The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-14
THE OLD BIBLE WILL STAND. The Futile Attempt to Increase the Size
 of the Book of Books.

THE OLD BIBLE WILL STAND.
 The Futile Attempt to Increase the Size of the Book of Books.
 Professor Nathaniel Schmidt of the department of Semitic languages and Oriental history at Cornell university 1 is quoted in newspaper interviews as expressing the opinion that the Bible of the future will be a great deal larger than It is now.
 He thinks it will include not only those writings popularly known as
 'the Apocrypha," but also, apparently, a number of other late Jewish and ear- ly Christian writings which. though well known to scholars and easily ob- tained by any one interested in religi- lous antiquities, have long since been discarded as containing nothing neces- sary to faith or practice.
 Professor Schmidt goes further and suggests that not even every scrap that throws light on the religious life of the Hebrew and early Christian church" will satisfy all the religious needs of men" He thinks they will also demand in their Bibles "the Ve- das. the Buddhist Sutras. the Ayesta, tho Koran and similar books.
 Why not also the Egyptian Book of the Dead" some of the dialogues of Plato, the 'Meditations' of Marcus lAurelius, the "Discourses" of Epicte- tus, the writings of Confucius, the Japanese "Bushido," Cicero's Book of Duties" Dante's Divine Comedy ' Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Holy Dying" Miltons Paradise Lost" Goethe's Faust" and Nietzsches Thus spake zarathus- tra?"
 The absurditY of Professor Schmidts notion appears the moment we carry it to it's logical conclusion of putting into the Bible everything which expresses anything in the way of religious, moral or ethical ideas. He seems unable to distinguish the difference between a collection of materials for the gratifi- cation of intellectual curiosity and a book to which Christian men can turn for ready support of their faith for consolation in trial. help in temptation and assurance that if a man die he shall live aXain
 The making over of the Bible. or rather the making of new Bible. on the lines suggested by Professor Schmidt. is no new enterprise. We as- sume, of course, that he does not mean tl.at each of us shall have always at hand the many volumes whose pos session his program implies, but rath- CT a compilation from them. Many such compilations have been made. A rather recent one is The Book of Common Worship devised by the New York Association of Liberal Churches.
 It is an attractive and interesting little volume composed of extracts from the sacred books of all nations, of prayers from many liturgies and by many devout men, and of hymns from many sources Yet we have not heard that its Bible section has displaced. even in the churches for which 1t was made. the old Bible, or that 1t has be- come anything more than an interest," ing curiosity or religious literature.
 The manifest tendency of the times is to shorten the Bible rather than to lengthen it. The Apocrypha has practically disappeared from the Bi- bles in general use. And in the visi- bie inpatienee Of some preachers with the 'doctrinaP side of the New Testa- ment there is a tendency whose logical outcome would be to condense it much as Thomas Jefferson did
 And yet 1t is sure that neither of these tendencies will prevail The Ri- bla as we now have 1t will stand. It will remain. as it Is. the Book of Books. with which the work of merely human minds will have no spiritual points of contact.
 Because it is a spiritual inspiration to meet the spiritual needs of men, the old Bible will stand.
 old Bible will stand.-Chicago Inter Ocean.