Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1909-09-17
"The Living Book"

Last Friday night the Rev. DR.. j. B.
Clayton, of Washington, D. c., delivered a
very interesting and instructive lecture at
the Baptist Church on THE Living Book. "
After listening to DR.. Clayton give this lee
ture, one cannot help but be impressed
with the fact that life time of study
must have been devoted to the subject.
A representative gathering of the people
of this town from all denominations was
present and the capacity of the church was
taxed to its utmost. In brief, DR.. Clayton
said:
The word of God is alive. The Bible,
which contains revelation of the human
heart, its selishness and aspirations, its
sorrows and its quests, its affections and
its hopes, can never become obsolete as
long as humanity remains as at present
constituted. The centuries have added
nothingnew or worthy to its religious teach
ing and values; nor have the achievements
of the human mind belittled its worth as
record of the religious experience of the
race or as an inspiration to still higher en-
deavor. The book as whole is organic {:
every separate book of the sixty-six, his
tory, prophecy, poetry, gospel, epistle and
apocalypse, being vitality related to the re-
ligious philosophy of every other in the
series. One book supplements and COM
plements another; Revelation is a fit
ting synthesis of the volume beginning
with Genesis. One writer quotes from an
other not as rhetorical establishment or
merely to lend the weight and authority of
great name, but to show the thought
connections between two periods of reli-
giOus history. No one book could be spared
without detriment to the completed volume.
This completed book may be likened to an
organism, every one of its seperate organs
is essential to each and all of the others.
The whole is indwelt by thoroughly hui
man spirit, and the motives and purposes
of universal humanity are mirrored in the
book as it stands. The central theme of
the Bible is the Christ-idea: an ideal in
the Old Testament and potent personality
in the New Testament. An English scholar
has specified 1913 particulars in the Old Tes-
lament embodied in the Messianic ideal. all
of which are found in the New Testament
in the historical Christ. According to the
law of compound probabilities there was
only one chance in millions that those par
ticulars would be fulfilled The apparent
design running all through the Bible-the
connecting thought which makes for unity
in diversity, is the Messianic or Christ ideal
and personality. The life of Christ not only
completed the ideals of the prophets, but
by its realization of those ideals added to
the religious wealth of humanity. The per-
manency of the book is guaranteed so long
as civilization shall last, and the writer's of
the Bible declared it would last forever. Its
stories, teachings and inspirations have
been embodied in our art-architecture,
painting, sculpture and music, while the
poetry and the prose literature of Christian
civilization would be empty and barren
without the persistent presence of the
spirit and letter of the Bible. Its true
worth escapes the eye of the hostile critic,
and is realized only by the impartial mind
which studies it in its relation to human
life in all ages"