The Bible is a book for the understanding; but much more it is a book
for the spirit and for the heart. Many other kinds of learning are
found in the Bible. It is a manual of Eastern antiquities, a handbook
of political experiences, a collection of moral wisdom as applied to
personal conduct, a mine of poetry, a choice field for the study of
languages. The Bible is the book of God, and therefore it is the book
of the future, the book of hope. It pierces the veil between this and
another life, pointing us on to the realms of light. In sorrow, in
sin, and in death we may, if we will, find in the Holy Bible patience,
consolation and hope. The Bible opens the widest, freest outlook for
the mind into the eternal, enlarging a man's range of spiritual sight,
and enabling him to judge of all things in both worlds in their true
proportion. The Bible gets into life because it first came out of
life. It was born of life at its best. Its writers were the tallest
white angels literature has known. No other literature has five names
equal to these: Moses, David, Isaiah, Paul and John. These men and the
others wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The messages of the
Bible are the loftiest in the range of human thought. There have been
many magnificent periods like the age of Elizabeth, the time of the
Renaissance and the age of Victoria, but no other single century has
ever done anything equal to the production of the New Testament in the
first century. The Bible has a sound psychology. It seeks to
influence the whole man. It pours white light into the intellect. It
grapples with the great themes upon which thinkers stretch their minds.
John Fiske's three subjects are all familiar themes to the readers of
the Bible. Its style is incomparable in grandeur and variety. It
approaches the intellect with every form of literary style. It is the
supreme intellectual force in the life of the common people. It has
been teacher and school for the millions. The Puritans, for example,
used it as a poem, story book, history, law and philosophy. Out of it
New England was born. It has been the chief representative of the
English language at its best. Anglo-Saxon life and learning are
saturated with it. The literature of England and America is full of
the Bible. Shakespeare and Tennyson are specimens. Each of these
authors quote from nearly every book in the Bible, and each of them
refers to the Bible not less than five hundred times. Herbert Spencer
admits that it is the greatest educator. It is winning its place in
school and college. No education is complete without a knowledge of
this literature. It is the privilege of Odd-Fellowship to enthrone the
Bible in the lodge-room, and in the home. It teaches the intellectual
life from above and lifts it to the Bible's own level.
Dean Stanley was visiting the great scholar, Ewald, in Dresden, and in
the course of the conversation, Ewald snatched up a copy of the New
Testament and said, in his impulsive and enthusiastic way, "In this
little book is contained all the wisdom of the world." There is a
sense in which this statement is not extravagant. The book contains
the highest and fullest revelation of truth the world has known. The
greatest themes man's mind can ponder are here presented. The most
profound problems with which the human intellect has ever grappled are
here discussed. We maintain that a mastery of the contents of this
book will in itself provide an intellectual discipline no other book
can give. Refinement of character, refinement of thought, refinement
of speech, all of the essential characteristics of the intellectual as
well as of the spiritual life, have been found in our own church from
the beginning, among those whose only advantages have been a personal
religious experience and the consequent love and continuous study of
God's word as well as among those who have had all the advantages of
the schools. No man need be afraid of exhausting the truth in the
Bible. No man can ever flatter himself that he has got beyond it.
Whatever his intellectual attainments may be, the Bible will still have
further message for him.
There was a very suggestive spectacle on the streets of London one day,
just after Elizabeth had become England's Queen. As she was riding by
the little conduit at the upper end of Cheapside an old man came out of
it, carrying a scythe and bearing a pair of wings. He represented
Father Time coming out of his dark cave to greet the young Queen. He
led by the hand a young girl clad in flowing robes of white silk, and
she was his daughter, Truth. Truth held in her hands an English Bible,
on which was written "Verbum Veritatis," and which she presented to the
Queen. It was a pageant prepared for the occasion but suggestive for
this occasion as well. Truth is the daughter of Time. Our backs may
be bent and our hair may be gray before we can lead Bible truth forth
by the hand. We may be old before we know much; our intellectual life
may be matured in fullest measure and we still can know more; we must
grow a pair of wings before we know it all--even if we do then.
The Bible is the conquering book. It has already dominated English
literature, so that almost the whole of its text from Genesis to
Revelation might, if all the copies of the Bible were suddenly lost
from the world, be restored in piecemeal fragments gathered out of the
books in which the Book has been quoted, Then, besides, there are the
Bible thoughts that have indirectly, we might almost say insidiously,
permeated the literature of Europe and America. More than that, the
Bible has been industriously for years securing its own translation
into hundreds of tongues and dialects of the globe. The Koran does not
take pains to translate itself, and, indeed, refuses to be translated;
but in contradistinction with such apathy of false faiths, the Bible
courts transcription into foreign tongues, loses nothing in the
process, but thereby gains for itself the homage of multitudes who, on
reading it for the first time, cry, "This is the book we long have
sought, that finds us out in the deepest recesses of our being and
satisfies the profoundest cravings of our souls." The Bible is the
comforting book. There is no volume like it for consolation. It is
the only sure and steady staff for pilgrim spirits to lean upon, and
the only book that is quoted at the bedside of the sick. It is a book
to wear next the heart in life, and upon which to pillow the head in
death. No other so-called "scriptures" of the world say the things
that the Bible says, or supply the hopes that its promises afford. The
Bible is not simply a book; it is The Book. It is the best book of any
kind that we have. We can not do without it, either here or hereafter.
There are many books in the world, but there is only one book. The
Bible is unique. It is in a class by itself. It seeks to control
everything, but it co-ordinates itself with nothing. It sets forth
imitable examples of character, but it is not itself imitable. No one
has ever written or ever will write a second Bible. The very phrase
which every one uses, "The Bible," signifies the uniqueness of this
book. It is a whole library in itself, and yet it is more than a
simple collection of books. There is a homogeneity and consistency to
the whole which lead us to speak of scripture as being a single story,
not many revelations. The Bible is the exhaustless book. It may
sometimes prove exhausting to its light-minded readers, but it never
exhausts itself. "It is the wonder of the Bible," observes Dr. Joseph
Parker, who has preached more than twenty-five volumes of sermons upon
scriptural subjects, "that you never get through it. You get through
all other books, but you never get through the Bible." On the basis of
a rationalistic criticism, this quality of exhaustlessness is really
inexplicable. And when we come to realize that, after all has been
said as to scrolls and tablets and styluses and human factors and
copyists, God wrote the Bible, we understand why it is that scripture
is so rich in treasures of wisdom. We see that we can not exhaust the
Bible because we can not exhaust God. The Bible wields an influence
that can not be estimated. The spoken word is powerful, the printed
word surpasses it. The one is temporal, the other is eternal; the one
is circumscribed, the other is unlimited. The spoken sermon of today
is forgotten tomorrow; the written word of thousands of years ago still
sways the masses of today.
The whole civilized world bows down with reverence before the book of
all books, the Bible. The Roman sword, the Grecian palette and chisel,
have indeed rendered noble service to the cause of civilization, yet
even their proudest claims dwindle into insignificance when compared
with the benefits which the Bible has wrought. It has penetrated into
realms where the names of Greece and Rome have never resounded. It has
illumined empires and ennobled peoples, which Roman war and Grecian art
had left dark and barbarous. Where one man is charmed by the Odyssey,
tens and hundreds of thousands are delighted by the Pentateuch; where
one man is enthused by the Philippics of Demosthenes, millions are
enthused by the orations of Isaiah; where one man is inspired by the
valor of Horatious, tens of millions are inspired by the bravery of
David; where one man's life is ennobled by the art in the Parthenon,
scores of millions of lives are ennobled by the art in the sanctuary:
where one man's life is guided by the moral maxims of Marcus Aurelius,
hundreds of millions find their law of right and their rule for action
in the Bible. It is read in more than two hundred and fifty languages,
by four hundred millions of people living in every clime and zone of
the globe. It constitutes the only literature, the only code of law
and ethics, of many peoples and tribes. For thousands of years it has
gone hand in hand with civilization, has led the way towards the moral
and intellectual development of human kind, and despite the hatred of
its enemies and the still more dangerous misinterpretations of its
friends, its moral law still maintains its firm hold upon the hearts
and minds of the people, its power is still supreme for kindling a love
of right and duty, of justice and morality, within the hearts of the
overwhelming masses. Were it possible to annihilate the Bible, and
with it all the influence it has exercised, the pillars upon which
civilization rests would be knocked from under it, and, as if with one
thrust of the fatal knife, we would deal the death blow to our
morality, to our domestic happiness, to our commercial integrity, to
our peaceful relationships, to our educational and chart-table
institutions.
There are wives and mothers, who stand with lacerated hearts at the
open grave and see the light of their life extinguished beneath the
cruel clods, and yet, they bear up bravely, resting their bent forms
and supporting their tottering feet on the staff of hope and trust
which the Bible affords. Take that solace from them, and you may soon
have occasion to bury the wife next to her husband, and the mother next
to her child. There are husbands who, when sitting lonely, dependent,
in the circle of their motherless, weeping children, find the good old
Book the only comforter; take it from them and you drive them to the
madhouse or to suicide. There are maidens grieving, pining, their
hearts broken, their lives blighted, their career irretrievably
blasted; take the solace from them which this book breathes into their
withered hearts, the solace that suffering innocence will be
recompensed, that a God of justice rules, take that solace from them
and you have taken all that makes life bearable. There are millions of
people pining in bondage, toiling in obscurity, suffering physically
and mentally for no crime of their own, sick and hungry, friendless and
hopeless; take the book from them that teaches them the lesson of
patient endurance, and you may write the word Finis, and close the
records of civilization forevermore. It is the one book that has a
balm for every wound, a comfort for every tear, a ray of light for
every darkness.
Its language all people can understand, its spirit all minds can grasp,
its moral laws all people can obey, its truths appeal not only to the
lowly and simple, but also to the highest intellect, they win the
spontaneous approval, not only of the pious, but also of the most
skeptical. At a literary gathering at the house of the Baron von
Holbach, where the most celebrated atheists of the age used to
assemble, the gentlemen present were one day commenting on the absurd
and foolish things with which the Bible abounds. The French
encyclopedist, Diderat, a materialist himself, startled his friends by
his little speech: "But it is wonderful, gentlemen, it is wonderful. I
know of no man who can speak or write with such ability. I do not
believe that any of you could compose such narratives, or could have
laid down such sublime moral laws, so simple, yet so elevating,
exerting so wide an influence for good, and awakening such deep and
such reverential feelings, as does the Bible." Diderat spoke the
truth. Place the most celebrated systems of philosophies or the most
famous code of ethics, into the hands of the masses, and see whether
the subtleties of their learning, the elegance of their diction will
touch their hearts as deeply as does the Bible. All the genius and
learning of the ancient world, all the penetration of the profoundest
philosophers, have never been able to produce a book that was as widely
read, as voluminously commented on, as dearly loved, as this book,
neither have all the law-givers of all the lands, and of all ages, been
able to produce a code of law and ethics that was universally and as
implicitly followed as that of the law-giver, Moses.
The Bible is an emblem of Odd-Fellowship, because it is the
Odd-Fellows' text-book. Here we get our doctrines for faith and our
rules for practice in all the relations of life. As Odd-Fellows, we
believe the Bible is the word of God, because in their enmity humanity
has never been able to destroy it or rob it of its power; nor have any
who reject it given us a book to take its place. The intellect and
culture of our day can not improve the teachings of Christ, nor set
before us a nobler ideal life. As Odd-Fellows, we believe in this
beautiful emblem, because our hearts attest its truth. We need not be
told that the landscape is beautiful, or that the song of birds is
sweet. When we see the one and hear the other, we know it. As the eye
discerns the beautiful, and the ear discerns sweet sounds, so the heart
of man discerns the divineness of the Bible teachings and sets its seal
to their truth. As Odd-Fellows, we believe in the scriptures, because
the experiences of all true believers, of whatever name, or age, or
country, prove it to be the "bread of life" and the "water of life" to
a needy and suffering world. Age by age the evidence of experience is
accumulating, and growing stronger, and for a soul to distrust the
revelations made unto it, and the divine leading of the human race, is
as though the eye should disbelieve in the sun shining at mid-day. We
recognize the Bible as a precious boon to man, the gift of the Great
Father above. It is a "light to our feet and a lamp to our path." It
is a compass whose never-failing needle directs us safely across the
desert sands of life, and through the dark labyrinths of an evil world,
and its precious promises gives us comfort while we bear the burdens
and endure the sorrows, pain and anguish incident to human life.
Since our organization is founded on the Bible, we should, as
Odd-Fellows, become more conversant with it. Many evils creep into our
lodges that could be avoided if we used the Bible more in our talks for
the good of the order. Intemperance is an evil that does us much harm.
What does the Bible say in regard to it? Proverbs, xx, 1, says: "Wine
is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby
is not wise." Proverbs, xxi, 17: "He that loveth pleasure shall be a
poor man; he that loveth wine and oil shall not be rich." Ah me! what
dead courage, what piles of bleached bones that was once the
concentration of all that was great and lofty and true. What
aspirations, ambitions, enterprise and resolutions--what genius,
integrity and all that belongs to true manhood--have been swept from
the tablets of time into oblivion by King Alcohol and his horrid half
brothers, the gambling hell and the brothel.
A few years ago a noted wild-beast tamer gave a performance with his
pets in one of the leading theatres. He put his lions, tigers,
leopards and hyenas through their part of the entertainment, awing the
audience by his awful nerve and his control over them. As a closing
act to the performance, he was to introduce an enormous
boa-constrictor, thirty feet long. He had bought it when it was only
two days old, and for twenty years he handled it daily, so that it was
considered perfectly harmless and completely under his control. He had
seen it grow from a tiny reptile, which he often carried in his bosom,
into a fearful monster. The curtain rose upon an Indian woodland
scene. The wild, weird strains of an oriental band steal through the
trees. A rustling noise is heard, and a huge serpent is seen winding
its way through the undergrowth. It stops. Its head is erect. Its
bright eyes sparkle. Its whole body seems animated. A man emerges
from the heavy foliage. Their eyes meet. The serpent quails before
the man--man is victor. The serpent is under control of a master.
Under his guidance and direction it performs a series of fearful feats.
At a signal from the man it slowly approaches him and begins to coil
its heavy folds around him. Higher and higher do they rise, until man
and serpent seem blended into one. Its hideous head is reared above
the mass. The man gives a little scream, and the audience unite in a
thunderous burst of applause, but it freezes upon their lips. The
trainer's scream was a wail of death agony. Those cold, slimy folds
had embraced him for the last time. They crushed the life out of him,
and the horror-stricken audience heard bone after bone crack as those
powerful folds tightened upon him. Man's playful thing had become his
master. His slave for twenty years had now enslaved him.
The following is a will left by a drunkard of Oswego, New York State:
"I leave to society a ruined character and a wretched example. I leave
to my parents as much sorrow as they can, in their feeble state, bear.
I leave to my brothers and sisters as much shame and mortification as I
could bring on them. I leave to my wife, a broken heart--a life of
shame. I leave to each of my children, poverty, ignorance, a low
character, and the remembrance that their father filled a drunkard's
grave." It behooves us as Odd-Fellows to ponder well the lessons
taught by our order. Unless the principles that are laid down are
fully carried out, we can never be Odd-Fellows in spirit and in truth.
Today is our opportunity; act now. Have you ever seen those marble
statues fashioned into a fountain, with the clear water flowing out
from the marble lips or the hand, on and on forever? The marble stands
there, passive, cold, making no effort to arrest the gliding water. So
it is that time flows through the hands of men, swift, never pausing
until it has run itself out, and the man seems petrified into a marble
sleep, not feeling what it is that is passing away forever. And the
destiny of nine men out of ten accomplishes itself before they realize
it slipping away from them, aimless, useless, until it is too late.
"Be such a man, live such a life, that if every man were such as you,
and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God's Paradise."
Remember that no good the humblest of us has wrought ever dies. There
is one long, unerring memory in the universe, out of which nothing
dies. A chill autumn wind, blowing over a sterile plain, bore within
its arms a little seed, torn with ruthless force from its matrix on a
lofty tree, and dropped the seed upon the sand to perish. A bright
winged beetle, weary with flight and languid with the chilly air,
rested for a moment on the arid plain. The little seed dropped Aeolus
served to satisfy the hunger of the beetle, which presently winged its
flight to the margin of a swift running stream that had sprung from the
mountain side, and cleaving a bed through rocks of granite, went gaily
laughing upon its cheery way down to the ever rolling sea. Sipping a
drop of the crystal flood, the beetle crawled within a protecting
ledge, and, folding its wings, lay down to pleasant dreams. The Ice
King passed along and touched the insect in its sleep. Its mission was
fulfilled; but the conflict of the seasons continued until the white
destroyer melted in the breath of balmy spring. And then a sunbeam
sped to the chink wherein the body of the insect lay, and searching for
the little seed entombed, but not destroyed, invited it to "join the
Jubilee of returning life and hope." Under the soft wooing of the
peopled ray, the little seed began to swell with joy, tiny rootlets
were developed within the body of the protecting beetle, a minute stem
shot out of its gaping mouth, and lo! a mighty tree had been carried
from the desert, saved from the frosts of winter, nurtured and started
upon its mission of life and usefulness by an humble insect that had
perished with the flowers. The agent had passed away, but, building
better than he knew, the wide-spreading tree remained by the margin of
the life-giving stream, a shelter and a rest to the weary traveler upon
life's great highway through many fretful centuries.
A child abandoned by its mother to perish in an Egyptian marsh may
become the instrument to deliver a nation from bondage, and an
unostentatious man, unknown to fortune and to fame, may become the
agent of a mighty work destined to benefit the human race as long as it
may last upon the earth. George Eliot says, "Our deeds are like
children that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own
will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never; they have an
indestructible life, both in and out of our consciousness."
No man has come to true greatness who has not felt in some degree that
his life belongs to his race, and that what God gives him he gives him
for mankind. The different degrees of consciousness are really what
make the different degrees of greatness in men.
While Odd-Fellowship does not claim to be a religious institution, yet
so closely is it allied to Christianity that we deem it proper to
discuss these questions. I quote from Dr. Lyman Abbott's lecture on
"Christianity and Orientalism," as follows: "Religion as a thought has
four questions to answer: First, What is God? Second, What is man?
Third, What is the relation between God and man? Fourth, What is the
life which man is to live when he understands and enters into that
relation? There is no other question; there is nothing left. What is
God? What is man? And how are men to live when they have entered into
that relationship? Now, Christianity has its answer to each one of
those four questions. God--one true, righteous, loving, helpful Father
of the whole human race. God--love. And love, what is that? Such a
life as Jesus Christ lived on the earth. What is man? Man is in the
image of God. If he is not, if he fails in that, he fails being a man.
He is in the image of God, and not until he has come to be in the
image, of God will he be a man. What is a statue? I can see a nose, a
mouth, appearing out of the marble block. No, it is not a statue, it
is a half-done statue. Wait until the sculptor is through, then you
will see the statue. Not till God is done will you see a man, and you
never saw one except as you saw him in Jesus of Nazareth. And what is
the relation between this God and this man? It is the relationship of
the most intimate fellowship that the human soul can conceive; one life
dwelling in the other life, and filling the other life full of His own
fullness. You can not get any closer relationship to God than that.
When this fullness has been realized, when you and I have the fullness
of God in us, when God has finished, the man life will result. Just
such a life as Christ lived, with all the splendor of self-sacrifice,
with all the glory of service, with all the magnificent heroism, with
all the enduring patience."