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■ CLIPPINGS FROM THE ANCIENT PRESS T ward his support. It gives us a comfortable feel ing to know that we stand in with the preacher, because we may need him to perform a marriage ceremony, to conduct a funeral or to cheer us up when we are confined by illness to the house. Os course, if we have forty cents a month invested in him we have a right to find fault with him and to bemean him to our heart’s content if he does not, by some secret power, unknown to ordinary mortals, find out that we are sick and come to see us every day or two. And then, if we have religion, we can go to meeting on Sunday, and that is one of the finest places on earth to gather material for gossip that will make us bright and entertain ing in conversation from one Sunday to the next. A select few in every church have a deeper con ception of the Christian religion, but to the masses there is little reality about it. And we need not go far to find the reason. It is because we are unacquainted with our Bibles. It is not a living reality, but a collection of beautiful sayings over which the different denominations may disagree. Feeling in this way our Bibles are not real to us, and they give us little help in our religious lives. And there are hundreds of preachers who, fear ing that they may become irreverent, cling to the methods of Bible study in vogue a century ago, forgetting that, while the Bible may not change, men will, and if you want to hold the attention of the public today you must use up-to-date meth ods in keeping with the age in which we live. The story is told of an old farmer from the mule regions of Tennessee, who came to the city on business, and there made the acquaintance of the automobile. While passing down the street he heard a scream, and looking up, he saw his first automobile. It had become unmanageable, and its sole occupant, a young lady, was screamin ng with terror. The old man understood mules, if he was a stranger to the automobile. He knew that the best way to stop a mule was to wave a coat or some other object in front of it. It was but the work of a moment for him to snatch off his coat, leap into the road and wave it at the ap proaching automobile. It didn’t stop, and when, badly bruised and scratched, he emerged from the dust into which he had been rolled, he learned that he could not use mule methods in dealing with automobiles. He was suddenly aware of the fact that he lived in the age of automobiles and not one of mules. The experience of that farmer serves me for an illustration. There are merchants who are just as foolish as he was, trying to stop automobile custo mers of this progressive age with the mule methods of the past. The time was when trade could be stop ped by a shouting drummer on the sidewalk, but it cannot be stopped that way today. The merchant who tries it will wake up when it is too late to find that his business has been run over by an automobile. The editor in this golden age of the world’s history who persists in running his paper with the mule methods of the past will wake up when he is in the hands of the sheriff to the fact that he and his paper have been knocked down and smashed by a modem road machine. The doctor who persists in prescribing the old mule remedies of the past will find that his practice has been run over and badly damaged by an au tomobile. The preacher who is afraid to adver tise his Sunday services, who cannot see that there is a difference between advertising himself and advertising the services, who persists in running his church along the good old “hark, from the tomb a doleful sound” mule methods of a day 0 a large majority of people the Chris tian religion is the most unreal thing to be encountered among men. It is an intangible something that gives us a place to which we can go on Sunday to hear a sermon from a gifted preacher in whom we feel an unusual degree of interest, since we have contributed the munificent sum of ten cents a week to- The Golden Age for December 6, 1906. By ALEX IV. BEALEE that is gone, will wake up some sad day, when it is too late, to find that his influence and his congre gations have been knocked down and run over by an automobile. Why have I said all of this? Because so few people have applied modern methods in the study of the Bible. This has made it a far off Book, the product of a far off God, instead of a Book that is near and dear to our hearts, coming from a God who is our Father and telling of a Christ who is our Brother and a Holy Spirit who is our Com forter and Guide. It has long been my purpose to modernize some of the striking stories of the Bible, especially those connected with the deliverance of the Chil dren of Israel from the bondage of Egypt and their entrance into the promised land. If the Bible is really true, the incidents recorded there really happened, then, we should look upon them as true, and not as mere works of Action. What better way is there for doing this than to clothe them in modern language? And with this end in view I purpose to write some of them up for The Golden Age as they would be written by the newspapers of today if they should happen now. I do not mean the sensational papers, but as they would (and their number, I am glad to say, is increasing every day), whose purpose is to tell the truth, to picture the happenings for his readers, instead of writing everything to conform to the policy of his paper. With this end in view I shall ask you to fancy that there might have been newspapers pub lished in the ancient days, papers that wrote up these different happenings, and from their columns I have clipped a few of the stories for the benefit of the readers of The Golden Age. These stories shall have no levity about them. I know there is room in such a series for a man to get funny at the expense of the sacred record, ibut I love the grand old Book of God too well for that. The stories shall be reverential from first to last and I shall seek to present them in a realistic, modern way, to make them so real that they shall appeal to the ordinary, every-day newspaper reader who may read as he runs, and be made to see their beauty and to ponder upon them. To me the Bible is a blessed Book, on every page of which throbs the great heart of humanity, whose strong points and whose weaknesses are there por trayed as in a mirror. There, in the history of the people of God I see a picture of the life man ought to live. Somewhere in the secret places of His uni verse, before the world began, God had the light imprisoned. At His call it came forth in all its mystery, to drive the shades into the nether depths. He spoke again, the waters sped away to seek their places and the hills and valleys lifted their faces to smile upon the firmament. Then the sun came forth to smile by day, .and the moon to give her light by night. The earth was robed in beauty, and life made its appearance. This is but a picture of what we have in the spiritual world. God’s power calling the light to shine into a darkened soul, the same power drawing a line of separation between the flesh and the spirit bringing forth beautiful lights to attract the eyes of men and peopling the life with glowing words and goodly deeds. And what a picture of the poor old human church is presented in the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness! Like them it takes us forty years to go over the ground that ought to be covered in three months, and how few are the seasons of trust as compared to those of doubt and despon dency I Yes, it is God’s own Book, and I see the same sin Adam admitted working in our own time. I feel it warring in my own members. I see it bringing pain and disorder into the ancient world, and the same thing is repeated today in Georgia, and in every other state in the Union, for the men and women who are pictured in the Bible are living in our midst and being influenced in the same way by sin. Within this great country of ours many an Eve is today listening to the tempter’s honeyed voice, and many an Adam is seeking to dodge responsibil ity behind the apron of his wife. How many Lots are living in too close touch with the world, reveling in the cities of the plain; how many Jacobs and Esaus are striving for the same heritage; how many Labans are planning advantageous marriages for their daughters; how many Achans are hid ing goodly Babylonish garments in the tents of life and holding back from God the wedges of gold that belong to Him; how many fearful spies are coming back with disheartening news from Canaan; how many Elis are neglecting the children God has given them, and how many Rachels, be reft of children, are weeping all about us? Mow and then a Jezebel arises to lead some godless Ahab in persecuting the prophets of God; all around us strong Samsons, under the spell of femi nine charms and lulled within the laps of designing Delilahs, are falling into spiritual blindness, bon dage and death; Agrippas, almost persuaded to become Christians, walk homeward from the tem ples of God on every Sabbath day; the self-right eous Pharisee, clothed in purple and fine linen, en larging his philacteries and making wide the bor ders of his garments, still struts in to occupy the chief places in the synagogue. Judas comes in to every flock of God to sell his Lord for silver; Pilate lives to wash his hands, Peter to deny his Lord, and then to weep in bitterness of spirit at his own weakness. I see them all as they press about me, testify ing in eloquent language to the truth of the Bible, when it says that all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And I can read within the sacred pages the beautiful lives of the men and women who are looking in faith to God, men and women who have come from out the Book to live before me in the generation in which God has permitted me to live and work. Today I see many an Abraham putting all his trust in God as he leads his flocks and herds across the hills and over the valleys of Georgia: here and there am Enoch may be found to walk with God, and now and then a Moses rises up to lead his people from the Egyptian bondage of ig norance and doubt into the bright and blessed Canaan of confidence and service. How many Hurs and Aarons 'are holding up the prophet’s falling hands; how many Shunammite wo men keep the prophet’s chamber ready for occu pancy; busy Marthas and trusting Marys move among us; Dorcas still sews for the needy while hundreds of Hannahs are consecrating their chil dren unto God. Jobs stricken unto death, but look ing with an unshaken faith unto God and crying. ‘•'Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” live on every side of us; David still clings to Jon athan in Godly friendship, at rare intervals the humble publican, crying for mercy, may be seen, and, blessed be God, Peter and John still live to forsake their nets and follow Jesus, while many a Paul, consecrated as of old, filled with that peace that passeth understanding, preaches salvation as a free gift from God. following faith in the name of Jesus, and like so many flaming swords there are many humble, fearless John the Baptists coming out of the wilderness to denounce the evils of the time and to point trembling sinners to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world. I thank God for the Bible as the great problem solver, the great illuminator of life. To me it is a blessed reality, a Book throbbing with life and humanity, a Book for every age and clime, a com panion for the boy as he leaves the old home nest and goes out into the world, a friend to the man in middle life, whose soul is scarred by the con flicts waged upon the battle ground of time, a sweet comforter to the aged saint whose earth worn feet are shuffling down into the dark valley (Concluded on page 11.) 7