10 JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU I passed into the music-room of Psalms, where the Spirit swept the keyboard of nature and brought forth the dirgelike wail of the weeping prophet Jeremiah to the grand, impassioned strain of Isaiah, until it seemed that every reed and pipe of God's great organ of nature responded to the tuneful harp of David, the sweet singer of Israel. BILLY SUNDAY, in Greatest Thoughts About the Bible, compiled by J. Gilchrist Lawson, p. 26. When Ambrose closed the doors of the church of Milan against the blood-stained hands of the devout Theodosius, he acted in the spirit of a prophet. When Ken, in spite of his doctrine of the Divine right of Kings, rebuked Charles II. on his deathbed for his long unrepented vices, those who stood by were justly reminded of the ancient Prophets. When Savonarola, at Florence, threw the whole energy of his religious zeal into burning indignation against the sins of the city, high and low, his sermons read more like Hebrew prophecies than modern homilies.... To any reflecting mind there is no more signal proof that the Bible is really the guiding book of the world's history, than its anticipations, predictions, insight into the wants of men far beyond the age in which it was written. . . . There can be no reasonable doubt, for example, that Amos foretold the captivity and return of Israel; and Micah the fall of Samaria; and Ezekiel the fall of Jerusalem; and Isaiah the fall of Tyre; and Jeremiah the limits of the Captivity. ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D., Dean of Westminster, Corresponding Jean Jacques Rousseau, the well-known French rationalist, wrote: "I must confess to you that the majesty of the Scriptures astonishes me; the holiness of the Evangelists speaks to my heart and has such striking characters of truth, and is, moreover, so perfectly inimitable, that if it had been the invention of men, the inventors would be greater than the greatest heroes." In Greatest Thoughts About the Bible, compiled by J. Gilchrist Lawson, p. 141. The most stubborn fact of human history is the fact that the Bible has been in the world for almost two thousand years, and portions of it for thirty-five hundred years at least, and during this entire time it has accomplished the most unheard-of things. It has maintained an historic standing such as has never been known to another book. It has exerted an influence such as has never been felt from another source. It has set forth moral maxims such as have never been matched by any other volume. It has been the most illuminating volume known to the minds of men. It has not only illuminated the paths of individuals, so that walking in the light of it, they have cried out with David, "Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path," but in every nation to which it has been sent it has dissipated darkness and brought the breaking of the day. That is a stub ISAIAH OR VOLTAIRE 11 born fact, and men must contend with that fact and explain it before they can discredit the Bible by any criticisms hurled against it,... Wm. B. RILEY, D.D., Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis, and President of the Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School, "The Great Divide, or Christ and the Present Crisis," published in Serving and Waiting, William L. Pettingill, Editor-Official Organ of the Philadelphia School of the Bible, C. I. Scofield, President July, 1919. In an address given a few years before his death, the great London preacher, C. H. Spurgeon, said: "After preaching the gospel for forty years, and after printing the sermons I have preached more than six and thirty years, reaching now to the number of 22,000, in weekly succession, I am fairly entitled to speak about the fullness and the richness of the Bible as a preacher's book. Brethren, it is inexhaustible. No question about freshness will arise if we keep close to the text of the sacred volume. Serving and Waiting, July, 1919. 2. Did Isaiah and Jesus or Voltaire and Robert Ingersoll prophesy correctly as to the durability of the Bible? BIBLE EVIDENCE. Isaiah 40:8-The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. Matthew 24:35-Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Jesus. SECULAR EVIDENCE. In less than a hundred years Christianity will have been swept from existence, and will have passed into history. VOLTAIRE, as quoted in an address by H. L. Hastings before the Sixteenth Annual Convention of the Massachusetts Young Men's Christian Association, at Spencer, Mass. In ten years the Bible will not be read. ROBERT E. INGERSOLL. In the most solemn moment in the life of Girard, disciple of Voltaire, he penned for his "will" that no ecclesiastic, missionary or minister of any sect should ever hold any connection with the college that should bear his name; nor should they trespass within its premises as visitors; but as if there could be morality apart from religion, he willed that the purest principles of morality should be taught. True to their trust, the guardians of such an institution were compelled to adopt the Bible that he scorned as the best book of morals. DAVID O. MEARS, D.D., "The Deathless Book," in Greatest Thoughts About the Bible, compiled by J. Gilchrist Lawson, pp. 136, 137. .They lead upwards and onwards to the idea that the Scriptures are well called Holy Scriptures; and that, though assailed by camp, by battery, and by mine, they are nevertheless a house builded upon a rock, and that rock impregnable; that the weapon of offense, 12 TEN MILLION BIBLES which shall impair their efficiency for aiding in the redemption of mankind, has not yet been forged; that the Sacred Canon, which it took (perhaps) two thousand years from the accumulations of Moses down to the acceptance of the Apocalypse to construct, is like to wear out the storms and the sunshine of the world, and all the wayward aberrations of humanity, not merely for a term as long, but until time shall be no more. WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE, The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture. Revised and Enlarged Edition, p. 7. PREDICTIONS THAT HAVE FAILED. Facts about the Circulation of the Bible Compiled from Official Reports * Here are some facts about the Bible and its circulation, facts which demonstrate that both Voltaire and Ingersoll were mistaken, and that their predictions have failed completely:-Twentyone Bible societies are printing the Bible,-one in the United States, two in Great Britain, and eighteen on the European continent. More copies of the Bible are sold annually than of any other one hundred books combined. Ten millions of Bibles in English are distributed every year. Every year there are printed 21,000,000 Protestant Bibles, Testaments, and portions, in about five hundred languages.... The American Bible Society The story of the society's work in distributing the Scriptures during the past hundred years, is a fascinating and inspiring one. The following figures, reporting the work of this one society, show.... that Voltaire's explosion was but a figment of his own mind; and notwithstanding Ingersoll's statement, the Bible is the most read book in the world today: An increase of from six thousand five hundred a year to over seven million a year, is a marvelous record, and one which is an inspiration to all interested in the circulation of God's Holy Word. Review and Herald Publishing Association, The Present Truth, Vol. I, Last year's Bible output of the British and Foreign Bible Society was 6,620,024 copies. In the 106 years of its existence that society has issued 220,000,000 copies of the Scriptures and its annual output is steadily rising, last year's being 685,000 copies in excess of the year preceding. Of what other book could anything like this be said? If you pile in a single pyramid all the copies of the Koran since Moha THOUSANDS OF MILLIONS 13 met's day till now, with all the copies of the Scandinavian Eddas, the Hindu Vedas, the Persian Zend-Avesta, the Buddhist Tripitakas and the Chinese Five Kings, and add to the pile the hundred other most famous books the world has ever known, including the "best sellers" of all ages, the pyramid, contrasted with the thousands of millions of copies of the Bible, would be as an ant-heap to Mount Everest. Christian Herald, 1912, in Greatest Thoughts About the Bible, pp. 27, 28, compiled by J. Gilchrist Lawson, author-Deeper Experiences of Famous Christians, etc. HAMMURABI FOUNDS OLD BABYLONIA CHAPTER II. ANCIENT BABYLONIA. Was there an Old Babylonian Empire many hundred years before the Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar? BIBLE EVIDENCE. Genesis 10:10-And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. SECULAR EVIDENCE. The Tigris and Euphrates Valley; the Upper and the Lower Country..... The southern part of the valley, the part known as Babylonia or Chaldea, is, like the Delta region of Egypt, an alluvial deposit... From the old Babylonian libraries (sec. 50) patient scholars are gradually reading the wonderful story of these ancient cities, probably the oldest built by man. . . . Of all the kings whose names have already been recovered from the monuments we shall here speak only of Sargon I, a Semitic king of Agade, whose reign forms a great landmark in early Babylonian history. P. V. N. Myers, General History for Colleges and High Schools, pp. 30-32. 4. Who founded the Old Babylonian Empire? SECULAR EVIDENCE. The Rise of Babylon: Hammurabi founds the Old Babylonian Empire (about 2250 B. C.). From the remotest times the city-states of Babylonia had for enemies the kings of Elam, a country bordering Babylonia in the east, and of which Susa was the capital. For centuries at a time the Elamite kings held the cities of the plain in a state of more or less complete vassalage. Their dominion was finally broken by a king of Babylon, a city which had been gradually rising into prominence, and which was to give to the whole country the name by which it is best known-Babylonia. The name of this king was Hammurabi (about 2250 B. C.). He united under his rule all the cities of Babylonia, and became the true founder of what is known as the Old Babylonian Empire. Hammurabi has been called the Babylonian Moses, for the reason that he promulgated a code of laws which in some respects is remarkably like the Mosaic code of the Hebrews (sec. 56). Myers, General History, p. 33. Our chief interest in his name, however, is found in the fact that he was a contemporary of Abraham. His name is identical with that of Amraphel (Ammurapaltu) king of Shinar (Babylonia) in Gen. |