REY. BR. TALMAGR
The Eminent New York Divine's Sun -day
Sermon.
Subject: "Expurgation of the Scriptures
Text: "Let Gad be true, but every man
a liar." Romans iii., -L
The Bible need reconstruction according
to some inside and outside the pulpit. It is
no surprise that the world bombards the
Scriptures, but it is amazins? to find Chris
tian ministers picking -at this in the Bible
anddenyinjr that until many pood people
in the foS about what parts of tho
v Bible, thev ought to believe and what parts
. reject- The heinousness of finding fault
with the Bible at this time is most evident,
in our day the Bible is assailed by scurrility
by misrepresentation, by infidel scientists,
by, all the vice of earth and all the venom of
perdition, and at this particular time even
preachers ot the Gospel fall into line of
cxiticism of the word of God. Whv, it makes
me think of a ship in a September equinox,
the waves dashintr to the top of the smoked
v stack, and the hatches fastened down, and
many prophesying the foundering of the
steamer, and at that time some of the crew
2w i?xes tod MW3 ff0 down nt0 tne bold of
. the ship, and they try to saw off some of the
planks and pry out some of the timbers be
cause; the timber did not come from the right
It does not seem to be a commendable bus
iness for the crew to be helping the winds
and storms outside with their axes and saws
inside. Now, this old Gospel ship, what with
the roaring of earth and hell around the
stem and stem and mutiny on dock, is hav
ing a very rough voyage, but I have noticed
that not one of the timbers b&s started, an t
the -captain says he will see it through. And
I have noticed that keelson and counter tim
ber knee are built out of Lebanon cedar, and
" i f5 to weather the gale, but no
credit to those who make mutiny on deck.
3?ea, I Jee Pressor Christians in this
particular day finding fault with the Scrip
tures it makes me think of a fortress ter
rifically bombarded, and the men on the ram
parts, instea 1 of swabbing out and loading
.the guns and helping fetch up tbe ammuni
tion from the magazine, are trving with
crowbars to pry out irom the wall certain
?jckf,of stone, because they did not come
lT th riSbt quarry. Oh, men on the ram
parts, better, fUht haclr, and fight down the
common enpmv tnetoo.i : ... ,
breaches in tbe wall!
qiti ?PC?,0 Ws ePurgation of the
Scriptures, I shall give you my reasons for
such opposition. "What!-say some .of the
eoiogicAl evolutionists whose brains have
been addled by too Ion? brooding over them
ty Darwin and Spenser, "you don't now
really believe all the story of the garden of
fyere roses in ray garden last summer.
w Say thfy 'iyon doa,t realJy believe
f f 8:111 and moon st00d stiU?'" Yes. and
II I had strength enough to create a sun and
moon l could makA th
the refraction of the sun's rays so it would
appear.to stand still. "But," they say, "you
don't really bebeve that the whale' swal
lowed Jonah?" Yes. Ami it T L JL7
enough to make a whale I could have madi
very easy ingress for the refractory prophet
, leaving to evolution to eject him if he were
an unworthy tenant! "But,"say they, "you
E IS? b2levf that the water wW turned
.Is often turned into wine with an admixture
of strychnine and logwood! "But " sav
de'li rlly, helie that SaS2
eiew looo with the jaw bone of an ass?" Ym
and I think that the man who inthis d?v
assaults the Bible is wieldin-3 the sami
There is nothing in the Bible that staggers
' ?!TThre are mn? tUn I do not under-
shSl iJ dhipr,e,tendi deretanJ, never
shall in this world understand. But that"
womq te a very poor God who could be fully
understood by the human. That would he I
Sff Infinite that can be measured by
nnite.. iou must nnt a . , . , y
thunderbolts of Omninot n 5
JBQQes-L Starting with the idea tiE
iTt j . ' ana mat Hq as pres-
nL Uhe Jng, and that He is present
now, there is nothing in the holy Scriptures
to arouse skepticism in my heart. Here I
stand a fossil of the agedug up rom the
tertiary formation, fallen off the shelf of a
antiquarian, a man in the latter part of the
Slonqus nineteenth century believing ina
whole Bible from lid to lid "e"ng in a
I am opposed to the expurgation of the
Scriptures in the first place? because the
Bible in its present shape has bWsoraS
after Herodotus wrotft IiJq Mct,-
rn " J' ro was
a ' "iauutpi copy 01 it.
"" ) ears aaer i'lato
mere was
wrote
Twelve
his book
God was st) carefufto haTes 1SW WeB ble
in just the right shape that we . have flftJ
manuscript copies of the New Testament
thousand yers old, and some of them 1500
the time of Christ, or just after the time of
Christ, by the hand of cuch men l Origen
in the second ctntury and Tertullian in th?
third century, and by men of different) agS
rir f 0 e.w 1 lament in manu
script in the possession of the th,!.
the Greek church nf s:t pk TT?irr.u'
Bomv church of Italy.
It a plain matter of history that Tischen
dorf went to a convent in the peninsula of Sinai
and was by ropes lifted over the wall Into the
&on, and that he saw there in the waste-
basket for kindling for the fire3 a manuscript
of the Holy Scriptures. That night he cop
ied many of the passages of that Bible, but
it was not until fifteen years had passed of
earnest entreaty and prayer and coaxing and
Eurchase on his part that that copyof the
oiy Scriptures was put into the hand of
the .'Emperor of Russia that one copy so
marvelously protected. v .
Do ybu not know that the catalogue of the
books of the Old and New Testaments as we
have it i3 the same catalogue that has been
coming down through the ages? Thirty
nine books of the Old Testament thousands
of years ago. Thirty-nine now. Twenty
seven bocks of the New Testament 1600. yeara
ftgov Twenty-seven books of the Nw Testa
ment now. Marcion, for wickedness, was
turned: out of the church in the second cen
tury, and in his assault on the Bible and
Christianity . he incidentally gives a cata
logue of the books of the Bible that cata
logue corresponding exactly with ours tes
timony given by the enjmy of the Bible and
the enemy; of Christianity. The catalogue
now just like the catalogue then. Assaulted
and spit on and torn to pieces and burned,
yet adhering. Tbe book to-day, in 300 lan
guages; confronting four-fifth3 of the human
race inl their own tongue. Four hundred
million copies of it in existence. Does not
that look as if this book had been divinely
protected. 1 as if God had guarded it all
through the centuries?
Is it not an argument plain enough to
every honest man and every honest woman
that a book divinely protected and in this
6hape is in the very shape that God wants
it. It pleases God and ought to please us.
The epidemics which have swept thousands
" of other books into the sepulcher of f 5rget
fulness have only brightened tbe fame of
this.- There is not one.book out of 1000 that
lives five years. Any publisher will tell you
that. There will not be more than one book
out of 20.000 that will live a oentury. Yet
here is a book, much of it 1600 years old and
much of it 4003 years old and with more re
bound and resilience and strength in it than
when the book was first put upon parchment
or papyrus:.
This book saw the cradle , of all other
books, and it wffl see their graves. Would
you not think that an old book like this,
some of it forty centuries old, would come
along hobbling with age and on crutches?
Instead of that, more potent than any other
book of the time. More copies of it printed
in the last ten years than of any other book
Walter Scott's Waverley Novels. Macau
lay's "History of England," Disraeli's "En
dymion," the works of Tennvson and Long
fellow, and all the popular books of our time
uaving no sucn sale in the last ten years as
mi oiu worn oui dook. uo you JAiow what
a struggle a book has in order to get through
one oentury or two centuries? Some old books,
auring a fire in a seraglio of Constanti
nople, were thrown into the street. A man
without any education picked up one of thos
books, read it, and did not see the value of it.
A. scholar looked over his shoulder and saw
it was the first and second decades of Livy,
and he offered the man a large reward if he
would bring the books to his study, but in
the excitement of the fire the two parted, and
the first and second decades of Livy were for
ever lost. Pliny wrote twenty books of his
tory. All lost. The most of Menander's
writings: lost. Of ,130 comedies ofwPlautus,
all gone but, twenty. Euripides wrote 100
dramas, all I gone but nineteen. Afenhlvna
"VfTOte 100 dramas, all gone but seven. Varro
wrote the laborious biographies of 700 Ro
mans, not a fragment left. Quintilian wrote
his favorite book on the corruption of elo
quence, all lost. Thirty books of Tactitus
lost. Dion Cassius wrote eighty books, only
twenty remain. Berosius's history all lost.
Nearly all the old books are mummified
and are lying in the tombs of old libraries,
and perhaps once in twenty years some man
comes along and picks up one of them and
uTs tne dust off and Pens it and finds it
the book; he does not want. But this old
book, much of it forty centuries old, stands
to-day more discussed than any other book,
and it challenges the admiration of all the
good and the spite and the venom, and the
animosity, and the hypercriticism of earth
ana nell I appeal to your common sense if
a book so divinely guarded and protected in
its present shape must not be in just the way
that God wants it to come to us. and if it
pleases God ought it not to please us?
Aot only have all the attempts to detract
rtn i tf book failed, but all the attempts to
add to It.; Hany attempts were made to add
the apochryphal books to the Old Testament. '
The council of Trent, the synod of Jerusalem,
the bishops of Hippo, all decided that the
apochryhai books must be added to the Old
Testament. "They must stay in," said those
learned men, but they staid ' out. There is
not an intelligent ChrisHan mn -a
will put the book of Maccabees or the book
or Judith beside the book of Isaiah or
Komans. Then a great many said. "We
must have books added to the New Testa
ment, and there were epistles and gos
pels and ; apocalypses written and added
&??e HW Sestai2ent- but tney have all
fallen out. You cannot add anything. You
cannot suostract anvthin??. ni-Hniir
to be worth as much a? last year's almanac
The expurgation of the Scriptures means
their annihilation.
I am also opposed to this proposed expur
gation of the Scriptures for the fact that in
proportion as the people become self-sacrificing
and good and holy and consecrated,
they like the book as it is. I have yet to find
a man or a woman -distinguished for self
sacrifice, for consecration to God, for holi
ness of life, who wants the Bible changed.
Many of us have inherited family Bibles.
Those Biblss were in use twenty, forty, fifty,
perhaps 100 years in the generations. To
day take down thosa family Bibles, and find
out if there are any chapters which have
been erased by lead pencil or pen, and if in
any margins you can find the words, "This
chapter not fit to read." There has been
plenty of opportunity during the last hslf
century privately to expurgate the Bible.
Do you know any case of such expurgation?
Did not your grandfather give it to your
father,' and did not your father give it to
you?
Besides that I am opposed to the , ex
purgation of the Scriptures, because the so
called indelicacies hn J cruelties of the Bible
have demonstrated no evil result. A cruel
1 Doojt wiuproance cruelty. An unclean boos
wiiTprouuce uncleanness. etcli me a" vic
tim. Out of all Christendom and out of all
the ages fetch me a victim whose heart has
been hardened to cruelty or whose life has
been made impure by this book. Show me
one. One of the- best families I ever knew
of, for thirty or forty years, morning and
evening, had all the members gathered to
gether, -and the servants of the household,
and the strangers that happened to be within
the gates twice a day, without leaving out
a chapter or a verse, they read this holy
book, morning by morning, night by night
Not only the older children, but the little
child who could just spell her way through
the verse while her mother helped her, the
father beginning and reading one verse and
then all the members of the family in turn
reading a verse. The father maintained his
Integrity, the mother maintained her integ
rity, the sons grew up and entered pro
fessions and commercial life, adorning every
sphere In the life in which they lived, and
the daughters went .into families where
Christ was honored, and all that was good
and pure and righteous reigned perpetually.
For thirty years that family endured the
Scriptures. Not one of them ruined by
them.
Now, if you will tell me of a family where
the BiWe has been read twice a day for thirty
years, and the children have been brought
up in that habf?, and the father went to
rutn, and the mother went to ruin, and the
sons and daughters were destroyed, by it
if you will tell me of one such -incident t
will throw away my Bible or I will doubt
your veracity. I tell you if a man is shocked
with what he calls the indelicacies of the
word of God he is prurient in his taste an 1
imagination. If a man cannot read Solcr
mon's Song without impure suggestion, he
is either in his heart or in his life a libertine.
The Old Testament description of wicked
ness, uncleanness of all sorts, is
purposely and righteously a uisgust- 1
jing account, instead of the . Bvronic
and the Parisian vernacular, which make
sin attractive instead of appalling. When
those old prophet3 point vou to a lazaretto,
yon understand it is a lazaretto. When a
man having begun to do right falls back into
wickedness and gives up his integrity, the
Bible does not say he was overcome by the
fascinations of the festive boflr.1 nr fw ha
surrendered to convivialities, or that he be
came a little fast in his habits. I will tell
you what the Bible says, "The dog is turned
to his own vomit again and the sow that was
washed to her wallowing in the mire." No
gilding of iniquity. No garldnds on a death's
w V 0 Poinding away with a silver mal
Smmer tyWhen " needs Iron sledge
I can easily understand how people brood
i?I?r tno description of uncleanness in
the Bible may get morbid in mind until they
o11 as tne the beak,
S?f en,ftril,and the claw of a buzzard
are full of the odors of a carcass, but what
iWKn 23 not that Bible be disinfect
ed, but that you, the critic, have your mind
anTd neart washed with carbolic acid.
I tell you at this point in my discourse
that a man who does not like this book, and
who is critical as to its-eontents. and who is
shocked and outraged with its descriptions,
Cross." Perhaps yon oould chan-o is
Perhaps you might go into the old galleVTm
of sculpture and change the form and tha
posture of the statues of Phidias and Prarf
tele3. Sueh an iconoclast would vervoon
find hlms-lf in the; penitentiary. Rut V2
worse vandalism when a man proposes to n!
fashion these masterpieces of inspiration an!
to remodel the moral giani3 of this gaiW
of God. - I T
Now, let U3 divide ofL Let those peoDU
who do not belief the Bible and who a
critical of this and that part of it go cW
over to th9 other side. Let them standby,
hind the devil's guns. There can be no com
prtnise between infidelity and Christianity
v.w im viifc x7iju-uii or inn
delity rather than the work of these hybrid
theologians, these j mongrel ecclesiastic
these half evoluted ! people, who believe thV
Bible and do not believe it, who accept thl
miracles and do notiascept them, who believ
in the inspiration of the Scriptures and do
not believe in the j inspiration of the Scrim
tures trimming their belief on one side to
suit the skepticism: of the World, trimming
their belief on the other side tojmitthepridft
of their own heart, and feeling-that in order
to demonstrate their eoufcage they must
make the'.Bible the target and shoot at God.
There is one thing that enoourages m
very much, and that is that the Lord made
out to manage the universe before they were
born, and will probably be able to mate out
to manage the universe a little while after
mey are aeao. wnue 1 aemand that the
antagonists of the Bible and the critics of
the Bible go clear Over where they belonj?
on the devil's side, ! ask that all the friends
of this good book come out openly and above
board in behalf of it, that book which was
the best inheritance. you ever received from
your ancestry, and which will be the best
legacy you will leave to. your children whn
you wa xne gooa-uy 753 TOO.-CTOHT me rerrv
to the golden city.
Young man, do not be ashamed of your
Bible. There is not a virtue but it coin
mends, there is not a sorrow but it comforts
there is not a good law on the statute book
of any: country but it is founded cn these
Ten Commandments. There are no braver
grander people in all the earth than the"
heroes and the heroines which it biographizes
Of all the works of Doje4. the great artist!
there was nothing so impressive as his illus
trated Bible. What scenepf Abrahamic faith
or Edenic beautv. of dominion
Solomonic, of miracle or parable, of nativity
ai ui cruuiuxion or 01 last judgment but the
thought leaped from, the great brain to the
skillful pencil, anQ from -skillful pencil to
canvas immortal. The Louvre, the Luxem
bourg, the National Gallery of London 00m
pressed within two volumes of Dore's illus
trated Bible. But the Bible will come to bet
ter illustration than that, my friends, when
all the deserts have become gardens and all
' the arm nri hnra htvnma ano4n.tn -1 .11
uuiv uu.vuiVj avjuomiC3 tliiu till
the lakes have become Gennesarets with
Christ walking them, and all the cities have
become Jerusalem? with hovering Shektnah;
and the two hemispheres shall be clapping
cymbals of divine praise, and the round
earth a footlight to Emanuel's throne that,
to all lands and all ages and all centuries
and all cycles will be the best specimen of
Bible illustrated. I
i.
TE3IPEEXKCE iEW3 .AND K0TS?.
Canada's annual liquor biU is $131, 85,400.
The consumption of intoxicating liquors
In New Zealand is decreasing year by year.
The National W. ;C. T. U. will conduct
summer meetings atphautauqua and Moun
tain Lake Park. -
with Leer and during the past year somo
900 have oeen closed.
fnTSr nr Snea,iley o Alaska, refuses to'
thfehBeeei;i?.ary Pfcrmit5 r the establish
ment of breweries in that Territory
WarnSfvali?' J kilied her5eIf & ;
v. J -Vaunt j , K jntucky.on seeingjher hus
band unaer the influence of liauor
The Duke of
nr-Vt .1 1 . .
taObstinence S
ripe old age. His mother. uaexES!0 ?.
vvvicu wu. iu ins present snae. Let no
man dare to lay his hands on it with the in
tention of detracting from the book or cast
ing out any of these holv
Besides that, 1 am opposed to" this expurga- J
vi mo ocniurra oecausenthe attempt
W6 vfi't would be the annihilation
lvleV inadel geologists would say,
"Out With tfre Book of Genesis;" infidel asl
tronomrs would say, "Out with the Bxk
of Joshua; people who do hot believe in
the atoning sacrifice would say, "Out with
the Book of Leviticus;" people who do not
believe In the miracles would say, "Out with
all those wonderful stories in the Old and
New Testament; and some would say.
"Out with ; the Book of Revelation;" and
others would say, "Out with the entira Pen
tateuch, and the work would goon until
there would not be enough of the Bible left
,llc" "wvef oeen soundly converted. The lay
r vuc "ttuiu 01 prasDvtery or epis
copacy does not always change a man's
neart, and men sometimes get into the pul
pit, as well as into the pew, never having
been changed radically by the sovereign
EJ,?S t your heart right lid th
Bible will be. right. The trouble is men's
i68 re,Ii?t brought into harmonv wfth
uru ui croa. An, my friends, expu ra
tion of the heart is whafis wanted! k
c J.01i cannot make me believe that the
Scripture?, which this moment He on the
table of tne purest and best men and women
01 the age, and which were the dyin solace
of your kindred passed into the skies, have
in them a taint which the strongest micro
pcope of honest criticism could make visible
ir menareTincontrollable in their indigna
!i7hen he. integrity of wife or child if a-
iuiu juages and jurors as far
U1B excuse violence under such prov.
Cation, tphnt Mikf r a. 1
ftn.i I... u overwneimiag
" vuuiuf inunaers or conde
iur nuy man woo will stand in a C
IlAn rrn I rift otA nc.n .v ..
ry, rr" re inan viran
ter of God? '"'e beIovel dauh-
Exphrgate the Bible! You might as well
andip ,enico and in Rome and expurgate
K WlUnF- 5 could flndl
S Angelo's "Lat Judgment
that might be improved. Perhaps you could
.. t i jiLi uui more
into Eubens's -Dajeat from thl
seventy-six.
, The W. C. T; U. of
naa nve acres of groUn
years rent iree; and Wia
eiir Oi tueir work.
Belgium's revenue
nas grown in forty
?fi nan c J
cranes, crime in
cent, at-the same' tide an 1
cent. 1
Bondurant, Iowa, have
ad iriven tnm fm- flra
iarm it fortha ben-
Finland has demonstrate 1
uwi uc.-essarv m c.-iM:
from the drink habit
years from i.000.000 to
teasing liUO per
insanity 12S per
that spirits are
wumnes. havinir be-
tSttl''?la -"i under local
v.
A liPW In nr f J 1
Sundav in P M-,7 Letler obs-rvance of
dram shJr? Pfoat)ly close ail the
day An Sb,KiWUt tte Empire ou tnat
fiy. a.n eirort if being made to tiv thi
keep open one hour of 'the dly
manors' ilome. at
1
' A r aom ers 4nd
vumcy, 111., round that
iutj nome 13 mtemMran
-uiuoriza the SuMHTTrfn.W
resolution to
to prosecute saloon-keepers
:--s .iiiuiiciiau 10 thts
'orbidd&o. 1
great evil
and reported a
wno persist in
inmates alter being
Dathos
Li Hung Chang's cousin says that dig
nitary's yellow Jacket is a joke. If he
ever runs against the business end of
the native American yellow jacket he ll
appreciate the point sooner than the
joke.
Thers Is a scheme on foot to extend
the Sheridan drive 'and Chicago's part
system to Milwaukee.