The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1900-01-18

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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
or old libraries, and perhaps once in
twenty years some man comes along
and picks up one of them and blows
the dust off, 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 the good and the
spite and venom and the animosity
and the hyper-criticism of earth and
hell. l 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 If 1t 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 it. 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-
clded that the apochryphal books must
De added to the Old Testament. "They
must stay in" said those learned men;
put they stayed out. There is not an
intelligent Christian man today that
VIII put the Book of Maccabees or the
BOOK CT 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
eplstles and gospels and apocalypses
written and added to the New Testa-
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 it
with the intention of detracting from
the book or casting out any of these
holy pages.
am also opposed to this proposed
eSpurgation of the scriptures for the
tact that in proportion as people be-
come se'f-sacrificing and good and
holy and consecrated. they like the
BOOK as 1t is. l have yet to find man
or woman distinguished for self-sac-
rlnce, Tor conservation to Cod 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 a hun
dred years in the generations. Today
take down these family Bibles, and
md 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 is not
mt to read" There has been plenty of
opportunity during the last half CEN
tury privately to expurgate the Bible.
Do you know any case of such expur-
cation? Did not your grandfather give
It 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 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 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 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 mem
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, IL you will tell me Of 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, l will
throw away my Bible, or 1 will doubt
your veracity. l tell you, if man is
shocked with what he calls the indeli-
cacies of the Word of God, he is pruri-
ent in his taste and imagination. If
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 a 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