THE K I N G ' S B U S I NE S S it, I find I am in a large room, which does not cramp me. Our higher critics are all the time tearing up the narrow road of faith, and trying to stick up their sign “ No Thor oughfare During Repairs.” But I go right on and am not cramped. As Spurgeon said, “ Oh,.for the steam roller of a tremendous faith, to harden up the road again and make it safe for the people.” It is all very well to say that we must look at the Bible as we would look at any other book, and that we must be philosophical. It is nice to be philosophical. It is a nice label to stick on you. I have been told that I should look at the Bible as I would on any. book, and that I should be philo sophical, and yet somehow I had a kind of feeling that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t look at the Bible like any other book. You might as well say that I must learn to look at my mother the same as I would look at any other woman. And' I can’t do it. She has got inside of me somehow. I began with a hopeless bias in favor of my mother. I see now I began with a hopeless bias in favor of the Word of God. And bless God for it! I CAN’T LOOK AT IT LIKE ANY OTHER BOOK. a» BLOWING HP THE BIBLE The Capitol at Washington cannot be exploded by a bundle of matches, though by a goodly quantity of dynamite it may. And the Christian religion has hitherto been assailed only with matches. The explosive that alone can shatter its fortresses has not yet been discovered, though for some eighteen centuries folk have been busy with the invention thereof. Let them go on seek ing, they shall not find, for He that hath said: “Upon this rock I build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it;” was also the one of whom it abideth eternally .true: “ Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
452 I can do that kind of thing in my sleep and not he very clever either. My dreams are not more mixed than.that.) But I never can get away from the Bible. It is all I have. I deny that I am tied down. I have all the liberty I want, the definite bounds of an inspired, authoritative, historical Bible. I deny that I am narrow. So it comes, you see, that David said “ none should carry the ark but the Levites, for them hath Jehovah chosen to carry the ark of God, and to minister to Him, forever . . - and said unto them, ‘Ye are the heads of the Father’s houses of the Levites, sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of Jehovah the God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it. For because ye bare it not at the first, Jehovah our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought Him not according to the ordinance. . . And .the children of the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded, according to the word of Jehovah. Here we have “ as Moses commanded.” Well, perhaps there never was a Moses. I read the last vagary on the Book of Genesis, given me by a dear friend of mine, and he is in sympathy with Higher Criticism, and he called it a piece of excellent criticism. He said, “ Mr. Mac- Neil, it is all right about the history of Abraham and Isaac, but this man is not so sure about Joseph.” I never heard Joseph doubted before! Thank God, I never started that kind of thing. There is no end to It. Again and again I have been going to pull up my anchor, and just before I pulled it up I look at some of those other brave boats that have pulled up theirs, and when I see them spinning around, now bow first and now ste^n first, I thank God my anchor is down yet, and I am not going to go spinning around like that. There we are. This is my defense of the Bible. Whenever I leave it, and I read many philosophical sermons before I was fourteen— read them with a cer tain amount of appreciation, but. I de clare to you that when I leave the Bible, I have nothing to stand on. I don’t know where I am. And when I stick to
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