The Penn's Grove record., 1904-09-23

nc Ane Asn-Can Bible" His text
was; The word of God which liveth and
abldeth forever-I Peter 1923.
This book, rather than the words I have
read from it, is my text. Not the Bible in
general as a theme to be discussed. but this
particular Bible consisting of paper, print.
ing and binding, as an object lesson to be
taught.
This Bible has a history. 1t was a Gift
70 the church under the uniuuest condi.
TONS, Indeed / doubt if there is another
church IN the whole world that came bv
It's pulpit Bible IN the same or in anything
ike a similar way.
This is its history. One morning 1ast
spring a woman, a ~pewholder, but not a
member OF this church, came into the min
lsters office, where l was keeping the pas
toral hour, and handing me a package
neatly wrapped and tied, asked me if |
could make use of its contents in any way.
Opening the package and finding this beau.
1lfully, bound Bible inside, I, of course, an
sWered affirmatively, and suggested that |
hand 1T on to some mission church or
poor, struggling congregation, for use as a
pulpit Bible.
She then told me its story. That morn
ing upon coming out of the apartment
where she lived she spied an elegantly
bound book on the top Of the ash-can that
stood awaiting the coming of the garbage
cart. Feeling it was a shame to allow so
hne a Q to be disposed of in that wav.
she went to the ash-can and turned its title
round toward her. What was her amaze
ment, her horror, her sense of desecration.
to md 1T was a copy of the Holy Biblei
She opened it and found that several leaves
between the Old Testament and the New
mad been cut out, and the explanation
came 70 her at once, an explanation which
the Janltor afterward fully confirmed.
1t seems that a family, apparently re-
spectacle and well disposed, had moved
away from the apartment house the day
before, and desiring to throw away every
thing for which they had no use and which
increased the bulk of their effects, had
seized upon the family Bible which had
been IN their home for years, as a thing
that could be as easily got along without
as anything else, had cut out the family
record that it might not be lost, and sent
the book down to the %janitor as rubbish to
be thrown away. He, either because he
had failed to recognize it or because he
had a low estimate of the Bibles value.
had deposited it in the ash-ean, and was
looking for the city's cart to come at any
moment and take it away.
a new interest Immediately attached it.
self to the Bible. | put it into the minis
ters room to await some ~providentiaI op-
portunlty to dispose of it.. That opportu-
nifty was not long in coming. When this
new pulpit was set in place upon nv re-
turn it was found that not one of the
three pulpit Bibles that had been previous
~ presented to the church would fit its
book board. l then went to the ministers
room n brought out this ash-can Bible.
1t was just the thing. Besides being of
the right size, its gold edges and richly en-
bossed covers made it peculiarly suitable
to mount this pulpit, and here it will stand
as itself a memoTial-the pulpit a memorial
to a family who loved the Bible, guided
their lives for fifty years in this commu-
nifty by its counsels, and sent forth into it
streams of Christian influence that will
never run dry; the Bible which rests upon
this pulpit speaking to us of a family who
fitted into this neighborhood, and after a
restless soJourn of a few months, more
probably of not more than a few weeks,
fitted out again without having done any
thing to help it, and who thought so little
of God and goodness, desired so family,
not only to light the road h~eavenward for
others, but to have it lighted for them
selves, that they threw away their family
Bible and moved on to drag down the re-
hslous tone and temperature Of some other
community.
Robert Browning, in his great poem,
The Ring and the Book" tells the story
of finding a rare book at a stall in the
Square of Florence, and, after reporting its
contents, he gives rein to his poetic mus
lngs upon the life, character and history
OF the persons figuring within its narrative,
punctuatlng with marks of exquisite
strength and beauty the lessons of their
lives.
This strangely discovered book starts no
poetic strains within mel have no such
strings to vibrate-5ut it does set my sou,
to musing, and those musings seem to me
to take the path of hkeliest fact and truth.
They carry me back over the earlier his
tory of this book. 1t may have been, it
doubtless was, a wedding present, given
probably by a pious father and mother
long since among the sainted dead. 1t
had been in the home through all the wears
of their family history, and had become as
familiar an object as the silver on their
table or the pictures upon their walls.
Again and again they had gone to it
through the passing years to inscribe with
in its sacred pages the records of their
home. With the daintiest touch they had
put in their own names while the honey
moon was still on. Later when that lit
re lie came to them. their first born, and
as with a baptism from heaven, they
dipped the pen as if into some love fluid
and wrote out with pride the dear little
ones newly chosen name.
A few years passed and the angel came
and took the sweet soul away. The fun
eral over, the father one evening when
they were alone and the house was silent,
went through into the parlor, unknown to
his wife, and put in the record, leaning
over the open book till the tears began to
soil the page, and then turning over a few
pages into the book that adjoined the rec
ord, he read over and over again those
dear and holy words, "Suffer little chill
dren to come unto Me, and forbid them
not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven"
and those other words SO ~inseparably asso-
ciated with them, Their angels do
always behold the face of My Father" 1t
was the Bible, too, out of which the minis
ter had read at the little ones funeral,
and in this and a hundred other ways it
had taken on a hallowedness and built it.
self into the whole life of the home.
But five years ago the family moved into
New York, and the decay of their home
life began. Sentiment, association, mem
CRY, though sacred and tender, could not
run q race with the evanescent, migratory
life of the metropolis. They had moved
often, and every time they moved they
had left something of their home life be-
hind them. Age ceased to give anything
its value; it was the ease with which it
could be transported which determined
that. Their religious life had declined,
and they never opened the Bible of late.
They had even neglected to record the last
death that had taken place in the family.
They had been weaned from the church
through frequent removals, and religious
thought and feeling had become strangers
to their hearts.
Their consciences had been dulled, and
what had once seemed impossible to them
was now second nature. They used to
think they could never allow the Sunday
paper in their home, but now they read it
themselves and allowed their children to
read it without the least qualm of eon-
science. To stay away from church once
was a few years ago an act of backsliding.
but they had not long been in New York
before whole months passed without their
crossing the sacred threshold, and yet it
gave them no ~compunction whatever. Time
was, and not long since, when they were
most punctilious about sending their chill
dren to Sunday-school. The widest wind
and the foulest weather would not pass
with them as an excuse for allowing the
boys and girls to stay at home. There was
no such strictness these last years, but
weeks Of Sabbaths went by and failed to
record a single present mark for any of the
children on the rolls of the Sunday-school.
Therefore, sentiment gone, association
and memory HAVING lo0eened their crnsD.