The Birmingham age-herald., 1902-11-01
HOW WACHURCHCONGRES
 DISCUSSES THE BIBLE

that the Bible is back number, that it Is no longer fit moral guide. and that to teach 1t to the children Is to make those children sceptics later on. it be- hooves somebody to enter the lists against the clerical heretics and to break a lance in defense of the greatest book that the world ever saw.
 The Biblel How shall 1t be estimated? The answer is that before we can form any opinion of 1t at all we must get rid of the orthodox falsehoods about it and approach 1t from the side of human na- ture and human reason.
 That the Bible exists is a fast which nobody has ever thought to question. Niagara, the Giants Causeway, the Py- ramids the Alps and the Rockies are all facts, but more stubborn fact than any of these is the Bible
 And where did the Bible come from2 Ask your own heart, reader; ask your own prophetic soul.'
 Man is physically a poor creature. He is weaker than many of the lower ani- 'mals, and his days are as the days of a hireling. He cometh up as flower and is cut down, and, like the grass of the field, he withereth away and is gonel But during his brief pilgrimage from the cradle to the grave he dreams grand dreams and is troubled by thoughts that are too big for timel
 Steeped in sin, he dreams of the right eousness that Is without a stain; loving and burying his loves, he has thoughts of a time and cline when love is immortal and where the heart is no more bruised; ignorant and short-sighted, he is troubled with the vision of the golden stairs that slope through darkness up to God along whose steps he is to go evermore. learn ing the truths that are now hidden from his gaze!
 Such is man today. And as man is to- day such has he always been-human and divine; sinful, but aspiring to better things; the lfrail child. of earth, but be- lieving with all his soul in his kinship with God and, his relationship to the im- mortal.
 Such human nature is today, such hu- man nature was from the beginning, and such human nature will continue to be to the end of time.
 And what is the Bible? IT IS THE RE- SCRIPT OF HUMAN NATURE. It is the record of human natures fears and hopes, frailties and glories It tells, with wonderful faithfulness. how low man can sink and how high he can rise; how bes- tial he can be when he has lost his faith, how Godlike he is when following the lead of a noble hope.
 In a word, the Bible is a picture of man as he is today, and as he has always been. Is the Bible good and bad, ignoble and glorious, repulsive and uplifting, ac- cording to the page we happen to be reading? So is man; and of man the Bible is the photograph.
 But we look not for the bad. Leaving that to be forgotten, we turn to the good as our eternal heritage.
 And in the Bible there is enough truth, after all the error has been forgotten, to serve us in every detail of life. Some of the morality of the old book may be out of date. but much of it is of eternal appli- cation; some of it's facts may be slightly unscientifc but it's greatest facts born into it out of the human soul, can perish never, and as long as men and women live on this earth the ancient volume will hold its place in the libraries of the world