TALMAGE ON THE BIBLE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 150, 25 June 1894, Page 3

TALMAGE ON THE BIBLE.

IS IT TRUE?

Last evening the Rev. Dr, Talmage delivered a sermon in the City Hall under the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association. The building was crowded till all the available space was occupied, standing room included, and the crush at the door by the hundreds attempting to gain admission will be long remembered by those who had the misfortune to get into the centre of ib.

Inside there were fully 2,000 people, bub when the police finally decided to refuse any further admission there must have been another 1,000 left in the street. The reverend gentleman, on soeing this, went out and briefly addressed the crowd before the service began, so that none who had come to hear him should go away disappointed. The service was opened by singing the hymn "AU People that on Earth Do Dwell." Mr Brakenrig delivered a short piayer, making special reference to the celebrated preacher who had kindly conaented to be preaent at the service, and then a collection Was taken up on behalf of the Young Men's Christian Association services, whilst the choir sang " Shall We Gather ab the River."

Dr. Talmage took his text from Psalm xix., 8: "The statutes of the Lord are righb." In the case of a work ou fiction, on science, on history, or on anything else, books, he said, wero born, had their middle life of usefulness, and then tottered and died. Our libraries wore but the cemeteries of dead books. But the Bible, which grew out of Theocracy and Monarchy, undor the mantle of bhe propheb, and the fisherman's coat of the apostle, differed from any other that waa ever printed, in that it ia read now more than it ever was. In its early siago there wore scarcoly moro than 400 copieß, to-day there were4OO,OOO,OOO With regard to ita authenticity, there was, he said, not half aa much proof thab Shakspere wrote "Hamlet," Tennyson the " Six Hundred," Sir Walter Scott " Marmion," or John Milton "Paradise Lost," as there was evidence, positive _ and overwhelming that the Lord God Almighty by the band of prophet nnd apoatle wrote that Old Book. Infidelity said the Bible served no good purpose, but if a great medicine were discovered, which was claimed to be able to cure thousands, would we, he said, take any notice of tho evidence of those who had never bried ib ? Tho Bible had beon tried by four hundred million people, and their evidence was plain proof that ib waa the only panacea we had for the regeneration of the world. Infidelity scoffed at the idea of Sodom and Gomorrah. Not more than two years ago he himself had stood on the ahorea of the Dead Sta, and had picked up at the water's edge some of the brimstone thab had destroyed those cities. The best heart and the besb brain were on the side of Christianity. Joseph Henry, who was one of the mostilluatrioua men in America, did not havo hia equal in scientific knowledge, yeb he believed the Book of Geneais. Other famoua men who wero renowned for their pro-eminent knowledge of geology and astronomy, believed bhe statements made in tbo Bible which were ridiculed as being contrary to bhe known facta pub forbh by thoße sciences. The only proof positive of the immortality of the eoul was to be found in tho Old Book. Two gentlemen in hia country who were well known to him, used to meet every Friday evening to try to provo the immortality of the soul independent of the Bible. Tbey meb and met, bub had finally bo give up tho attempt, without having got any further on than where they started from. It) waa absolutely impoaaible without taking the Bible a8 the starting - point. Infidele wanted to do away with the book altogether, bub had nob suggeated what should bake its place. He had been ready for 30 years to give up that book if he could get a better one. But oh, he said, the meanness of taking ib away and giving him no better. If one could picture a ladder one thousand miles deep, at the end of that, another ladder, going in bhe same direction, three thousand milea long, and then a precipice ten thouaand miles long, it would nob evert bhen represent the depth of meanness of trying to rob us of our Bible. The reason why poople were not able to appreciate its value aa they should was because they did nob read it aright. If anyone read a novel first in the middle, then the laab line on the last page, then the first line on the first page, and next the 648fch page, whab sense could they get out of it? none whatever. And yet, said he, that waa the way in which tho Bible was read. An angel from Heaven could nob make senee oub of the Book if he read it as some read it. It was a just and wiae thing that it waa written by more than one person. Ib added variety—not contradiction—to the Bible. If ie had been by one man ib would have been monotonous. God knew little children would want to read it, so he inspired Matthew, Mark, and Luke, to write of Christ in the manger. Ho knew that historions would wanb to read ft so Moses had written the plain statements of the Pentateuch. He knew tho poets would want to read it so Isaiah pictured the heavena aa a,curtain. He knaw that lovers of the strange would read it too. In his cloßing words he commended the use of tho Bible to mon and implored young men particularly to become advocatea for tho truth of the scriptures and to abide by ita precepta in their daily lives. Dr. Talmage will lecture ab the Opera House tonight on "The School of Scandal."