Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-06-05

favored boy of his father. who was a
banker in a small town. He had things
very much his own way both at home
and at high school. He entered college
at II, carrying, besides a well-filled
trunk. the unfortunate impression that
he had the world at his feet. The boys
in the fraternity to which he was
pledged realized that if he were to
make good in college this attitude must
be changed. Three seniors were dele
gated to call on him for private coun-
sci. He answered their challenge I'M
suspectingly. scarcely had the subject
been introduced when he flew into a
rage.
Let Truth Stimulate
what business is it of yoursT he
retorted.' l guess I'm capable of man
aging my own affairs He threw down
his pledge button and walked angrlly
out Of the room and thus closed the
very best door of opportunity for dis
cipline and training for successful iiv-
ing. We, like Raymond Rollings. pen
knife the word of God when we refuse
to let the truth of Gods word stimu-
late and influence our being.
we ought never to forget at what
great cost in human life the Scriptures
have been handed down to us. In the
early centuries of the Christian era,
and in parts of the middle ages, great
efforts were made to destroy copies
of the Scriptures. 1t was a very dan
gerous thing to have a copy OF the BIZ
bic in ones possession. Great bon
fires were made and the Bibles were
burned just as the roll of the law
which jeremiah had was burned. As
,~+ --a,-r 4rt,l nttnaiya ~, thn
Word of God diminish. / believe there
are some things in the world of which
God himself is guardian. The Bible
is one of them. / believe that the
Bible itself is UNNECESSARILY larger and
more divine than the best thought of
its ablest human defenders, such as
Wyclif, Tyndale, Huss, Luther, Angus
tine. and Savanarola.
1.-THE Bible will survive when whole
bodies of human views concerning it
shall have persisted. 1t will be vastly
more luminous and serviceable to man
kind when its full character and mes
q shall finally be stripped of the
intellectual rubbish which human inter
prefers have imposed upon it. There
never would have been the radical Vol
taire or Ingersoll if the modern con-
ception of the Bible had prevailed in
their time. They were so outraged at
the narrowness and hidebound inter
pretations of their day that it made
them violent Antagonists of God and
His Word.
Confidence Deepened
1.-THE Bible lives because it is Gods
Book. and all the penknifing that men
do will never cripple the living
structure of Gods truth. Historical
Investigation and archaeological discov-
cries have been deepening our conf
dence and textual and higher criticism
have been laying more ecu the
foundations Of the revealed truth of
our God. The reformers got rid Of
the idea of an infallible church and
modern scholarship is saving us from
the fallacy of an infallible Bible, in
that it gives due consideration to the
properly human elements which enter
into the structure of the Scriptures.
$50 long as men continue to think
about anything at all they will think
about the Bible. What men think
about the Bible does not change the
nature or structure of the Bible itself. |
In the second century of our era,
Claudius Ptolemy worked out an inter /,
probation of the heavens, whereby the
earth was made the center of the solar
with the sun and planets re-
tolving around it. That Interpretation
swayed the world for LOO years. 1t
made no difference TO the sun. Ptol-
nmy had the wrong conception. but
sun kept right on shining. The
theory now holds sway;
but the sun shines no more brightly
these modern days than it did when
.laudius Ptolemy was counted the
astronomer in the world. In
sense, then. is the Bible an in
fallible Book? IF a man earnestly
wants to find his way to God, the BIZ
bic will surely help him find the way"