Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1885 — RELIGIOUS MATTERS. [ARTICLE]

RELIGIOUS MATTERS.

BY REV. T. C. WERSTER.

THE BIBLE. The Bible ip the most forceful, and pungent of books. While it has the swetness of a mother’s hush for human trouble, it haS all the keenness of a cinjieter, and the crushing power of a lightning bolt. It tells of man’s creation, in the image of God, of his exalted privileges in his Eden homo, and how he forfeited his right to all his claims on that happy abode, and to the mercy and love of his heavenly Father. It tells how one forbidden tree in the garden blasted the earth with sickness and death, and how this tree, though leaf less and bare, yet, planted on Calvary, shall yield a fruit that shall more than antidote tho poison of the other. 11 tells how low man has fallen into sin and degradation, and how high he may be exalted*through righteousness, obtained by faith in the blood of Christ, It speaks in gentleness of God's mercy for the erring, and his willingness to pardon and save the returning prodigal; but it blazes and burns with threatnings of his wrath, that, in his justice, will be visited upon the finally impenitent. Its pages are beaming with precious promises to all the race of man. Promises to the sinner, promises to tho Christian, promises to the rich, the poor, the sick, the dying; promises to the unlearned and the cultured; to the-old, the middle-aged and tho young; promises of sustaining grace, of keeping power and eternal life, to all who repent of their sins, and avalk in the light of God's approval. '‘lt's a lamp to our feet, and a light to our path way.” amidst the deepest shadows of this life, this light shines out clear and beautiful. It’s light pours in effulgence upon the graves of our beloved dead, and tells us they shall live again. It sends a flood of light out into the future, so that we are not going “we know not whither,” but up to the mansions of heaven, to be among the ransomed of all ages, and to know them, even as We are known. The Bible is the foundation of all good government, the chief corner-stone of all our schools of learning, and our institutions of benevolence. It is the forerunner of civilization, and the platform upon which good society stands. The Bible is a rock of diamonds, a chain of pearls: the sword of the spirit, a chart by which the Christian sails to eternity, the map by which he daily walks, the standard by which he sets bis fife, the balance in which he weighs his actions. The Bible is our best business guide; if men would oobt suit it more, and obey its precepts, We would have less financial crashes. It is needed in every department of life; the world cannot do without it. Destroy this Bible, as the enemies of human happiness have vainly endeavored to do, and you render us profoundly ignorant of our Creator, of the formation of the world which we inhabit, of the origin and progenitors of the race, of our pres ent day and future destination, and consign us, through life, to the dominion of fancy, doubt and conjecture. Destroy this volume, and you deprive us of religion, with all its animating consolations, hopes and prospects which it affords, and leaves us nothing but the choosing between the cheerless gloom of infidelity, and the monstrous shadows of Paganism. Destroy this volume, and you unpeople Heaven, bar lor ever its doors against humanity, restore to the King -of terrors his fatal sting, bury hope in the same grave which receives our bodies, consign all who have died before us to eternal sleep, and allow us to expect nothings but a similar fate; in a word, take away this volume, and you take away everything of value to us. Oh! let us hold on to; the Bible. Take away every thing else, ! if yon will, parents, children, brothers, sisters, companion and all earthly possessions, but leave aie this precious.volume. Let me die ameug strangers, or alone on seme mountain top, but let this Bible be my pillow in death. Among the dead, on one of the battle fields of our late Rebellion, Wab the unburied body of a Rebel soldier; several days ia 1 passed since the conflict; already the flesh had been eaten from his fingers by the worms, but underneath the skeleton hand lay an open copy of the Bible, and the fingers pressed upon these precious words of the twenty-third Psalm: “Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”