"soul goes marching on," but the Bish- op is forgotten, as if his book were a mere escape of gas. Tom Paine showed wonderful insight, and in a manner an- ticipated all the higher critics. For example, Tom Paine said, "Who- ever wrote the Pentateuch, Moses had little or nothing to do with it." But some who say this very thing have orthodox chairs in English universities and sign even more articles than thirty- nine, whilst Tom Paine is branded as an infidel and has no professional in- come. Tom Paine said there were at least two Isaiahs, in other words, that the Isaiah who wrote the first part of the book never wrote the second, and perhaps never knew that a second part was written. Some higher critics say the very same thing today, whilst Tom Paine is still regarded by orthodoxy as a most noxious beast. Poor Bishop Watson is on many sides treated as an evangelical milksop, whilst Tom Paine is lauded as a man of progress and of advanced and modern thought. Still we are told that Tom and his succes- sors have given us " b a c k " the Bible, and that it is now more precious than ever. It is not for me to revile Tom Paine; but I take it upon myself to say that no Tom Paine, notwithstanding all his insight and foresight, ought to be in any Free Church pulpit, and if Tom Paine is there, we ought to eject and denounce him as a man who is making a living under false pretenses. It is not to be wondered at that some of us still cling to the Bible after the illiterate and traditional manner of our fathers and mothers and pastors. Blame our training. Take full account of our antecedents. We drew in our love of the Bible with our mother's milk. The Bible helped some of us when the father died and there was neither coal in the grate nor bread in the cupboard. It sanctified our poverty, our struggles, our desolation. It turned the grave into a garden plot, it put heart into us when all other things failed. The Bible has made us men. We are not to be told that this consolatory (not critical) Bible is still left to us. How long will it be left? Still higher critics may possibly arise in distant years who will purloin this jewel also. Who can say how much of the Bible will be left in half a century? We have a right to be suspicious. Where much has gone, more
ing fountains of water, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." We said that each of them had a crown, a harp, and a- white robe. Now we are told that all we supposed to be real was but fancy, mirage, and " t h e stuff that dreams are made o f . " I want you to see that if we yielded to these suggestions and demands, we should be giving up a good deal. Do not suppose that it is easy for the soul to part with its very self—with all the things which would leave only empti- ness and mocking echoes behind. Some of us have not even yet given up our faith. Blessed be God, some of us still believe in the whole Bible. We know that translation may have its faults, and that copyists may make blunders, and yet we hold to the whole Book— we still call it .The Holy Bible—it is to us in substance and in effect the veri- table Word of God. Yes; we have been asked to give up a good deal, and what, as I have already said, aggravates us most of all, is that we have been asked to believe that the giving of it up has made the Bible more precious than ever to us. Genesis turns out to be mainly fable; Abram is not . a man, but ' ' an eponymous h e r o ;" Joseph " i s n o t " in another and deeper sense; Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego are mere dreams and night- mares; the Books of Kings and, Chron- icles are removed bodily; Ecclesiastes and Solomon's Song ought never to have been in the Bible—yet notwith- standing all this we are to think of the Bible being "given b a c k" to us more precious than ever. We can not do so all at once. Our training blocks the way. Early impressions are often in- delible. It is hard to regard supposed enemies as all at once our disguised friends. For examplp, many of us were brought up to believe that Tom Paine was an awful character—nothing short, indeed, of an infidel, blatant, presump- tuous, defiant. Tom Paine was a kind of moral typhus, or a malignant form of smallnox. Every man who had a copy of " The Age of Beason" kept it in a secret drawer and lent it at night time and under a whispered vow of sec- recy. To possess ' 1 The Age of Beason'' was equal to having an infectious and loathsome disease. Bishop Watson an- swered " The Age of Beason," but the Bishop is now nowhere.' Tom Paine's
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