The free press. (Poplarville, Miss.) 1890-19??, 1901-04-04
BILL ARP'S LETTER
He Delights to Receive Inspira-
ton From the Apocrypha.
QUOTATIONS FROM STRANGE BOOK.
Good Government For the Country Can
Only Be Brought About and Maintain
ed Through Family Influences

The family is the most important ir-
stitution upon the earth. 1t is the
hope of the world. It's influence is
greater than that of kings, emperors
or cabinets. Parents aud children
gather around the hearthstones in
separate families, make up communi-
ties, and they make states and nations
ind choose their rulers. AS the fam
lilies are, so is the government-good
or ad--men-unmarried men are
merely inGiv duals and feel no great
responsibility outside of their indi-
vidual comfort and welfare. But pa
rents are concerned for their children.
We live or them and would die for
them, consequently we want good gov
eminent that will protect them. But
it is not every family who feels this
deep concern.
From my window I see the homes Of
many neighbors and can count on my
fingers chose whose presence is safe
guard to the community, and the rest
|, Nfe of but little consequence. If they
were to move away it would not add to
our peril. So it is in all communities.
The few protect the many. SO it is in
church and state. Twenty members
of our legislature control its legisla-
ton. Ten members of an average
church membership give the church
its character. Sodom was destroyed be.
cause ten good men could not be found.
If all men were good we would have
no need of courts or prisons. But for
every church that is set on hill there
is jail in the valley.
/ hear the preacher calling and the
bell tolling from the one, and imagine
I hear the devil calling from the other,
and he cries out as the sergeants did
in the old muster language, ooh, yes!
Oh, yes! All who belong to Captain
Satan's company parade here" And
the people are going and coming all
the time some to one call and more to
the other. But as the devil can't be
heard afar off, he goes about calling,
and even invades the sanctuary and
calls aloud while the preacher is
preaching.
"Man never erects house Of prayer
But what the devil builds pulpit there,
And twill be found upon examination
The devil has the largest congregation"
His pulpit is always at the rear end
where the young people love to sit, and
you can tell how popular he is by the
number who sit there.
was Illuminating about this family
institution and its great importance in
the world because I have been read
ing about it in the Apocrypha, which
is one of our family Bibles. I heard
preacher say once that Bible with
we Apocrypha in it should not stay in
his house. Well, it took 1926 years
to exclude it from the Protestant BIZ
BILE, and most of it is in the Roman
Catholic Bible yet.
What is called a sacred canon was
not established until the sixteenth
century, and for centuries before that
almost every great theologian had his
own catalogue of inspired books as he
believed them. For 800 years only
ten of Paul's epistles were admitted.
The Book of ST. James and the Reve-
lation of st. John were excluded. So
were Esther and Daniel and Jonah in
the Old Testament. Luther tried to
have Hebrews, and James, and Jude,
and the Revelations OF st. John ex'
cluded, but failed. But all differences
of opinion seem to have been harmo-
nized at the council of Trent by all
Christians and the Apocrypha was
left in, not as an inspired part, but to
be read for religious instruction. In
1926 it was excluded from the Protes-
tant Bible, hut it remains in many OF
the old time family Bibles and is in
one of mine.
l dare to peruse it sometimes, espe-
cially "The Wisdom of Jesus the Son
of Sirach," which is called Ecclesias-
ticus, which has fifty chapters and is
as full of maxims and morals and in
struction for the family as are the Pro
! rySrbs of Solomon. Addison says that
If this book had been left in the canon,
or if it had the name of some great
Greek philosopher. it would have
commanded the admiration of man
kind. To my mind it is the condensa'
ton of wisdom for family government.
It is as pointed and pungent as any
4 thing that Solomon ever wrote. This
/ JESUS was better man than Solomon
/ He lived and wrote 800 years after
Malachi, the last of the prophets. In
the close of his narrative concerning
Moses and the prophets he says O.
\ Solomon; by his body he wa
brought into subsection and didst stail
his honor and pollute his seed ant
brought wrath upon his children, ano
his kingdom was divided"
4 Inever did have profound admira
ton for man who said, 'fRejoice, oh
young man, in the wife of thy youth
and be thou always ravished with he
81 love-" and then goes off and marrie'
FL 800 wives and takes 700 concubines
Ii His precepts were good, but his exam
n pie was bad, very bad. My doctrine
IA has always been that man has NJ