Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 305, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1914 — Back to the Bible [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Back to the Bible

Application of the Scriptures to the World Today aa Seen by Eminent Men in Various Walks of Life

(Copyright, 1914, by Joseph B. Bowies)

THE BASIS OF THE BIBLE. (By WILLIAM FRASER McDOWELL, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church.) “This collection of books has taken such a hold on the world as no other. Men rest on this their dearest hopes; it tells them of Gold and of his blessed Son, of earthly duties and of heavenly rest.’’—Theodore Parker. Thoughtful students of any outstanding literature Inevitably ask these questions:

What was its basis, what was its purposfe and what is its outcome? these questions are even more vital sot the average man than for the student. For the average man takas his literature it comes along. Now the first thing to remember is that there is always some basis of life or experience behind any real writing,

behind all the books that live and affect men. A national life, longer or shorter, precedes a national literature, a religious life, more or less perfect, precedes a religious literature. Of course such literatures in their turn create national and religious life, but always the life comes first. " . Here, then, is this notable book, this wonderful body of literature, the Bible. It is vastly rich in the range of its contents and variety of its style. The literature of England from Bede to Browning is not more rich or varied. And yet its unity is more striking than its variety. What lies behind it all? What is the basis of it? There is .only one answer necessary though many others have been given. The fact, the experience, the life lying behind this vast and eternally potent book, giving it unity, is the long divine movement, of God in human life and upon human life for the redemption of man’s life from destruction. This is the key to it. This supreme literature of the world is based upon the redemptive purpose, desire and movement of God upon and within the human race. The Bible’s chief figure is the redeeming God, revealed perfectly for man’s redemption in Jesus Christ. The basis of the Bible seems to me to be this. And a noble basis it is. The Bible will always be supremely valuable to man with such a basis as this.

SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

(By Hlb Eminence JAMES, CARDINAL GIBBONS.) *’Tn t Africa I was shut up with my Bible, the Book with a million eyes."— Dan Crawford, F. R. G. S., missionary 23 years in Central Africa.

God has given us a heart to be formed to virtue, as well as a head

to be enlightened. By secular education we improve the mind, by religious training we direct the heart To educate means to bring out, to develop the intellectual, moral and religious faculties of the soul. An education, therefore, that improves the mind and the memory to the neglect of moral and religious training is at best an imper-

feet system. According to Webster’s definition, to educate is “to instill into the mind principles of art, scienbe_ morals, religion and behavior.” ”To educate in the arts,” he says, “is Important; in religion, indispensable.” k • It is not sufficient to know how to read and write, to understand the rudiments of grammar and arithmetic. It does not suffice to know that two and two make four, we must practically learn also the great distance between time and eternity. Tpe knowledge of bookkeeping m not sufficient unless we are taught also how to balance our accounts daily between our conscience and our God. It will profit us little to understand all about the daily and yearly motions of the earth unless we add 'to this science some heavenly astronomy. The Intellectual and moral growth of our children should go hand jn handi otherwise their education is shallow and fragmentary and often proves a curse Instead of a blessing. Piety is not to be put on like a holiday dress, to be worn on state occasions, but it is to be exhibited in our conduct at all times. Our youth must put in practice every day the commandments of God, as, well a* the

rules of grammar and arithmetic. How can they familiarize themselves with these sacred duties if they are not daily inculcated? THE INSPIRATION OF ENGLISH % LITERATURE. (By HENRY AUGUSTUS BUCHTEL, Chancellor University of Denver, Former Governor of Colorado.) The Bible was the inspiring force which created the beginnings of our

English literature. English ceases to be a wandering voice and begins to take definite shape in Wycliffe’s Bible and in, Chaucer’s Canterbury • Tales in the fourteenth century. But seven centuries before that, back in the Anglo-Saxon period, we have our first poem in Caedmon’s paraphrase of the Bible. This is not a translation of the Bible, but an

effort to sing the substance of the inspired story in the language of the conSmon people. Immediately follow'ing we have the oldest prose, that of the venerable Bede, the father of English history, who wrote forty treatises which constitute a sort of cyclopedia of his times. Twenty-five of these treatises were on Biblical subjects. The 7 most pretentious of these writings is called “The Ecclesiastical History of Our Nation and Island.” The Tyndale New Testament, the first printed English New Testament, Arrived in England in 1525. For thir-ty-five years, excepting only about four years, the book was proscribed. It might not bq read on pain qf a variety of punishments, Including being burned alive. During these thirtyfive years practically all the people In England were listening to the reading qf the Bible surreptitiously. They devoured the book. They were starving 1 for its gldrious revelations of spiritual truth. When the young Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, there was only one question in England. The people met the young queen at the gate of London with Tyndale’s Bible, and, holdifig It aloft, asked, “What are you going to do with that?” Instantly she stooped down and kissed it. And that made the Elizabethan age. All who are refreshed by the vast literature in our English language must rejoice that the Bible has always had this power of inspiring men with an unquenchable desire to make record of their thoughts and feelings in spoken and written language.

MOSES, LEADER AND LAWGIVER.

(By HERBERT L. WILLETT, Ph. D„ Dean Disciples’ Divinity House, University of Chicago.) The spiritual history of the world has been largely molded by the lives of a few important moral leaders. 'Of these Moses was one of the greatest In the twelfth century B. C., during the reign of Ramases the Great, a group of Semitic herdsmen, the result of an earlier/migration from the northeast were living in the Delta of Egypt. They were the possessors of traditions that linked them with Abraham and, Jacob, Hebrew patriarchs who had lived in Canaan. These Hebrew clans in Egypt had fallen upon unhappy days. The government was no longer friendly to them. They were set at task work, building the king's treasure cities and granaries. “When the tale of bricks is doubled, then comes Moses.” A young Hebrew, surviving the dangers to which his people were subjected, grew up in the favor of the court He was educated in the university, and was “learned in the wisdom of the Egyptians.” But a premature effort th behalf of his people compelled him to escape for his life beyond the frontiers of Egypt. He found refuge among the Mldianlte clans south and eatt of Canaan, somewhere In the region of a sacred mountain, Horeb or Sinai. There he spent many years, seemingly lost to his peo l pie. But at length, meditation upon their fortunes and an experience at the sacred mountain which he deemed the call of God to his uncompleted task, brought him back to Egypt. There he inspired his people with the hope of deliverance, and seizing a favorable opportunity when Egypt under Merenptah was suffering a series of mysterious visitations, he led forth to the number of some thousands. Their escape was made under circumstances so manifestly shaped by the divine favor that the events of the exodus were ever after Regarded among the Hebrew tribe? as the proof that Jehovah had providentially led them forth from the land of Egypt. , ' Ont into the desert Moses led them, to that same holy mountain where he had been inspired for his great task. There for many months they remained and there Moses gave to them the beginnings of their national consciousness. The lengthened shadow of Moses, the man of God, fell far down the history of Israel.