DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 1 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/thirtyfirstannuaOOsout ► < THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. K » » » » By reference to the accompanying tabulated state- ment it will be seen that 30,016 families have been visited. Of these 10,353 were found destitute of the precious Book; 8,721 families and 3,210 individuals have been supplied. Some decline to receive and we do not force it upon them. There have been distribu- ted in this work 20,130 volumes of the Book of Life, costing $5,337 58. And it has been performed by 17 Colporteurs who have worked 1,300 days, and traveled 1 3»33^ m iles at an expense of $,3133 36. The society and the community are brought under t renewed and augmented obligations to the American Bible Society, which has ever so generously and cheer ♦ fully aided us, for the continued manifestation of its ♦ 4> parental solicitude, in repeated liberal grants of books, by which alone this work has been prosecuted, and without which it could not have been performed. Very many persons have thus received the Bible, who might otherwise never have owned a copy of God's word ; | and we, as well as they, owe a lasting debt of gratitude 1 to this noble benefactor. J The above figures exhibit, though not very perfectly, the results of the year's operations in this direction. Taking them in connection with the following state- ments which represent, summarily what has been done at the Depository, and we have in brief the suming up of the year's work : Stock in the House last year, Vol. 12,959 at $2,564 90 " Rec'dfr. A. B. Society, " 25,818" 5,885 48 ♦ " Returned fr. Colp't's, " 380 " 87 70 8,538 08 <> " Sent into the field... " 25,418 5,808 50 t " Sold from Depository " " 5,163 1,177 14 ♦ i: Donated fr. Depository " " 385 75 97 " Annuities of life me'b'rs " " 350 71 50 7,133 11 f I 1,404 97 1 I > t ? * 4 6 THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. Money Statement — Money iu Treasury Inst year 572 29 " from Sales & Collections house 1,102 14 k - " Contributions 522 2!) " " Rents 491 50 " " Sales in the field 4,510 25 $7,204 47 Remitted to A. B. S. . . . 2,702 75 Expended at the House . . 1,263 69 in the.Field. . 2,664 18 $(5,630(52 On Hani— $573 85 AVe were indebted last year to A. B, S 3,618 14 We have remitted in excess of purchases . . . . 629 92 Still due A. B. S 2,988 22 The contributions have not been as numerous or as large as expected, nor nearly so much so, as the im- portance of the work demands. We hope for better things in the future, and that the time is not far distant when all will fully realize that their possessions are not their own, but God's, and will give back to him a greater portion of their goods, and thus hasten the glad day when all shall know and love Jesus, and be prepared to live with, and enjoy him for ever. Your attention is called to the following list of contributions : Anniversary Collections, Coliseum Place, Baptist Church $112 80 To constitute Rev. Mrs. John Mathews a Life Member: Mr. H. S. Smith 10 00 Capt. Kouns 5 00 Mrs. H. H. Broad 5 00 Mr. R. L. Moore 5 00 Mrs. J. G. Parham 5 00 30 00 To constitute Mr. J. G. Parham a Life Member : "Mrs. Linas Parker 5 00 Rev. J. A. Ivy 5 00 Other parties 20 00 30 00 Contribution from St. Charles M. E. Church, $8 50 8 50 68 50 Collection from Shreveport 9 00 Amount Forward $190 30 I t t t J THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 7 < t * ? | I Carried Forward $190 30 4 < 1-11 - -i.: r u ; i 4 ' ► •f Collection from Harrisonburg 4 2 Beauregard Circuit, Mississippi 5 00 f I " " Yazoo County, Mississippi 10 00 t ^ •' " Lake Charles, Louisiana 1 65 t 9 M. E. Church Conference, from Rev. J. C. Hartzel 33 70 * t Memorial Presbyterian Church 10 00 ♦ f Coliseum Place, Baptist Church 15 00 ♦ To constitute Rev. R. Burton a Life Member : <• t Rev. R. Burton $20 00 * I " J- Ivy |5 00 t 9 Ladies of Price's Chapel, Mississippi $5 20 30 20 4 t Contribution. Montgomery, La., per Rev. J. A. Burgess 4 50 9 " Clark County, Mississippi, per Rev. H. DuBose.. 65 ^ t " East Baton Rouge. La.. E. M. Tabor 4 55 J | $532 89 \ During the year the society has lost by death one of its oldest members, and best friends ; Hon. Edward X McGehee, for 20 years one of its Vice-Presidents. He \ X lived a noble life, and experienced a happy entrance I X upon the realities of the world beyond. He has enter- 1 ed upon joyous associations with the redeemed, and I with his Saviour. Let us take these examples to our ♦ t hearts and work while the day lasts, being prepared at 9 all times to render up our accounts. I 9 1 ♦ £ Respectfully submitted, 9 X M. M. GREENWOOD, J Acting Corresponding Secretary. t ♦ I t I I 8 THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. ► TREASURERS REPORT DEPOSITORY ACCOUNT. Balance on hand last Report ^357 14 ♦ | Rent, Stonewall Lodge 37 50 J >. " Children of Temperance use of Room 1 00 ± ► ' Mt. Moriah Lodge 400 00 < ► " T. H. Jones 85 00 4> ► " Wadsworth Temple 18 00 J y Sales and Collection per J. A. Ivy 803 98 ^ ► Collections at Anniversary in Coliseum Baptist Church, including J. 4- ► T. Hardie, $10 00 ; H.Y. Ogden, $5 00 ; E, J. Gay, $5 00 ; Mrs. ♦ [ E. Reese, 3 00 112 80 ♦ k Collection in St. Charles Ave. M. E. Church. South, including $60 00 J ► to make Mrs. John Mathews and J. H. Parham Life Mem- i ► bers, given by H. S. Smith $10 00, Capt. Kouns $5 00, Mrs. < Broad $5 00 ; R. L. Moore $5 00 ; J. G. Parham $5 00 ; Mrs. J J Linas Parker $5 00, J. A. Ivy $5 00, and others $20 00 68 50 J J Algiers M. E. Church South 2 65 * Louisiana Annual Conference M, E. Church, per Rev. Hartzell 33 70 J" Memorial Presbyterian Church 10 00 7 ► Judge A. B. George, Minden, La 5 00 ^> ► Coliseum Baptist Church, per John Juden 15 00 \ ► S. D. Boyd 45 £ Lewisville Baptist Church, Winn Parish 3 35 X ► Hebron Baptist Church, Winn Parish 2 40 I ► Dr. Palmer's Church. 76 75 | Prytania Street Presbyterian Church 44 95 I Sundrv Collections 42 10 t ► T. J. Upton 25 00 I ► J. A. Burgess, Collection, Montgomery. La 4 50 j> Dryades Street Church 6 05 T I Felicity Street Church 44 70 Rev. R. Burton Life Member of him 20 00 f 4- Ladies of Price's Chapel 5 20 4 f J. A. Ivy 5 00 < I Kimball Chapel 9 55 I X Vermillion Presbyterian Church 4 25 X V Christian Advocate donation 1 00 4- I Miss L. B. of Monroe 24 f I Vermillion M. E. Chruch South 4 15 T ► t ► $2199 91 \ ► • 1893 51 + X Balance on hand $306 40 t •9 <► i THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 9 4 — : CREDITS. t Remittance $1001 00 > Rev, Ivy's Salary 510 00 J Incidentals 312 50 T Book-keeper to November 1st 70 00 §1893 51 I $306 10 ♦ 4 57< I COLPORTAGE ACCOUNT f Balance on hand $215 15 4> 1 Sales and Collections 12 months 4889 41 f > 5104 56 I I CREDITS. t £ Remittance £1701 75 * Rev. Ivy's Salary 300 00 t> Colporteur's Salaries and expenses 2764 18 J Incidentals, Freight, Drayage, etc 71 18 I 4. \ ♦ §4837 11 * * Balance on hand 267 45 | t 5104 56 t ♦ ♦ I t i i ♦ t t ~r > <> TO THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. < "Boil's rrovideiice towards ttt BiWe." I t > > > ^IDIDIFLE]; \ Delivered by B. M. Palmer, D. !>., at the celebration of [ I £ the Thirty-first Anniversary of the Southwestern > Bible Society, New Orleans, Jan. 16, 1881. * * f I We are assembled Christian friends, by invitation extended from the various pulpits throughout the city t this morning, to commemorate the Thirty-first Anni- ► | versary of the Southwestern Bible Society — a local J t organization with a restricted territory, over which it f j undertakes to circulate the sacred Scriptures. It is, ♦ ♦ 4 | however, only one of the many co-ordinate associations | scattered throughout Christendom engaged in the | same benevolent enterprise ; and they are all of them more or less closely connected with the American Bible Society in this country, and with the British and For- I | eign Bible Society in England ; whose object is to print t the sacred Scriptures in all the languages and dialects i of the earth, and to scatter these " leaves of the tree of t life which are for the healing of the nations" where- ♦ ever sin has extended its ravages. * We are confronted then just here with a moment- ous fact, the import of which it may be well for us to t consider. Why is it that this one book, lying by itself 1 | onthat-desk, commands such universal homage ? What J i is it that justifies the pre-eminent title in which it claims I to be the Book ? The world is full of books, and the | shelves in our public and private libraries groan be* ♦ neath their weight. The eye swims, and the mind stag- > THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. I I i gers, in simply contemplating the ponderous tomes | I which are gathered in these repositories of learning. J t Yet this one book claims supremacy over them all ; J as though no other could fall into the same deno- ;j mination with itself and be called a book, when it is near. Again, with our hand upon the several treatises of which it is composed, we speak of the X scriptures." Why, the pen is in every man's hand — ♦ we all write, and the world is full of writings, But these J J are the writings, sitting in judgment upon all other I writings, and claiming a royal jurisdiction wherever j > books and writings are found upon earth. ] J How shall this proud supremacy of the Bible be f + vindicated ? The answer is at hand ; it has but one au- > thor, and that author is God. Hewho built the Universe and created all things that exist, has revealed His per- fections and his will in the pages of this book. The «> 4 book is therefore one, and stands alone in the same t % awful supremacy with Him who is its author. It is \ \ true that human agency was employed, through a \ j period of fifteen hundred years, in composing the \ I separate portions of the collective volume. Divine t f truth was cast in the mould of human thought, and was f transmitted through the forms of human speech. So distinct indeed are the characteristics of each in- dividual penman, and so marked is the impress of each particular epoch, that a just historic criticism is \ furnished with the evidence upon which to establish \ the authenticity and genuineness of every part of the \ sacred canon. But in all these contributions', made | piece by piece through the lapse of centuries, there is a | unity of thought and design which marks the presi- dency of a single mind throughout. That mind was | the mind of God — embodying His truth under human | conceptions which shall rightly embrace it, and under i x f THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. modes of utterence which shall as safely express it. Holy men of God spake" — here is the human element in the Scriptures ; but they " spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," and there is the Divine element which gives the Divine authorship of the entire record. May I venture to spread before you a wonderful parallelism which occurs to me at this moment? " There is one God, and there is none other but He," " infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, wis- dom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth" — and these attributes of necessity exclude the possibi- lity of any other to whom they can be ascribed. There can be but one Infinite and Supreme ; and the moment we grant these perfections to Him, every competitor or rival is shut out from our thought. Again, as there is one God, so there is one law — a law consisting not of arbitrary enactments, but springing from the nature of Him whose character and perfections it accurately transcribes. It is the universal law of the one Supreme Jehovah, spreading its authority over all orders of created intelligence in all worlds, only modified in its details to suit the varying conditions in which these are found in heaven, earth or hell. Again, as there is one God and one law, so there is but one Mediator who undertakes to solve the mighty problem of sin — one Sacrifice, by which to make atonement for trans- gression — one Priest, to offer that sacrifice upon the altar — and one Advocate, to plead in the chancery of heaven the high argument of His own sufferings and death. A single link is needed to complete the chain ; one God, one Law, one Redeemer, one sacrifice and one Book, in which to make the stupendous revelation of it all to us. There it lies before us, the Book of books ; springing immediately from the mind of God, THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 13 revealing to us the thoughts of God, unfolding to us the plans of God, making known to us the purpose of God in the creation of the universe, and disclosing to us the grand secrets of the eternal world. It de- serves the applause of royalty with which it is crown- ed, invested with the supremacy which is the preroga- tive of its Divine author. In view ot all this there arises a question which I propose for solution. If the Bible be the Book of God, claiming jurisdiction overall other writings, is it not to be expected that God's providence shall be conspicu- ously concerned about its history ? I desire, to-night, to point out some of the forms in which this providen- tial intervention and care may be distinctly traced. 1 . First then, I direct attention to some facts con- nected with the two languages in which the Old and the New Testaments were originally written. It is obvious that, in a Revelation which is intended to unfold a plan of salvation to guilty men, terms must be employed which shall denote general conceptions, such as those of holiness, sin, redemption, repentence, forgiveness, regeneration and the like. But these purely abstract terms are devoid of significance, until a meaning is put into them by taking up the language of sense — percep- tion and glorifying it with a spiritual import. As ideas are originated in the mind through impressions made upon the senses, the whole terminology of Grace must be created by the transfiguration of images which are drawn from the outward world. Hence the symbol- ical character of Divine Revelation in the Old Testa- ment. The doctrine of atonement was taught by the institution of animal sacrifice, at the very beginning and instantly upon the first transgression ; and this germ- inal symbol expands afterwards into the whole com- plex ritual of the ancient Hebrews. Conviction of sin 14 THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. and the consequent obligation to punishment, were deepened in the mind by innumerable ceremonial res- trictions; which were constantly violated in the inter- course of life, and which required a constant purgation of the transgressor. The expiation of sin demanded by infinite and inflexible justice, was adumbrated in the various sacrifices offered upon the Jewish altar ; and reconciliation and communion with the Most High were illustrated in the sacrificial feasts, which formed so important a feature in Hebrew worship. The holiness of God and the corresponding purity of the worshiper were represented under the ablutions and purifications, which transfigured the idea of physical into that of moral cleanness, and laid the foundation of the whole doc- trine of sanctification. It is needless to adduce further illustrations of the pictorial and typical character of that ancient economy — one of its important ends being the creation of a language, through which the Holy Ghost shall reveal to us the mysteries of God's mercy and grace Those who desire to pursue this line of thought, will do well to consult a popular work in which it is elaborated with admirable skill.* Now the Hebrew tongue is peculiarly fitted for this symbolical presentation of Divine truth. As one at least of the primitive languages, every word in it embodies a material image and offers a picture to the eye. The scholar is delighted to find in its vocabulary what appears to him a splendid gallery of art, upon whose walls are hung the most beautiful paintings the eye ever rested upon. Into the tapestry of the language are woven forms of exquisite grace, as well as landscapes of surpassing loveliness. Perhaps it is true of every language in its primordial construction, that ^Walker's "Philosophy of the plan of salvation." THTRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 9S every word shall be thus pictorial ; but in the develop- ment which culture always ensures, this emblematic character is gradually lost ; as words pass from their primary use into a secondary and tropical signification. What is gained in the accession of general and abstract terms necessary to philosophic precision, is lost in poetic beauty and force. But the Hebrew language was employed as the vehicle of Divine Revelation, whilst it was in its forming stage, and the painting of the material image was hardly as yet dry upon the sur- face of each word. It was in itself a collection of sym- bols, exactly suited to the symbolic revelation of which it was made the medium of transmission. It was equally adapted to those grand visions afforded to the ancient Prophets, through whose inspired enigmas the shadows of events yet to come were cast upon the wall. Nor was it less fitted to be the language of devotion and of praise, in those tender lyrics set to the harp of David ; and which will be set to the harp of every saint in every age, until they swell into the grand chorus of angels and the redeemed around the throne of God and the Lamb in Heaven. I turn now from the Hebrew of the Old Testa- ment to the Greek of the New. When " the fulness of time w r as come," and the Great Prophet appeared upon earth of whom Moses was the type, another language was required for the larger Revelation to be made — a language more developed than the Hebrew, more comprehensive and flexible, and more subtle in expressing the nicest shades of thought, So God, in His providence, far back in the centuries, was train- ing the Greeks to frame a language for the New Tes- tament, as before the Hebrews had prepared a dialect for the Old. They were a people remarkable for subtlety of intellect, carrying the culture of art and the i6 THIRTY -FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. study of philosophy to such a pitch as to win for their country the proud distinction of being " the school- mistress of the world." But the grandest monument of their genius is the language which they forged in those high speculations of philosophy which yet rule so largely the empire of modern thought. In the con- struction of this language they have rendered their largest service to mankind ; for into it God has poured all the treasures of that truth in which the symbols of the Old Economy were lost, as the shadow is swallowed up in the substance, It was exactly the language in which to embalm the materials of a scientific theology. In the fulness of its vocabulary, in the variety of its connective particles, in the richness of its grammatical forms, and above all in its power of combining words as thought wrestles in its agony to find emphasis of expression, truth is stated with such nicety of discrimi- nation and with such delicacy of shade as to signalize the Greek for the conveyence of Christian dogma. The Biblical student, after worrying through elaborate commentaries, often recurs to the original text, sur- prised to find in itself the best exposition of its own meaning. And who does not know that, in the great controversies through which the creed of the Church was articulately framed in the early centuries, it was the precision of the Greek tongue which enabled the Christian Fathers to detect error, sometimes impaling it upon the shaft of a single letter in a single word. But if the Divine care is disclosed in thus preparing the languages for the reception of His truth, there is deeper significance in the fact that both were broken from the chain of living tongues as soon as they had fulfilled this purpose. Both the Hebrew and the Greek, after gathering into them the Divine tes- timonies, were sealed up as the urns in which those THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. J 7 treasures should be preserved from change through all time. The Hebrew was arrested in its growth, so that it never passed through the stages of develope- mcnt necessary to bring it to perfection. I shall never forget the impression of this incompleteness made upon me when I first entered upon the study of that vener- able tongue — nor my wonder that our educators had not embraced it in the curriculum by which our youth are trained, as illustrating how languages are formed and grow in exact accordance with all the laws of thought This arrest was made under a series of providential dispensations carefully interpreted to us by the pro- phet standing always close to the historian, and which are so wonderful in character that they are read by us with tingling ears after the lapse of more than twenty centuries. Certain it is, that upon the completion of the Old Testament Canon, the Hebrew passed into a sacred dialect, no longer used in ordinary intercourse, free from the fluctuations to which every living tongue is exposed, and consecrated to the one high purpose of preserving in its ark the solemn symbols of a pro- phetic and typical economy. The same great change passed upon the Greek tongue, though less abruptly than upon the more an- cient Hebrew. But when it had fulfilled its mission, first in receiving into its verbal forms the mighty mys- teries of redeeming Grace, and then in defining amidst fierce controversies the creed of the church, it too be- came a fixed, hard crystal, protecting from abrasion the precious treasure of Divine Revelation which it enshrined. The insignificance of this fact needs but a word of comment. All living languages are in a perpetual flux. Words lose their original meaning, becoming often ambiguous, sometimes obsolete, and in a few in- IS THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT, stances expressing the exact opposite of its first im- port. Why, at the end of three centuries we are un- able to read Chaucer and Spencer without the aid of a glossary. The modern reader is perplexed in decipher- ing the early versions of Wiclif and Tyndale. Since the period of the Reformation different versions of the English Bible have been made ; and the scholarship of the English speaking world is at this moment en- gaged in another and more careful revision, with a view to the expurgation of archaisms and conforming our existing version more nearly to the present state of the English language. Let us suppose then that the Hebrew tongue had been subjected to this law of change through a stretch of twenty-three hundred years since the days of Malachi — and the Greek, through nearly eighteen hundred years since the days of John — where would be the standard text to which we could recur to ascertain the Revelation which God had oqven to man ? There is another aspect of this same matter. We have reached the period in the history of the church when her great duty is to unfetter these Divine Oracles, In this Missionary age, when the church has harnessed herself to the imperial task of subjugating the world to Christ, these Scriptures must be translated into all the tongues and dialects of tongues which are spoken over the globe. In China and Japan, in Egypt and India, all over the steppes of Asia and through the jungles of Africa, men must read " in their own tongue wherein they were born" the wonderful works of God. But what shall be the standard by which all these ver- sions shall be verified, and what the text from which they shall severally be drawn ? Obviously there can be no final and uniform arbiter, except in a Revelation which has been locked THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 19 up in a language itself congealed into a fixed form and put forever beyond the reach of change. How mar- vellous the working of that Providence, by which the unchangeable God has stamped the likeness of His own unchangeableness upon the Record of His own purposes and thoughts ! Men may deny or refuse, or misconstrue His testimony ; but they cannot add to it, nor take from it. God has locked up the Record in the archives of His own providing, and has taken the key into His own possession. 2. I call attention next to the providential multi- plication and preservation of ancient manuscripts, by which we are able to-day to establish the verity of the Sacred Text. The topic is large, and can only be hand- led here under its most general aspect. Of course the question presents itself upon taking up a copy of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, have we here the very words which the Holy Ghost inspired Prophets and Apostles to write ? It so happens that early copies of the Sacred Record were made with evident care, and were collected at important ecciesiastical centres — such as Alexandria in Egypt, Constantinople and Rome in Europe, in Babylonia and Syria in Asia. With untiring industry these have been collated by the ripest scholars of every age, and through this comparison and combi- nation of testimony the verity of the original text can be satisfactorily ascertained. It will serve to illustrate this point to refer to a single fact. When Kennicott and DeRossi first announced their detection of many thousand various readings in the manuscripts they had compared, the Christian world rose in alarm against critical labors which threatened to unsettle the author- ity of God's word. But when these variations came to be sifted, they were found almost uniformly of the most unimportant character — such, for example, as 20 THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. whether we should spell the word honour in English with or without the letter u. With the exception of only one or two single passages, the genuiness of the re- ceived text was unchallenged ; and not a single doc- trine or fact was displaced, or even weakened, by this imposing array of seeming contradictions. The inter- grity of the Sacred Text was thus unchangeably estab- lished ; and these manuscripts remain and will be kept with holy vigilance, as permanent vouchers of the in- tegrity of the Scriptures in our hands to-day. How mar- vellous is that Providence which caused so many- copies of the Divine word to be taken at so many points, and at a period when fraud and interpolation, or simple errors of transcription, would certainly be detected ! And how remarkable, that so many of these witnessing manuscripts should have escaped the ravages of time and the changes to which all things mortal are exposed ! How wonderful that historic criticism finds the evidence for establishing the genuineness of the Scriptures in- creasing with every new discovery ! All this becomes the more impressive by the* contrast between the Sacred Books, and those of secular literature which have come down to us from ancient days. JNo such cumulative testimony can be drawn from concurrent documents to establish the genuine- ness of any profane history ; showing that God, hav- ing given the Revelation of His will, has also taken care that it should be preserved and verified to all the generations that shall live to the judgment day. 3. I pass to another striking verification of the Divine Record, which has come to light in recent times ; the antiquarian researches into the remains of ancient profane history contemporaneous ivith the events record- ed in the Bible, You need not be told that the dog- matic authority of the Scriptures is now assailed with THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. greater persistency and boldness than in any former age. The old line of assault through alleged discrep- ancies found in the historic statements of the Bible, has been abandoned ; as minute investigation has, one by one, cleared these up and shown them to exist .iu ap- pearance only, but not in fact. And the blatant lec- turer, who in this country is now employed in giving a rehash of the blasphemies of Paine and the puerilities of the elder Tindal, may be safely ignored as being himself simply an anachronism. But the modern school of criticism has undertaken the more audacious task of unsettling the authorship of the more ancient portions of the Sacred Record and the dates of their composition, inducing a general skepticism as to the historical verity of the entire book. Well then, side by side with this school of de- structive criticism and yet wholly independent of it, a spirit of antiquarian research has been awakened ; which undertakes a thorough exploration of those an- cient Biblical lands, to see what knowledge can be gleaned from the historic monuments lying buried under the ruins of those ancient cities which were once the seat of empire. Archaeological societies have been organized in America and in Europe, raising large sums of money to be employed in this exhumation of ancient and forgotten history. The best scholars of the world have been sent forth under their auspices, equipped with all the appliances necessary to this w r ork of excavation. It would be an old story to many in this audience to tell how they have invaded the tombs of Egypt, scanned the walls of her temples, and deci- phered the hieroglyphics of her obelisks — how they have scoured die plains of Moab and gathered the legend upon her wonderful stone — how they have dug beneath the site of ancient Troy, to find the relics of Homeric story — how they have turned up to the light of the sun 22 THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT, the old foundations of Nineveh, Persepolis and Baby- Ions, tussling with the cunei form inscriptions of the burnt bricks disinterred from the debris of those hoary centres of a. past civilization. But the result of all this subterranean exploration, as published under the sanction of those learned, archaeologists, is what par- ticularly interests us to-night. These inscriptions are found to be monumental testimonies of the prowess of ancient warriors and kings. They tell of such and such a campaign, in a given year, conducted by such and such a monarch — of the invasion and subjugation of this and that foreign territory — of the siege and sack of cities whose names are particularly recited — of con- quered kings led in chains as tributary vassals behind triumphal chariots — and all this accompanied with magniloquent praises of the might and glory of the conqueror. But all these proud narrations are found to fall into the Bible record as in a natural socket. The story is simply supplementarv of what was long- ago written upon the sacred page The hiatus design- edly left open here and there by the inspired historian, who was writing only the facts which related to God's dealings with His chosen people, is more or less per- fectly rilled with these scraps of profane history gather- ed from these monumental stones and bricks. So far as they have been yet deciphered, not a solitary con- tradiction has emerged to what is written as history in the Bible. On the contrary, the correspondence is so exact between the two independent records, the later facts so interlacing with the earlier, that we have that precise verification of Biblical history which springs from the undesigned coincidence of minute particulars. This complimentary character of the monumental his- tory confirms the testimony of the written word beyond the chance of further impeachment. f * I THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 23 ♦ t t I It should be stated in this connexion that these ^ 4 researches have made no substantive addition to the sum of our knowledge of the past. They have in some X degree rounded out the knowledge we had before, by t filling up the gaps which existed in the previous record; I but they have added no chapters to history which are T positively fresh and new. Intrinsically valuable as t enlargingand confirming what was already known, so far f as I am aware, the sum total of history remains without in- 4 crease of bulk. This leaves us to infer not only that we have in the inspired volume the key to all past history, X but that God has treasured in His book the cream of X all the facts which w T ere worth preserving and trans- t mitting. And it is well suited to provoke admiration, 1 that the disclosure of all this confirmatory testimony j should be reserved to the period when it was most t wanted to meet the most formidable assault ever made. ♦ upon the historical verity of the sacred Scriptures. 4 4-1 beg leave to submit to your consideration X another Providential movement in favor of the Bible, which strikes me as not a little remarkable. 1 refer to the concerted effort which is now being made to convert the Sabbath School into a regular Biblical Institute. The Scriptures are exposed in our day to every kind of assault, and not the least formidable is that which comes from a certain school of science. Believing that 4 no contradiction can exist between what God teaches in nature and what He teaches through a special Re- X velation, I restrict the censure to a particular class ; and < X would think it equally rash and unjust to impute to X X science, which can teach only truth, theories which simply J I lead us back to the antiquated and abandoned errors of } X the past. There are those however, by no means deficient j + in genius, influence or zeal who upon the ground of t science openly impugn the authority of the Bible. They X I ^4 THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. allege that an honest rendering of the sacred text yields an account of the derivation aud government of the world which is contrary to fact. In the place of an in- telligent Creator whose efficient will brings into beino- a well ordered Universe, they postulate a primordial vapor — whether itself original or derived, will depend upon the thinker's tendency to Atheism on the one hand, or to Pantheism on the other. In the womb of this first matter lay hidden the germs of all forms that exist, organic or inorganic — and by necessity of logic all the potencies of life, of thought and of volition. Through almost interminable ages, and under the op- eration of necessary mechanical laws, the whole cosmos was self-produced, and is held in the iron embrace of a rigid physical fatalism. The hugh machinery grinds on under the inflexible laws through which it was first established. All freedom and responsibility are de- stroyed. Man thinks and feels, and chooses and acts, under the same physical necessity through which the plant grows. As God is excluded from the arrange- ment and order of the Universe, so is He excluded from its management and control. The wheels and pistons of the monster machine move under the law of its own mechanism, and there is no supreme intelli- gence to open and to shut the valves. An indwell- ing mechanical force drives its ponderous wheels upon the iron track ; until by some explosive catastrophe the whole becomes a stupendous wreck, and all returns to chaos aeain to await a new mechanical evolution. o .... In such a scheme there is no room for either Provi- dence or Prayer. Nature runs in a fixed groove ; and man with all his wants and woes finds himself " with- out God and without hope in the world," It is not incumbent upon me to test here the val- idity of any of these speculations ; which, though they are advanced only by the extreme wing of skeptical THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 25 scientists, are conclusions from which they do not shrink in their most pronounced form. The object is simply to state the issue which, in the name of what is called science, is joined with the inspired Book of God, and beneath which its dogmatic authority is thought by many to be steadily crumbling. Let the issue then be accepted by us precisely at the point it is made, and in these terms — a Divine testimony rightly interpreted, as against all the assumptions of science and all the speculations of Philosophy. But now let us see one of the ways in which God is leading us up to this issue. It occurred not long since to the mind of an earnest Christian layman, to employ the Sabbath school as the instrument of lifting up the Bible as a great classic to be systematically studied in all its parts and connexions. The suggestion, like an electric spark, flashed at once along the wires of sympathy throughout the Christian world. Almost before it was matured in the mind of its author, it was wrought into a practical and compre- hensive scheme. A select committee of representa- tives from all the Evangelical churches marks out a curriculum of study to be completed in seven years, in which the Sabbath scholar is carried consecutively through all portions of the Book. Now the lesson is in the Old Testament, and now it is in the New — now it is in the lives of the Patriarchs, and now it is in the Gospel life of our Lord — now it is in the history of the Hebrew kings, and now it is in the Apostolic Acts — now it is in the grand utterances of the ancient Prophets, and now it is in the close reasoning of the doctrinal Epistles. Almost without hesitation the system has been adopted by all branches of the Christian church ; and to-day the ripest scholarship is employed in pour- ing the accumulated stores of Biblical learning into the lap of the Sabbath school, which had before been treasured in Theological seminaries as a species of ♦ 4 ♦ 4 2D THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 4 i 1 jL. j 4 i> esoteric and professional lore. The generations of the * | future will thus be trained in the knowledge of the Bible as, in itself, a complete Organon ; a book of his ♦ tory with its testimonial facts — a book of principles * + with their tremendous moral sweep — a book to en < tighten die reason, and to direct the conscience, and to X ♦ sanctify the affections — a book, the test of character £ and the guide of conduct — a book, the final arbiter of 4 all disputes, and the key to open the door of everlasting f > blessedness and glory. If, too, the time shall come, ♦ which I am hopeful enough to predict is not far distant, < ► when the Sabbath school shall enlarge its circle to em- I brace the parents as well as the children, we shall have + X the entire church in training as systematic students of X X the Bible. There will then be no such thing as gradu- X ♦ 4 i ating from the Sabbath school, for the child of seven years will find at his side the grand parent of seventy 4 years — all gazing intently upon the glass of the writ- ♦ ten word, until these lower forms of knowledge are + superseded by the grander revelations which shall t burst directly from the face of the Throne. t I What then is the conclusion into which we drift from 4, J this antithesis between inhdel propagandism on the I ♦ one hand, and this Bible education on the other ? Why f only that the controversies of the age are narrowing ^ — j — — . ~ — — — — — — - ~ 0 ^ down to the issue betw.een a Divine testimony and all ♦ human speculations. It is true now as of old, that 4 the battle is not ours but God's ;" and he says to us X as He did to Ahab, " because the Syrians have said the X Lord is God of the hills, but He is not God of the ± t valleys, therefore will I deliver all this great multitude \ into their hand — and ye shall know that I am the Lord." J It is fit that the Supreme Book, which gives the mind * of the Supreme Jehovah, should have power behind it 4 to enforce its testimonies upon the consciences and * X hearts of men. It is " not by might, nor by power, ' 4 4 4 THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 27 but by niy Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." There- fore it is the church has planted herself upon the Divine word ; and therefore it is we are educating our children to stand squarely upon its authority. When Infidelity and skepticism marshal their forces, we are content to let the Bible speak with its own voice. The glory of victory shall belong only to Him by whom it is achieved. Let the great battle then with Gog and Magog be fought upon these holy plains, and the host of Israel exclaim 44 the sword of the Lord and of Gideon !" 5. I will fatigue your patience with only one illus- tration further of my general theme. It is found in the division of the church into different branches, or as it is sometime invidiously termed, into different sects. This divergence has been thrown as a reproach into the face of our Protestant Christianity, nor will I undertake to deny that it furnishes proof of human infirmity Per- haps it is a fault that we cannot see eye to eye upon all the details of the Christian scheme. But when the vast comprehension of the system is considered, as well as the depths of mystery in which its fundamental truths are sunk — and when further we take into ac- count the natural tendency of the human mind to diver- gence in the field of speculation — there is at least a diminition of the reproach. Yet if it be an evil, it has unquestionably been allowed in the Providence of God ; and it may of that class which Divine wisdom sees fit to subordinate to a superior good. It cannot be denied that all bodies of Christians which stand upon the au- thority and teachings of the Bible, agree entirely upon all the ground facts which that book reveals, however they may diverge in their articulate expositions and deductions. Upon such fundamental truths as the unity of God, and the adorable mystery of a tri-per- 28 THIRTY- FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. sonal distinction in that unity — upon the reality of the Incarnation, involving the two natures in the per- son of Jesus Christ — upon the fact of redemption ac- complished through His death upon the Cross — upon the doctrine of justification before God through His perfect righteousness alone — upon the office of faith in appropriating this righteousness and making it our own — upon the truth that salvation is grounded purely in Divine Grace, independent of human merit — upon the fact of the sinner's entire estrangement from God, and his just condemnation under a perfect and holy law — upon the necessity of regeneration by the Holy Ghost, who quickens us from spiritual death into spirit- ual life — upon personal holiness as the necessary voueher of a regenerate state — upon the offices of the Holy Spirit in renewing, enlightening, comforting, sanctifying and glorifying the believer — upon the re- surrection of the dead, and the final judgment — upon the eternal blessedness of the redeemed in Heaven, and the everlasting punishment of the wicked in Hell — upon each and upon all these supreme truths which are the ribs of the Christian system, there is not the breadth of a hair which divides the Evangelical churches of this country or of England. Why, in this rapid enumeration I have run up a magnificent creed which none upon this platform to-night would hesitate to subscribe ; and yet I have stated only in part the doc- trinal consensus of the catholic church ol God upon earth. It is true, it would not be difficult to draw up a formidable list of topics upon which we would honestly divide. Yet this would happen only when we come to specification of the minor details of the system, or to questions of external order which do not touch the vitals of Christianity at all. Upon the system itself as it stands before us in its essential facts, we agree as with the heart and the voice of one man. I THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 2g | There arises then from this diversity in unity a cap- ^ ital advantage, that these different branches of the church become concurrent witnesses for the truth t which they hold in common. There is no compulsory t ) uniformity in their testimony. There is no collusion * | between the witnesses, patching up a system to be im- | I posed upon the credulity of men. But in the free ex- } \ ercise of private judgment, each has bent over the t > sacred volume to find out its meaning for himself. That the investigation has been independent and free, is proved by their obstinate difference in given particu- lars ; and their unanimity in affirming the truths which \ lie at the heart of the system, is a light shining upon < the Bible such as could only be produced by the con- \ vergence of separate rays to a common focus. \ | Why is it that the life of our Lord is written by f the four Evangelists ? Could not one historian have | given the substantive facts, without the apparent repe- > tition of them by the other three ? Why should 4 Matthew, with his eye fixed upon the Jewish people, I \ cast his narrative into a form which accumulates the I | testimonies to the Messiahship of Jesus ? Why should \ | Luke, with his eye fixed upon the Gentile nations, 1 | bring out in minute and expressive features the true j t human nature of Christ — putting him thus in sympa- < ► thetic relations to the human race, and tinging his < Gospel with such a Pauline color of thought ? And > why should John, the holy mystic of the Apostolic Col- l lege, go back of all this into the pre-existence of Christ | who u in the beginning was the word that was with I t God, and was God" — reciting those wonderful dis- £ I courses which breathe the music of infinite love from | f the bosom of the Father ? Why this four-sided history ♦ t of the Redeemer on earth ? I do not pretend to give ^ an exhaustive answer to these questions, touching the t I manifold uses of just such a history as this. But unde- + t 4 t I > 30 THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. « I I i ~ : : — : I niably there is an advantage to us in being able to go > around that blessed life upon all the sides of the square, ± I as light and shade fall upon it from north, south, east > \ and west. May it not be in analogy with all this, that t the church of God has been allowed to front all the J j points of the compass in the variations which have f t been indicated ; in order that the solid temple of truth > within may be recognized as one and alone by the very I number of faces it is able to present ? > t 4 I am warned by the clock that I must close. Christian friends, I suppose you have felt, in those tender moments which sometimes come to us in the > closet, an envy of those who enjoyed the privilege of $ looking upon the face of our Lord on earth. You feel 4 t that if He would but reveal Himself to your sight, and 1 T if you could but once clasp his human form in your \ ▼ embrace, you would be able to say with Simeon in the } t temple u Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, tor mine eyes have seen thy salvation." And it is perhaps with a sigh breaking into a sob that you bow under Paul's solemn prohibition, "yet now hence- t forth know we Him no more after the flesh." Yet here $ \ is the secondary incarnation of our blessed Lord in X \\ this Book. Here are the tones of His voice ; here are J j[ the words of His love ; here are the tears upon His ♦ f cheek for human suffering and sin. It is not to us f 4 o ..... 4> the hard letter of a hard record, but it is a living Christ ♦ walking up and down with us in a garden of delights ; I a personal friend, the pulse of whose warm love we t feel against our beating heart, and into whose confiding \ \ ear we can pour every pain and every prayer. What I a compensation have we in place of our absent Lord ! As for myself, I am content not to look upon the face of my Master upon earth. This joy, I humbly hope, is reserved for me hereafter : it is enough now if I can t 4- f THIRTY- FIRST ANNUAL REPORT. 21 meet Him in His word, and feel His strength and pity \ in the hours of [weakness and sorrow, of temptation X and of sin. But duty is co-ordinate with privilege. An obli- gation rests upon those to whom the oracles of God are committed. Have we the right to monopolize the pre- X cious gift ? ^It is God's book and God's salvation given 1 to the world. Would you raise partition walls quite I up to the body of the sun, that his blessed beams f should slant only upon your dwelling? Would you t fence off the expansive air, that it should fill only your lungs and not those of your neighbor ? God's love is like the sunlight which bathes the earth with its glory. His grace free as the air which breathes over grass and flower, over land and sea, in the great round globe. You are asked to-night to aid in circu- ting these Scriptures through the section of the land in which we live, through the vast outlying territory that is beyond, throughout the earth, that all nations may ♦ be able to 'see " the glory of God in the face of Jesus \ Christ." I am ashamed to make any appeal in behalf of what is so supreme as the Bible. One thing is certain, nothing of privilege or duty is higher than t 1 ins to which you are summoned to-night. Next to the joy arising from our personal interest in Christ, is the joy of unit- t ing with Him who is the Word in spreading God's thought throughout the world. > > f > > •> > Stenographically Reported by J I. B. BEATTIE, EXTRACT FROM THE CHARTER ■OF TH E«£ i Soitl-Wiitefi Bible Sodity. 4 ) > ) 4 <> ♦ ARTICLE III. <► Members of the Society shall be as follows : I /. Annua! Members, being persons who shall annu- \ ally contribute a sum not less than three dollars. [ 2. Life Members, being persons who shall have do- naied the sum of thirty dollars. u. Life (Directors, being persons who shall have do- nated the sum of one hundred and fifty dollars. A. honorary Members, being Ministers of the Gospel, whose congregations shall make an annual contribution in aid of the funds of the Society. 5. Matrons, being persons who shall have donated Vie sum, of one thousand dollars. p 111 CALL NUMBER 002 Date (for periodical) Copy No.