Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1902-01-30
THE MOST POPULAR BOOK
IN THE WHOLE WORLD
BY BISHOP WARREN A. GAMBLER.

"the Bible is baek-number," that
the critics (of whom they assume to be
specimens). have found its face all
freckled with error aid pock-marked
with myths. Just the other day a bray
of this sort Changing the igure) was
echoed from the neighborhood of Chi
cago through the Associated Press dis
patches. 1t is commonly understood
that good pasturage is furnished in
that region for creatures Of this kind,
and that it is to be enjoyed for the
mere braying over II.
A few excitable saints are startled
when one of these meadow musicians
blows a blast But most sensible peo-
pie have become used to such noises.
They have heard them too often be-
fore now. In so, far as 1 am con-
cerned the sort of stuff echoed by
these noisy fellows does not amount
to even second-rate nonsense. Like
Emerson, feel like saying to them,
81 am not afraid of ghosts 1 have
seen too many of them
All this hue and cry of a certain
sort of academic critics is scarcely
more than a symptom of an infantile
ailment. Every business seems to
have a disease peculiar to 1t. There
is "clergyman's sore throat" among
preachers, painters COlAC dAlOuS
painters and this morbus liberals or
biblia-phobia among college profess
sors. All these ailments are confined
for the most part to green hands, and
unfortunately American colleges at
present have in their faculty consid-
cradle number of rather fresh profess
sors, and hence biblia-phobia appears
to be epidemic just now, especially in
certain sections of our country. II
comes to pass about on this wise: A
book-loving young man. whose early
surroundings did not afford the men
tai food he craved. gets by some means
or other to go through one OF our col
leges. He there hears talk of great
universities across the subsequently,
in Germany-which quite fill his young,
untutored fancy. As soon after grad
uation as he can acquire bowling ac-
quaintance with the German language
and a few hundred dollars to pay the
expenses of a two years life at Berlin
or Leipsic or Heidelberg, he makes a
break for that land of literary prom
ise-the Canaan of collegians. There
he gulps down q quantity OF cheap
beer and ancient cheese, together with
as much of the lectures as he can
make out with his imperfect knowl-
edge of the language used by the lee
tureTs.
He presently returns to America with
a mixed odor of beer, cheese and no-
eralism on his breath, and offers for a
chair in some college, recently en-
dowed by an American millionaire, the
authorities of which are looking
around foe something curious to put
into its faculty They take him, for
where could they find anything more
curious? Has he not been to Ger
many? Observe, too. how Familiarity
he plucks Jobs beard and on what
terms of perfect equality he approaches
Isaiah. Is he not broad? Is he not
great? The board OF trustees, once
they have got him or once he has got
them, dare not call such great man
to halt, for do not the gaping stu
dents who sit daily at his learned feet
swear by all the gods of paganism
that he is 1.-The none-such professor?
And do not the reporters of the daily
press make "a miration" over his per-
Torrance every time he throws out one
of the worn out arguments of Tom
Paine and declares it is an established
conclusion of the most recent crit-
cism?'
Well, it is quite time to say in good