Funding for the digitization of this title was provided by R.J. Taylor, Jr. Foundation.
About Schley County news. (Ellaville, Ga.) 1889-1939 | View Entire Issue (July 5, 1900)
DR. TAL3I AGE’S SERMON Th* Eminent Divine's Sunday Discourse. Subject: The Best of All Rooks—TIie Bible'* Divine Origin Upheld—Ful filled Frophecle* of the Old Testament Prove Its Emanation From God. [Copyright lWKt.i WASHINGTON, D. C.—In the great con flict now raging in Europe, as in this coun try, between Christianity and agnosticism l)r. Talrnagc has taken a decided Btand, and in this sermon declares his unwaver ing belief in the divine origin vii, of the “Do Scrip tures; text, Matthew 10, men gather grapes of thorns?” Not in this country. Not in any coun tr>\ 1 horns stick, thorns lacerate, but all the thorns put together Isabella never yielded one cluster of Catawba or grapes. Christ, who was the master of apt and po tent illustration, is thus setting forth what you and 1 well know—that you cannot get that which is pleasant and healthful and good from that which is bad. If you find a round, large, beautiful produced cluster by of grapes, good you know that it was a grapevine, and not from a tangle of 0 an ada thistle. Now, if I can show you that inis Holy Bible yields good fruit, healthfiff fruit, grand fruit, splendid fruit, you will come to the conclusion it is a good Bible, and all the arguments of the skentic against it when he tries to show it is a bad book, will go overboard. Do men gather grapes of thorns? Can a bod took yield good results? Skeptics Bi with grtat vehemence declare that the ble is a cruel book. They read the story ol the extermination of the Canaanitea and ol all the ancient wars and of the his tory of David and Joshua, and Bible they come to the conclusion that the is in fa vor of laceration and manslaughter and massacre. Now, a bad book will produce a bad result, a cruel book will produce a cruel result. You have friends who have been in the habit of Have reading the noticed Bible a tendency great many years. you a to cruelty heard on their them part? Have and you practi- ever any of come out cally say, “I have been reading the story about the extermination of the Canaanitea and I am seized upon maul with and a disposition pinch and to cut and slash and murder and knock on?” to pieces everything friends I can lay my hands Have your in proportion as they disciples become the diligent Chris Bi- of ble students and- of st the Bible, shown a tendency toward mas sacre that been and murder observation? and manslaughter? Has What has youT been the effect chil this cruel book? Or, upon if your do dren of you not allow the book to be read in your house hold, what has been the effect upon the -children of other households where the Word of God is honored? cruel Have they as a result of reading this book gone forth with a cruel spirit to pull the wingB off flies and to pinion grasshoppers and to rob birds’ nests? A cruel book ought to make and cruel absorbed people: with if they its diligently principles read that it get cause must produce that effect. At what time did vou Bible notice that the teachings oi this Holy created cruelty in the heart and the life of George Peabody, of Miss Dix, Howard, of Florence of John Nightingale, Frederick Oberlin. of John oi Abbot Laurence? Have you noticed iD reading the biography of became these people friends that of the in proportion Bible they as became they enemies to human ity? Have you not, on the contrary, no ticed that established, all the institutions of mercy were chiefly supported or, being by the established, friends of were this book? There is the hospital in war time. There are twenty Christian women. fering They are cordials, binding up wounds, kneeling they down are of- by the trey are their its. dying, Where praying does for the cruelty departing spir- out? cron all They lives. have They been read reading the Bible their they it every morning; their read it every night; they they carry hospital. it under arm when go into the Again, infidels go on and most vehe mently book. You charge all that know this that Bible is an impure book produces impure results. an No impure of amount money could hire you to allow your child to read an unclea •. book. Now, if this Bi ble be an impure book, where are the vic tims? Your father read it—did it make him a bad man? Your mother read it— did it make her a bad woman? Your sis ter fifteen years in heaven died in the faith of this gospel—did it despoil her na ture? Some say there are 200,000,000 cop ies of the Bible In existence; some say there are 400,000,000 copies of the Bible. It is impossible But to give the <accurate statistics. of the Bible suppose abroad, there this are 200,000,000 hook read copies more one than any twenty books that the world ever printed, this book abroad for ages, for ages, for centuries—w lie re are the vic tims? Show me 1000; show me 500 vic tims of an impure book; show me 100 de spoiled of the Bible; show me fifty; show me ten; 6how me two; show me one. Two hundred million copies of P n impure book, On and not one victim of tn O impurity. well that it is the contrary. Bible you know very where tlie has the most power that the family institution is most respected. further, and Again, agnostics go on still they say the Bible is a mass of contradic tions, and they put prophet evangelist, against pro phet, evangelist apostle, against and they if this apos- be tle against then, say true how, can that be true. Mr. Miil, who Avas a friend of the Bible, eaid he had 'discovered 30,000 different read ings of the Scriptures and yet not one im portant difference out of 30,000, only the difference the that book you might down expect from from the fact that came gener ation to generation, a c d was copied by a great many hands. A a d yet I put before you writers this fact in to-day—that the four great all doctrines the Bible of agree the Bible. What are these four great doctrines? God—good, nipotent. Man—a kind, patient, lost sinner. just, loving, Two desti- om nies—one for believers, the other for un believers. All who accept Christ reaching that home and only those destroyed who destroy their back themselves, upon Christ only and those who to turn the and come precipice pushes jump off, for God never a man off; he jumps off. Now, in these four great doctrines Beethoven, all the Bible writers agree. Mozart, nious Handel, Hadyn, never wrote more harmo music than you will find in this per fect harmony of the Word of God, the bar rnony in providence and in grace. You must remember also that the. au thors of the Bible came from different ferent lands, from different ages and from dif centuries. They had no communica tion with each other, they did not have an idea as to what was the chief design of the Bible, and yet their writings, got up from all these different ages ana all these dif ferent centuries, coming together, make a l>erfect harmony „ in the opinion of the very best scholars of all lands. Is not that a mo6t remarkable fact ? Again, infidels vehemently charge that the Bible is an unscientific book. In a former discourse 1 showed vou that there was no collision between science and reve lation, and I went from point to point in the discussion. But now let us have au thority in this matter. You and I cannot give tne forty or lixty or 1 sixty years exclu sively to the Let study have of science authority that iu some this men give. us matter. collision between Who say3 there is a science and revelation? Well, Herbert Spencer, Tyndall, Darwin. They and say revela- there is a discord between science tion. But i will bring you names of men who have found a perfect accord between science and revelation, men as much high er in intellectual character above those whom I have mentioned as the Alps and Mount Washington and the Himalayas are higher than the hill hack of your house, Herscnel, Kepler, Leibnitz, Ross, Isaac Newton. My friend*, we are in respecta ble company when we believe in the Word of God—very I might, respectable infidels company. have failed to Now. as book, that prove that the Bible is a cruel the Bible is an impure look; that the Bi ble is a contradictory book, that the Bi bie is an unscientific book—I Infidelity, might move the a nonsuit in this case of plaintiff, against Christianity, the defend ant, but T will not take advantage cf the circumstances, for when the gullible skeptic people, goes on to say that we are a when he goes on to say, as he often does, the that the greater the improbability when he more we like to believe it; goes on to say that the Bible is made up of a lot of manuscripts, and one another picked from up here and another there, some other place, and that the whole thing is an imposition on the credulity of the hu man race, I must reply to that charge. The Bible is made un of the Old Testa ment and the New Testament. Let us take the New Testament first. Why do I believe it? Why do I take it to my heart? It is because it can be traced bac 1- to the divine heart just as easily as that aisle can be traced to that door and that aisle to that door. Jerome and Eusebius in the first century and Origen in the second century, and other writers in the third and fourth cen turies gave a list of the New Testament writers just exactly corresponding with our list, showing that the same New Tes tament which we have they had in the fourth eenturv. and the third century and the second century they and the first century. But where did get the New Testa ment? They got it from Irenaeus. Where did Trenaeus get it? He got it from Poly carp. Where did Polycarp get it? He got it from St. John, who avas the personal as sociate of the Lord Jesus Christ. My grandfather it gave I a give book to my father, child. nij I( pave to me, it to mv there any difficulty in tracing this line? On communion day I will start the cha, Tice at that end of the aisle, and the cha> lice wifi pass along to the other end of tha aisle. W ill it be difficult to trace the line of that holy chalice? No difficulty at all. This one will say, “I rave it to that one,” and this one will say, “I gave it to that one.” But it will not be so long a line as this to trace the New Testament. It is easier to get rt the fact. But you say: that “Although who this knows avas handed but they right down lying in imposters? way, How take were can you their testi mony?” book. Men They died for the truth of that never die for a lie cheerfully and triumphantly. They were not lying impostors. I hey died in triumph for the truths “Well,” of that New Testament. “now I ready believe says that some the one. New Testament am to is from the heart of Christ, but how about the Old Testament? Why do you believe that?” I believe the Old Testament be cause the prophecies foretold events hun dreds and thousands of years ahead— events which afterward took place. How far can you see ahead? Two thousand years? Can Can you ahead see ahead minutes? a hundred No, vears? you see five nothing. no. Human prophecy amounts to thousands Here these old prophets stood of years back, and they foretold events which came accurately true far on in the future centuries. Suppose I should stand here and say to you, “Twenty-five three miles hundred and and sixty years from now. a half from the city of Moscow there will be an advent, and it will be in a certain farnilv, and it will be amid certain sur roundings.” because It would make know no I impression fore upon you, you cannot see a thousand years or one year or one minute, and 1 cannot tell what is going to transpire in a land far away. But that is what You these old remember prophets did. that Tyre and must Babylon and Nineveh were in full pomp and splendor when said these they prophecies, tvould be these de stroyed. old prophecies, Those cities had architecture that makes the houses of modern cities per fectly insignificant. Yet these old pro phets walked right through those magnifi cent streets down; and this said, “This has be all leveled.” got to come is all going to Besides that, you must remember that this book has been under fire for centu ries, and after all the bombardment of the skeptics knocked of all the this centuries Bible they have not out of a piece as large as the small end of a sharp needle. On, how the old book sticks together! Unsanctitied geologists try to pull away the book of Genesis, They say they do not believe it. It cannot be there was light before the sun shone, it cannot be all this storv about Adam and Eve, and they pull at tne book of Genesis, and they have been pulling book of a Genesis? great while, Standing yet where just where is the it stood all the time. There is not a man on earth who has ever « -oed it from his Bi ble. And so the infidels have been trying to pull blasted away fig the tree, miracles, at th« pulling turning away of at the the water into wine, at the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Can you show me a Bible from which one oi these miracles has been eraseu ? How marvelously the old book sticks to gether! only driving All the them striking in dee at tnese chapters clinched the other si PA3 er with until the they ham- are on e mers of eternity. And the book is going to keep right on until the tires of the last day are kindled. Some oi them will begin on one side and some on the other side of the old book. They will not find a bundle of loose manu scripts When easily the consumed by the fire. fires of i last day are kin dled, some will Revelation, „urn on this side, from Genesis toward and others will bum on this side, from Revelation toward Genesis, and in all their way they will not find a single chapter or a single verse out of place. afford That do will without be the first Bible. time we can to the Wliat will be the use of th? book of Gen esis. made, descriptive when the world of how destroyed? the world What waa the is will be the use of prophecies when they are all fulfilled? What will be the use of the evangelistic or Pauline description of Jesus Cnnst when we e: j Him tace to face? But I do not think we will give up the Bible even at that time. 1 think we will want the Bible in heaven. I really think the tires of the last day will not consume the last copy, for when you and I get our dead children out of tne dust we want to show them just the passages, just the promises, which comforted us here in the dark day of interment,, and we will want to talk over with Christians who have had trials and struggles, and we will want to show them the promises that especially re freshed us. I think we Bhall have the Bi ble in heaven. •:At* ‘ ? c >e*' H4 mhL Oh, i want “The io near David with shepherd;” his own voice read, Lord is my I want to hear Paul with his own voice read, victory;” “Thanks be unto God that giveth us the I want to hear the archangel play Paul’s march of the resurrection with the same trumpet with which he awoke the dead! O blessed book, good enough Dear for earth, book—book good enough for heaven. old bespattered with the blood of sprinkled martyrs who aied for its de fense, book all over with the tears of those who hands by of it were children comforted! Put it in the your on their birthday; put it on the table in the sitting room it under when you head begin when to keep bouse; put hook! your I you die. Dear old press it to my heart: “Where I press shall it I to go?’ my r said lips. dying Hindoo a to the Brahmitic priest to whom he had given money to pray for his salvation. ••Where shall 1 go after I die?” The Brahmitic priest said, “You will first of alJ go the into dyingHindoo, a holy quadruped.” “where shall “But,” I go then?” said “Then you shall go into a singing bird.” “But,” shall said 1 go?” the dying “Then,” Hindoo, said the “where Brah then mitic, er.” The “you dying will Hindoo go into threw a beautiful his flow of solicitation he up said, “But arms in an agony as where shall I go last of all?” Thank God this Bible tells the Hindoo, tells voU, tells me. not where I skall go to-day, not where I shall go to-morrow, not where I shull eo next year, but where I shall go last of all! CYCLING NOTES. Too clips are gradually coming Into favor with wheelmen. Most of tlie wheels seen on the road are equipped with coaster brakes. Women cyclists this season prefer high-framed machines with saddles well forward. Last year tlie imports of bicycles into Sweden amounted in value to about $1,775,000. South Carolina is preparing to in troduce sklepatli and wide tire laws In the next Legislature. It Is estimated that more miles of sMepath tlirougliout Hie country will be built this year than ever before. There seems to be a craze with a number of rWors to perform long-dis tance feats. The folly of such acts ought to be readily seen. Btirns Jimmy Michael was beaten easily by Pierce in a twenty-mile motor paced race at Charles River Park, at Cambridge, Mass., iu tho slow time of 3L29 3-5. A strong wind made record time Impossible. The cycle record from New York to Boston has been broken by lie tram E. Russell, of Springfield, Mass. Ilia lime was twenty Lours and three min utes, being three hours and twenty nine minutes better than tlie previous record, made by Warren F. Taylor two years ago. A peculiar feature of the competi tions for club trophies won in century nins is that the smaller and newer clubs score more frequently than their larger and older rivals. The large dulis compete infrequently, and so the Little outs find tt possible to win both first and second prizes. Many folk never think of Inflating their tires unless they are going out for a ride. Rubber tires allowed to stand slack for any length of time Ipse vitality, and fail, even when pumped to their tightest, to run with the ease aud spring of those that are constantly kept inflated. ' v NEWSY CLEANINGS. Free lancles in saloons have been forbidden by the City Council of Des Moines, Iowa. As a result of a long drought 20,000 sheep perished of thirst in one sec tion In Australia. London Is suffering from an epi demic of suicide, sixty cases being re ported within thirteen days. Readjustment of postmasters’ sala ries has resulted in increased pay in nearly two thousand offices. The foreign commerce of the port of Boston last year aggregated $190,- 485,000, surpassing all previous rec ords. A Pan-African Congress will assem ble in London in July to secure in creased recognition of England’s col ored subjects. The bubonic plague has ljrokcn out at Guayamas, Mexico, among gome Chinese w!io passed through the United States. A fin-back whale, thirty feet tong, has been caught by two fishermen named Tuttle iu a sturgeon net outside New York Harbor. Mr. Gladstone’s statue Is to be set up at Athens In the gardens of tho Zappekm, in recognition of his services to Greek independence. Wheeling, W. Va., will Ik? presented with a cannon captured by the United States gunloal Wheeling at Appario, iu the Islam] of Luzon, The body of Rev. Ignatius IYwchcli, lmriod forty years ago, was found to bo hi a perfect state of preservation when exhumed at Norwalk, Ohio. TIk? United Bleachers’ Association, Including the mast Important bleach ing firms In England, Inis been formed at^lioudou, with a capital of $15,000 A movement Is on foot In Boston to lMTScrve at Hull, Mass., tlie Irouse once occupied by John Boyle O’Reilly, the poet, and to convert a portion of it iuto a free library. WILL SPRING SURPRISE. Fro*Mmtlon Tn Goebel Murder Caee Ha* a Sensation In Store. A Frankfort, Ky., dispatch says: Govornor Beckham, at the instance of T. Campbell, has made requisition ou Governor Tyler, of Virginia, for a Goebel suspect whose name is with held. It is said this arrest will snr prise the defense. Franklin county officers left Thursday night for Rich mond. BILL ARP’S LETTER Discourses Upon The Damage Wrought By Inoessant Rains. TatS ABOUT HIS WONDERFUL BEANS And Reverts to the Story of “Jock and tl*e lleau Stalk”—Digresses to Other Topic*. This is the first bright genial sunny morning that we have had in three weeks—for twenty-one days it has rained every day save one, The crops are in a bad fix: the corn and cotton are hidden by grass and weeds and labor is scarce, for the negroes are wauted in the mines. Most of the wheat has been cut, but how much of it will be saved cannot yet be told. Within my recollection of fifty years I do not recall so much rain in har vest time. According to scripture, it seems to be the same old story, for Solomon says, “As rain iu harvest so is honor unseemly in a fool.” They bad too much rain and too many fools then just as we do now. Maybe Providence sends the rain to try the farmer—to make them diligent aud shifty. I traveled on the East and West railroad last week for 60 miles and I noted some farms that were clean and nice—the corn aud cotton chopped out and the wheat shocked in the field; one of these belonged to a widow, and she and her three girls and one boy were just finishing the cotton. Markham dident write anything about the woman with the hoe, nor the girls, but one of these girls was merry enough to wave her bonnet at somebody on the train besides me. Some farmers sit down and wait for tomorrow’s sun to dry off the ground; but tomorrow’s sun dident 6hine, and so they wait till next day. Others slap in every chance and do something; I know one who began to cut his wheat Monday morning just as soon as Sunday was gone—for Sunday was the day it did not rain. He cat half that night and all day Monday and got through with his 30 acres, and he says he will maks 700 bushels. Another diligent farmer made 400 bushels last year on twenty acres, and Bowed it right away to cowpeas and sold his peavine hay for more per acre than he got for his wheat. That i3 business—and Solomon says, “Seest thou a man diligent in his business; he shall stand before kings.” I am no braggart, but let me say that if I had waited for the rain to quit I would be singing that old song, “A man of words, but not of deeds, is like a gar den full of weeds.” I worked between showers, and sometimes when Mrs. Arp called and called me to oome in out of the rain I pretended I didn’t hear her, and struck a few more licks for Mr. Markham. I wish you could see my bean arbor—not butter beans, but the best and most prolific bean I ever planted. I had them last year on my corn patch, but they do better on poles or over a cane arbor. Plant two rows of beans five feet apart, and when they are well up stick them with canes. Lap the small ends of the canes together on the ground, and get your wife or daughters to tie them in three or four places—all of uniform length—then arch them over the beaus, and nature will do the rest. I never saw half as many beans as hang from my vines. Of course the rains have stimulated the growth of everything, and it’s lucky the vege tables grow upward instead of outward. I planted my potatoes in a trench that was shoveled out and manured with ashes—wood and poal mixed—then covered with pine straw and some earth cm that They are the finest I ever grew, and come out of the straw al most clean enough to cook without washing. Pine straw is very valuable in a garden and is cheap, costing only 30 cents for a good load. It is good mulch for strawberries, aud I am ex perimenting with it under a few to mato plants; most of them I have trained up to stakes, but I saw a mar ket garden near Memphis and all the tomato vines had tumbled over on wheat straw, and made more fruit, though not so large and fine as when staked. A garden is a small experimental farm, and is of as much consequence and more pleasure, especially if you mix flowers with it. Don’t throw away your coal asfles; mixed with wood ashes, they are a fine fertilizer. Mr. Berckmans says that ashes produce fruit, while stable manure produces vine and foliage. A»he3 will double tho quantity of strawberries. Beets generally come up too thick. Thin them out and transplant; cut oflT part of the tops, and tlie transplants will make the best beets. Just so with celery. But I don’t propose to teach old gardeners, for some of them cau teach me—my neighbor, Mrs. Fields, is the best gardener I know of, and I am satisfied if I can keep up with her. I have some of my wonderful beans planted to poles. The poles are from eight to ten feet high, and it interests me to see the bean vines reaching up to find something higher to cling to. The tendrils are now two or three feet higher than the poles, and still reach ing up and feeling around iu the air. I am going to give them some fishing poles fifteen feet long today—wish I had some twenty feet long. They remind me of Jack and his bean vine—my children and grand children never tire of that good old story. How a poor widow had a little boy named Jack who was good to his mother, and one day Jack saw an old giant coming. His head was as big as a small barrel, his eyes as big as saucers, his nose as big as my arm, liia mouth like the end of a big stove pipe and his teeth like iron spoon b. He came up the road snorting like a horse, and was singing, “I smell the blood of an Englishman; Alive or dead I must have some.” Jack ran in tlie house to his mother and she pulled up a plank in the floor and dropped Jack dpwn in the cellar and put the plank ^ack, aud moved her chair and table on it, aud sat down and went to knitting. Here came the old giant, puffing and blowing like a steamboat. He dident eat anything but little boys, and he peeped in a* the door and said, I’m hungry, and I’m hunting for a boy.” Jack’s mother told him she dident have any boy for him, and to go off, or she would set her big dog on liiru. Then he walked all round the house and looked down the chimney, for he was as high as a tree, but he couldent find Jack. When he went away and was out of sight, Jack’s mother took up the plank, and reaching her hand down, she pull ed Jack out of the cellar. Soon after this a poor old woman came along and begged for something to eat, and Jack and his mother fixed her up a good dinner and some coffee, aud the poor woman was so thankful that she gave Jack a bean and told him to plant it and it would grow as high as the sky and have bushels and bushels of beans, i; and the vine would grow as high as a tree in one night. So Jack planted it right away, and next morning he west out to see it, and the top of it was away up yonder and he could see it growing higher and higher. So he thought it would be fun to climb it, and the stems of the leaves were strong enough to hold him up like a ladder, and he kept on climbing and the bean vine kept on growing so fast that Jack couldent catch up with it, and by and by he got so high he couldent see the ground and before long he got up to the clouds aud stepped off on the blue floor of the sky, and looking around at. the beautiful country he saw a great fine house that was built of stone. So he walked over to it and didn’t see anybody—not a soul—nor a dog, nor a cat, nor a horse, nor cow, but he heard a great snoring inside and saw bones all around the yard. Then he peeped in and saw that same old giant asleep on the floor of the wide hall. His tongue was hanging out of his 1 mouth and his face was greasy and bloody, for he had been eatiug aud some- his body and laid down to sleep, snoring shook the house. Jack was awfully scared, and started to run, but he saw an ax near the door, and he' wondered if he couldn’t kill that old giant while he was asleep. So he slipped in on tiptoe and raising up the ax as high as he could, he brought it down ou the old giant’s neck, and with one blow cut his head off. The blood spouted all over the Yoom and Jack ran away as hard ns he could. By oad by he slipped back to see, aDd sure enough the old giant was dead aud had stopped kicking and the blood had stopped running. Jack caught his big head by its long hair aud dragged it away off to the beau vine and took it down to his mother, and the folks came to see it from all over the oountry, and were so proud of little Jack that they gave him clothes and pocket knives and marbles and balla, and ever afterwards called him Jack the Giant Killer. And there has never been another giant in the world since, for he was the last one. Many a time have I got the children to sleep on that story, for of course I vary it and embellish it and tell many things to point a moral and adorn the tale. I have not forgotten how eagerly I listened to the little stories my mother used to tell me when I went to bed, nor how I devoured the Arabian Nights when I grew older. Stories grief that reward the good and bring to the bad children are great helps to raising them; they are kindergartens little to the ear aud a comfort to their minds. I hail rather pkase them with a little story like this than to fret my self abusing Mark Hanna and his crowd, for little children are nearer heaven than Mark is, according to my opinion. —Bill Arp, in Atlanta Con stitution. FOUR CONTESTS ON HAND. Democratic Convention Will Dispose of State Delegations. So far as the Democratic national committee is informed the convention will have four contests to decide. Only one of these controversies involves a state delegation. Two of the territo- others refer to the representation of ries aud the other to the District of Columbia. The state contest is over the representation from Montana, and the two territories involved are Okla hcana and Iudiau territorv.
