The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-03-25
A GIvER OF LIFE.
The Value of the Bible to the Chill
dren of Men.

From a Sermon by Lyman Abbott.
The second great instrument which is
employed by Christ in the giving of life is
the Bible. A great many persons regard
the Bible as a book about religion; and
then the question comes up, rs this book
about religion accurate or Inaccurate, falli-
BILE or infallible ?" They suppose that thirty
or forty different men have been appointed
TO write about religion and they inquire,
Have they written without any error or
have they made mistakes" But the Bible
is not a book about religion at all; it is a
book of religion. And the difference be-
tween a book about religion and a book of
religion is a very great difference, though
in phraseology it is only the difference of
one word. A book about religion would be
a book written by men who looked upon
religious phenomena as something without
themselves, and wrote about them. "A book
of religion would be a book written by men
who had the life of God in their cWn souls
and gave expression to the life which they
themselves possessed. The Bible is not a
book about religion, ii is a book of religion.
1t is a book written by men who had in
themselves the experience of God, who saw
God in the world of nature, the world of
history, the world Of human life. They did
not pretend TO tell accurately what relig-
1OuS truth Is. IneX formed no creed, they
framed no system, they had no philosophy,
they inculcated no body of doctrine. They
told what they had felt, they testified to
what they had seen. 1--WE know, and there
fore have we spoken" said the old prophet;
I'VE know. and therefore have we poken."
repeated Paul.
A book is a friend; a good book is a good
friend. 1t will talk to you when you want
IL to talk, and it will keep still when you
want it to keep Still-and there are not
many friends who know enough for that.
A library is a collection of friends. You
go into your library of an evening. and you
look over its shelves and pick out the friend
you want to talk TO you. 1t may be you
are wearied and worried with the turmoil
of the present and you want to get into the
past, and ask Homer to talk to you. Or
you want to forget this world and think of
the other, and you ask Dante to talk TO
you. OR your mind is too weary 10 deal
with such Supernal themes and you ask
Thackeray to chat with you. Or you want
TO know what the nineteenth century Itself
is, and its essential spirit, and you ask
Rudyard Kipling TO interpret it TO you. A
book is q friend; a library is a collection of
friends. This Bible is a library. We go to
il, not as we go TO a schOOlbook. to get
information, accurate or inaccurate. errant
or inerrant. about something without the
men who wrote. 1t is a library. a collection
of friends; and we go to il that we may
see what they saw. feel what they felt.
walk as they walked, share their struggles
with them. ask them to share our struggles
with us-that, in a word, we may live their
= AN - O1o 80 A.
cism, not a perplexity, not a temptation,
that assails any honest, earnest, sincere
man in this nineteenth century that does
not find some hint or suggestion in that
splendid collection of friends-all the more
friends because they have been through the
dark places | must go through, have known
the doubts | must know, have wrestled
with the temptations | have wrestled with.
have climbed their heights step by step as
l must climb-aye. and have wandered off
to the right hand and the left from the
beaten track, as /. too. wanderi
Open your Bible and see. What are the
first FIVE boks but books of law? And what
their characteristic? Infallible and inerrant
information about eternal law? Not at all.
Many of them we have long since laid
aside: no man thinks of Obeying them all.
But back of them all. t~ransfusing them
damental declaration, God spake these
words. Behind all. TO the Jewish lawgiver,
was God, the authority behind authority.
Law was TO him the Interpretation Of the
divine. Turn 10 the books of history. What
are they2 Accurate and infallible informa-
ton concerning the great events Of the
world? They deal with petty events. rela-
lively speaking. insignificant events. The
great deeds of great men? No: oftentimes
the mean deeds of mean men. But they are
written by men who saw God in history.
II sometimes seems TO me that we look
upon life as one might look upon a chess
board in which the pieces played the game
"A castle, now ~ Il a avn now il is a
bishop. now it is a king that moves; and
why they move back and forth and what
the end of IL all Will be We are puzzled
to determine. But these great historians OF
the past saw Gods hand on the chessmen.
saw Him moving them, and knew that In
the end white would checkmate black and