The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1904-09-21
THE ASH-CAN BIBLE
A Bright Sermon For Sunday By Kew.
John Balcom Shaw, D. D.


did sermon was preached Sunday morning
by the Rev. John Balcom Shaw. It is en-.
titled "The Ash-Csn Bible, Hi, text
sSaetb as hs wCre Peter Sa as e'n ana
This book, rather than the words have
read from il, 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 history. It was gift
TO the church under the uniquest condi-
tions. Indeed doubt if there is another
church in the whole world that came by
its pulpit Bible in the same or in anything
like a similar way.
This is its history One morning last
spring a woman, a pewholder, but not a
member of this church, came into the min
ister's office, where / 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
tifully bound Bible inside, |, of course, an
swered affirmativeiy, and suggested that l
hand il 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 tho garbage
cart. Feeling it was shame to allow so
fine book to, be disposed of in that way,
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 find it was copy OF the Holy Bible!
She opened it and found that several leaves
between the Old Testament and the New
had been cut out, and the explanation
came TO her at once, an explanation which
the janitor afterward fully confirmed.
II 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 low estimate of the Bibles value,
had deposited it in the ash.can, 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. l put it into the minis
ters room to await some providential op-
portunity to dispose OF it. That opportu-
nifty was not long in coming When this
new pulpit was set in place upon my re-
turn it was found that not one of the
three pulpit Bibles that had been previous.
ly presented to the church would fit its
book board. / then went to the minister's
room and 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 memorial-the pulpit a memorial
to 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 family who
fitted into this neighborhood, and after a
restless sojourn of a few months, more
probably of not more than few weeks,
thing to help it, and who thought so little
of God and goodness, desired so family,
not only to light the road heavenward 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-
community.
Robert Browning in his great poem,
"The Ring and the Book" tells the story
of finding rare book at stall in the
Square of Florence, and, after reporting its
@ contents, he, gives rein to his poetic mus
ings upon the life, character and history
of the persons figuring within its narrative,
punctuating 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-but it does set my soul
to mlsing, and those musings seem to me
to take the path of likeiest 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
lA.xa~ ..x L. A~I IA
had been in the home through all the years
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
tie life came to them, their first born, and
the glow of parenthood flushed their souls
as with, 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.
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 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, '"T'heir 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 hallowcdness 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
ory, though sacred and tender could not
run race with the evanescent, migratory
life Of the metropolis. Phey 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