Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1900-01-18

human race in their own tongue. Four
hundred million copies of it in ex-
istence. Does not that look as this
book had been divinely protected. as
God had guarded 1t all through the
centuries!
Nearly all the other old books are
mumified and are lying In the tombs
OF old Libraries. and perhaps once in
twenty years some man comes along
and picks up one OF them and blows
the dust OF, and opens 1t and finds 1t
the book he does not want. But this
old book. much of It forty centuries
old. stands today more discussed than
any other book. and II challenges the
admiration of all the good and the
spite and venom and the luminosity
and the hyper-criticism of earth and
hell. appeal to your common sense.
II book SO divinely guarded and pro-
tected in its present shape must not be
In just the way that God wants It to
come to us. and II II pleases God. ought
1t not to please us?
Not only have all the attempts to de-
tract from the book failed, but all the
attempts to add to II. Many attempts
were made to add the apochryphal
books to the Old Testament. The
council OF Trent. the synod of Jeru-
salem. the bishops of Hippo. all de-
cided 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 today that
will put the Book of Maccabees or the
Book OF Judith beside the Book OF
Isaiah or Romans. Then a 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
ment. but they have all fallen out.
You cannot add anything. You can
not subtract anything to the divinely
protected book in the present shape
Let no man dare to lay his hands on 1t
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 1t is. have yet to find a man
or woman distinguished for self-sac-
rlfce, for conservation to God, for holi-
ness OF life, who wants the Bible
changed. Many of us have inherited
family Bibles. Those Bibles were in
use twenty. forty, fifty, perhaps hun
dred years In the generations. Today
take down these family Bibles, and
md out II there are any chapters
which have been erased by lead pencil
or pen, and II in any margins you can
find the words: This chapter is not
mt to read" There has been plenty of
opportunity during the last half CEN
fury privately to expurgate the Bible.
Do you know any case of such expur-
cation? Did not your grandfather give
1t to your father. and did not your
father give 1t 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 always pro-
duce cruelty-an unclean book will
| produce uncleanness. Fetch me a VIC
tim. Out of all Christendom and out
| of all the ages, fetch me a victim
whose heart has been hardened to
cruelty, or whose life has been made
impure by this book. Show me one.
| One of the best families l 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 hap
pened to be within the gates--twice a
day. without leaving out chapter or
verse. they read this holy book, morn
ing by morning, 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 father beginning and
reading one verse, then all the men,
bers of the family in turn reading a
verse. The father maintained his in
| tegrity, the mother maintained her in
tegrity, the sons grew up and entered
professions and commercial life ,adorn-
ing every sphere In the life in which
| they lived, and the daughters went into
families where Christ was honored and
all that was good and pure and right
eous reigned perpetually. For thirty
years that family enduring the Scrip
lures. Not one of them ruined by
them.
Now, II you will tell me OF a family
where the Bible has been read twice a
day for thirty years. and the children
have been brought up In that habit.
and the father went to ruin, and the
mother went to ruin. and the sons and
daughters were destroyed by tiff you
will tell me of one such incident, I will
throw away my Bible, or I will doubt
your veracity. tell you, II a man is
shocked with what he calls the indeli-
cacies of the Word of God, he is pruri-
ent in his taste and Imagination. II
man cannot read Solomon's Song
without impure suggestion, he is either
in his heart or In his life. libertine.
The Old Testament description Of
wickedness, uncleanliness of all sorts,
is purposely and righteously disgust
ing account, instead of the Byronic and
the Partisan vernacular which makes
sin attractive instead of appalling.
When those old prophets point you to
lazaretto, you understand 1t is a
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
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