Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1912 — VITALITY OF THE BIBLE [ARTICLE]

VITALITY OF THE BIBLE

OST books die ypung. Many books are dead already when they are born. “There IPlYtill 18 no <Jemand for* them. They contain nothing that men want They are not read. They make no impression even on the community where they are published- They are like a feather which flutters through the air and no one hears it pass, and go one knows when or where It falls. Some books come into the world with a great flourish of trumpets. They are highly commended by reviewers aid critics. They leap |nto prominence in the world at a single bound. They create a sensation ,for a time and are the talk of every town. But after a few years the demand for them declines, they slowly die, and are soon out of print. A few books have lived through many generations. The lUad of Homer, the history of Herodotus, and the Republic of Plato, the orations and essays of Cicero, written thousands of years ago, still live. They contain something which men wapt and will not willingly permit to perish. But the Bible, which is one of the oldest books in the world, is the most vigorous book on the gipbe. Many efforts have been made to kill it. it has been burned, shut up fa prison, bound with chains, pelted with rhetoric and logic and eloquencp and ridicule. Agalfl and again its enemies have pronounced it dead. They fondly hoped that. Intelligent people would no longer read It But it still lives. Its enemies have perished. Their weapons have decayed. But the Bible lives on. Not as the works of Homer and Plato live does the Bible live. They are read only by a small circle of admirers and students. Their influence on this generation is feeble indeed. But the Bible is the most popular book in the world and the most potent factor in modern thought and civilization. Its enemies have not been able to kill It, time has not destroyed it, and' advance of learning apd science bks not affected its influence. Few boks can survive transportation. They show signs of life while they remain at home Where the atmosphere ls congenial, but carry them over the sea,, where educational, social and political conditions are different they wither and’ die. They are like trees which will not endure transplanting from one son to another. But the Bible hWcrossed all seas and all continents; It has overleaped the boundaries of aU nations; It has gone from Island to island, from zone to zone; and everywhere it is the same fresh, vigorous, living book. Translation is a severe test of the vitality of a book. It is almost impossible for a book to carry with it the vigor and freshness of the original into a new language.' Translated into-a foreign tongue,*-it seems like another book. It has lost some of the fragrance and richness of its thought and feeling. But the Bible has been translated, ip to lour hundred different languages, end sometimes under most unfavorable conditions, and still it carries with tt'fato every language the sweet savor of Its truth and life. It ls a 'tree : for all climes, a message for ail hearts, a song for all tongues, .a bohk for all people. "The grass witherfeth, and the flowerfadeth, but the-word of the Lprid endureth forever/'—Christian Advocate.