Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1905-09-28

Joseph Smiths Bible somewhere in
valley all made up and ready. It did
not come that way; but it grew in the
world like all oak or pine tree; and. &C.
cording to what the Saviour says about
the Holy Ghost continually teaching In
+ho word in successive ages. the Bible
which is Gods truth or the word OF
God, is, in manner, still growing. Do
you know that? 1t is coming out in
parts. It is life from beginning to end.
II unfolds, not single period of mans
history only, but successive stages in
the growth of the human mind. There.
fore it contains, Ikea tree, successive
rings, as it were, greatly contrasted
one with another, widely differing ont
from another. In one ring, so to speak,
it is IAN eye for an eye and tooth for
a TOOTH" Literally, exact justice. In
another ring it is, eff man strike thee
on the one cheek turn to him the other
also." In the one ring, vengeance; in
the other, no vengeance. The Bible, as
I said, thus unfolds to us successive
ages in the spiritual growth of man.
Some of it's stages, or rings, such as
polygamy, we have left behind us long
ago; some we have not yet reached.
The Sermon on the Mount especially
stretches out and away to the future
perfection Of the race, when nation
like Russia will be an impossibility.
At the present time, you know, all ma
tons take brute animals for their rep
resentative coat of arms, because they
all have the brute in them. The time
VIII come when the bear and the lion
and the bird Of prey shall all be ground
out of humanity, and the work be full
filed when he that, is struck on one
cheek will turn the other also. and the
race will become. as it never has be-
come, Christian. And yet whatsoever
has been true remains true forever.
While the Bible gives us the story
OF the Gospel, it continues to retain
the law in the Book of Deuteronomy.
Calvary does not blot out Sinai. They
are related to one another. You must
know the law before you can know the
Gospel. You often hear Of people be-
ing extremely willing to forgive. What
is their forgiveness worth? It is lot
worth anything. because they have
never suffered from the indignant
wrath Of just and noble anger. No,
forgiveness is not worth anything ex-
cept where the anger restrained is the
ring inside Of it. Another thing, God
continues to clothe mankind, as He did
at the first. He clothes the human race
with ideas. Where do you think the
ideas come from? Did man produce
them? They come from outside, my
friends. Or, rather, from the God, who
is within us, and inspires the whole.
He clothes the human race with ideas.
You open the wardrobe, as it were,
and there, hanging up, so to speak, are
Genesis and Judges and jeremiah and
Isaiah and the Gospels, the successive
garments for mans successive mental
purpose-the child's clothing, the boys
clothing, the young mans clothing, the
matured clothing, the perfectness Of
the fulnesS of stature. as in the Beati-
tudes. here and there, in Epistles, in
the Apocalypse, but above all in the
deep mystical sense of the Bible all
through-the true mystics, that we do
not get from hearsay, that we know by
intuition, but which, of course, to the
mass Of men are absolutely unknown
and invisible. So far as the Bible is
concerned the principle is true, mot
unclothed, but clothed upon?"
You cannot make anything grow that
has. not roots. It is curious, but you
cannot. Whatsoever it is sooner or
later it will wither. In order to grow it
has got to grow out Of something. Ideas
are precisely like plants. AS told you,
all the plants Of the universe are alike;
growing things are all alike. whether
ideas or anything else. 1t is of abso-
lutte necessity that they shall have
roots. Thus, for example, love, joy,
peace. gentleness, goodness, truth are
ideas. Nobody can complain of them,
but of what conceivable use would it be
to stand on a pillar and call out to
mankind, 'Be loving, be joyous, be
peaceful, be gentle and good and true,'
if you had nothing more to say to them
than that? What conceivable purchase
would those principles have in the
world without the spiritual reasons out
>of which they grow and on which they
depend, namely, the facts Of living re-
ligion? The blunder Of planting ideas
without roots is as old as the hills.
Every scholar. every student of his
tory, is up to his knees, up to his chin,
in withered sects, withered religions,
+ withered kinks and notions Of this and
that sort eyerV one of which had a