The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-15

l pect this morning. Would that the re- suit might be as effectual as was the eunuch's study under Philips guidance
 The Chief Hero of the Bible. The Bible, in the first place, has it's chief hero. It has central personality toward which it's opening pages are silent ly and swiftly moving. This divine per sonality is Jesus Christ The casual read .er may not at first glance think that the story of creation has any direct or indi- rect connection with the Bethlehem man. ager, but you cannot separate the first chapter of John with it's opening sen tence, "ln the beginning was the word, and the word was with God from the first verse of Genesis. Nor can you sep arate the idyl of Ruth from the birth of Jesus or perceive the meaning of Isaiah without connecting it with the story of the crucihxion. The Bible declares that when Philip the evangelist climbed into the chariot of Queen Candaces secre- tary of the treasury he opened his mouth and began at the same Scripture and "preached unto him Jesus" Thus We find that, no matter how far one book of the Bible may antedate another, they all re- volve about the personality of Jesus Christ
 If you were to separate the books of the Bible from the personality of Jesus they would be as meaningless as one of the novels of Wilkie Collins separated from its central hero or heroine or, as we some times say, the play of Hamlet with tho part of Hamlet left out" As pr. Saphir says: "If the Bible were like collection I of stones we miHbt select some and put hside others as less valuable and beauti- ful, and, although in such selections we might make great mistakes, we should still be in possession of something more
 
 plant, and all it's parts are not mechan- ically or accidentally connected, but or ganically united, and hence a law of life rules here He who reveres life will neither add nor take away from the beau- tiful plant which the Father hath planted in and through Christ by the Spirit. No- body asserts that a man would be killed If you cut off his hair and his nails, but there is a vital union of all his members
 If you cut off my little finger shall sur vive it. but it Is my little finger you cut off, and 1t is loss, disagreement So with the Bible. It is not like a piece of cloth you can clip and cut. It Is body animated by one spirit" That is true.
 Thus as all the different parts of the physical body find their life action in the throbbing heart, all the different parts of the Bible find their potency and their life giving force in the personality of Jesus Christ. He is the great hero of this book He is the center, the circumference, tho all in all of the Scriptures. Whenever q man reads any chapter of the Bible with out finding Jesus there he has failed to find out the chief purpose for which that chapter was written
 The Origin of Jesus.
 Now, who is this Bible hero? Where was He born? How was He born? Who were His ancestors? These are the ques- tions which every author of biography
 or of novel which is only q fictitious b- ography answers. There the author intro duces you to his hero or heroine. He>finds the cradle of his hero in the Indian wig
 wam of Powhatan, as does the biographer Of Pocahontas, or he surrounds you with the rivalries and plots of Queen Anne's time, as does William Makepeace Thacll- cray when he introduces to you Henry Esmond, or he tells you how King James VI. of Scotland became King James I. of England because he was the direct de- scendant of Margaret Tudor, sister of | Henry VIII. of England. All books of bi- ography naturally give to us the genealo- gical history of their heroes or heroines. They tell how they were born and what blood Is flowing in their veins. So does the Bible in reference to Jesus Christ. His nativity had divine origin. Ills conception was miraculous. He was and is omnip- otent in power. All the prophecies fore told it.. All history A. D. has proved it. Oh, that you and might find a divine and an omnipotent Christ in every part of that old Biblel May we do as did John Randolph. the great Virginia orator One