National
Gallery of London compressed within
two volumes of Dore's illustrated Bible.
But the Bible will come to better IL
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 Sheklnah;
and the two hemlspheres will be clap
ping symbols of divine praise, and the
round earth a footlight to Emanuels
throne-that, to all lands, and all ages,
and all centuries, and all cycles will be
the best specimen of Bible illustrated.
yagaries of Mrs. NacCsrmick.
rrhn ,rn 90 rios Of Mr. AInnCa-..iol- o..