Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

would want done under just and equitable circum stances. This community of interest is a sure cure for anarchy and wild socialism. Instead of its being im practicable, it is the salvation of the country. It sim ply means this: In a given transaction I will weigh my brother’s rights as I would have him weigh my rights. I would not allow myself to take any unfair means with him as I would not have him take any unfair means with me. This rule cannot be changecf, and furthermore, it must be observed if we expect to win followers for our Master. Saving Character. Yonder is a young woman. She has just come to the city. Unfortunately for her, she has fallen in with the wrong crowd of associates, and the tongue of the gossipers has begun to work. The unfortu nate girl is in ignorance of it all. She comes to church and goes home and nothing is said to warn her. After awhile she is slighted by those who have formerly been her friends, and, perhaps, sisters in the church. Her feelings are hurt, and upon in quiry she finds that her character, as the world views it, is seriously damaged, if not forever ruined. This is no fancy picture. It is what is going on every day, and the sad part of it is, going on in church circles among church people. riow different it might have been with the case in point when the young woman first came to the city, she should have been received by those who knew the dangers with motherly arms, and when she was observed to be associating with the wrong crowd, she should have been lovingly told of it. We have got to put ourselves in the other fel low’s place if we are to cease from falling. We have got to do unto others as we would have others do unto us. This is Christian. I see the same need in the world of affliction. Yonder is a poor home in which death has come. It may be the brightest and dearest flower of the home has been taken. It may be a son upon whom a widowed mother has been tending. She may be a member of your church or mine. We have seen her Sabbath after Sabbath. Together we have sung: ‘‘Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in Christian love; The fellowship of kindred minds Is like to that above. We share our mutual woes, Our mutual burdens bear;" And often for each other flows The sympathizing tear.” Now this sorrow comes. The one with whom we have sung with such feeling is now in trouble. How does that trouble affect us? Suppose we put our selves in her place. Would we be pleased with our conduct on such an occasion ? Do not think it to be a light question, the world is watching to see what we do under such circumstances. It sees us hand in hand under other circumstances. It sees us attentive and sympathetic on other oc casions, and it has a right to expect that we shall be the same now. Oh, if we were properly careful at this point! There is no telling how much more happiness we would get out of the world and there is no telling' how much good we would do. Even death under such circumstances would mean more than life under others. The other day I was in South Carolina and talk ed to a negro who is very much honored and re spected in his community. He is one of seven boys. All of them own their own farms. There is a bit of interesting history back of these farms, however: Before the civil war, the owner of the father of these seven boys was challenged to fight a duel. The old slave heard about it, and knowing that his. master was a poor shot, went the night before and killed the man who made the challenge. Upon investigation it was found that the old negro did this of his own accord. Os course there was no way of saving his life, indeed, he never tried. After slaying the would-be slayer of his master, he immediately made the confession and gave himself up to be hanged. We may abhor crime, and revolt against it all we may, but the fact that the old negro, by weigh ing his life and the life of his master in the same The Golden Age for March 22, 1906. scales, decided in favor of the one he regarded most important. Now for the history of the farms of the seven boys: When the master died he willed to each of the old slave’s children a nice little farm. Ev erybody said he did the right thing. To have done less would have shown a lack of appreciation of what had been done for him. Let us be more considerate of other people. The world is watching us more at this point than at any other. Let us try to put ourselves in the other fol low’s place. It will make us happier and him bet ter. What is the Bible? By Chas. Blanchard, President Wheaton College. There are three answers to this question. Some say the Bible is the word of God; others that it is the word of man; and some say that it is a mix ture of both. It is obvious that the answer to this question is of the utmost importance. If God has given any revelation in language, it is in the Bible. No one claims that any other so-called sacred book could be considered its rival for a moment. So far as the verbal revelation is concerned, it is the Bible or nothing. There is every reason for supposing that God would reveal himself to men in words. No doubt he reveals himself in nature and in his tory and in the consciences of men, but the knowl edge derived from these sources is varying and therefore uncertain. One man sees one thing in nature and history, another sees another. It is true that language also is interpreted differently by differ ent pei sons, but no one would claim that the at- B * I -W'' tributes of God are as clearly revealed in nature as in the Bible. Consider a moment: What would be thought of a father who had children in circum stances of need or danger who knew his way to safety and peace, and who did not reveal it to his ■children? No one would claim that he was a wor thy man, and if an earthly father should reveal his will to his children, much more should our heavenly Father reveal his will to us. If there were :no other argument than this, it would satisfy a ■rational man that somewhere or other there must (be a word of God spoken to men. When we come to (examine the book as it stands the reasons for be lieving it to be that word, are overwhelming. In tthe first place, it was written by obscure men in an (obscure nation in the far away beginnings of time. ’.The nation which produced it has never been cele brated in arts, arms or literature. The Bible may Ibe called its sole product, yet this book, written Ibut such men, of such a nation, at such a time has made conquest of the intellect of the world. Those who owned and read it were for some fifteen hun dred years subject to persecution. They were be headed, hanged and crucified; they were hunted like wild beasts of the field, yet the book lived on and to-dny is believed to be the word of God by the :most intelligent and virtuous people in the most intellectual and powerful nations of the world. How cam we account for such a fact? There is one (explanation—only one. The book is not man’s book, Ibut God’s. About tone hundred and fifty years ago Voltaire (said that in one hundred years the Bible would be an extincit work. He said that men who wanted to see it would have to hunt for it. Well, the hundred years and more have passed and more copies of the book have been printed in the last ten years than in the preceding eighteen hundred. Long rows of presses at Cambridge and Oxford, in London, Philadelphia and New York, work day and night to supply an ever increasing demand. When Voltaire made his rash statement the Bible was printed in about forty languages and dialects. Now it is printed in about four hundred and fifty and great scholars in all parts of the world are still making new versions. Now a rational man must furnish a rational account of such an effect. If the Bible be God’s word, all this is natural; if it be man’s, it is simply incredible. Another fact which must be reckoned with is that the morality and religion which this book teaches are yet far above the highest level obtain ed by men. No crimes, no vices, no folly, no sins are justified and permitted. Absolute righteousness is the demand. Anything less than this is condemned and, unless repented, threatened with dire and never ending punishment. Here then is a book written in a time of universal ignorance of universal supersti tion and degradation, written by members of an obscure nation which has made no record in arts, arms or literature. Yet it teaches a religion so ra tional, a morality so pure and a social system so equitable that the highest reaches of human so ciety have failed to attain its lofty level. Individ uals here and there have done so. Communities now and again have approximated it and as these men and societies have approached the Bible they have attained happiness and prosperity. As they have failed to do so they have sunken into all sorts of shames and crimes. What is the explanation of this wonderful fact? That a few men two or three thou sand, four thousand years ago invented such a book? Nobody can believe it. Such a proposition carries its falsehood on its face. Another fact which must be reckoned with is this. The Bible “finds men.” The Bible finds men in the deepest recesses of their being. We admire Shakes peare, Browning and Tennyson, but no man feels approved or condemned because of what they say. It is only when they echo the voice of God that they speak as men having authority; but the Bible is different. It makes no suggestions, gives no ad vice, takes no counsel. “Thus, saith the Lord,” is its ever recurring note. “Believe this and live;” “doubt this and die;” “obey and reap;” “the fruits of obedience;” “disobey and you heap up wrath against the day of wrath.” In every page, in every clime the effect of this wonderful book has been the same. Men are terrified by it, if they live in sin; they are comfort ed and strengthened, if they live holy lives. This is the reason that bad men cannot bear the book, or the places where it is taught. They do not read it, they will not hear it. They hope it is not true, but they are afraid. Is it not strange that a book written by ignorant Jews three thousand years ago, in a country sixty miles wide and one hundred and twenty miles long, should thus cause men to fear and tremble. Os course it would be wonderful, nay, impossible, but it is not wonderful that the voice of the eternal God should so effect men who live a little round of 60 or 70 years between a cradle and a coffin? But if this book be really the word of God, two or three things will follow. In the first place, we should study it as we never have. “Search the ■Scripture” is not only the language of Revelation, it is the voice of highest reason also. Two-thirds the time that the average man spends on newspa pers, magazines and other books might be diverted to the study of the word of God to his financial, in tellectual and spiritual profit. In the second place, we should not only know the book ourselves, but we should obey it. The principle business of a man in this world should be, first, to find out what God wants him to do, and then to be about it. Life or death, heaven or hell, happiness or misery, these are the alternatives, the path of knowledge and obedience is the path of light and life. In the third place, and finally, the greatest service we can do for men is to secure for them an interest in this wonder fid book. Men are harrassed by business cares, are tortured by passion, they are driven by thousands to insanity and suicide every year, and there is no cure but the word of God. Let us make it our own and pass on it. 5