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 .F46 
 Copy 1 
 
 Did Germany 
 Murder Its Bible? 
 
 WILLIAM H. FISHBURN 
 
 (Price Ten Cents) 
 
Did Germany Murder 
 Its Bible? 
 
 By 
 
 REV. WILLIAM H. FISHBURN, D.D. 
 
 -oOo- 
 
 A Sermon Delivered in West Adams Presbyterian 
 
 Church, Los Angeles, California, 
 
 May 26, 1918 
 
1)52,4 
 
 Published by order of the Session. 
 
Did Germany Murder Its Bible? 
 
 Amos 8:12, They shall run to and fro 
 to seek the word of the Lord, and shall 
 not find it. 
 
 The Bible in the days of Amos was only a 
 little Bible, but it was all the Bible they had. 
 In the midst of great national prosperity the 
 people forgot God ; they forgot prayer ; they 
 forgot the House of God ; they went their own 
 way in the pursuit of pleasure. 
 
 And then this prophet stood up and tried to 
 arouse them and to bring them back to God. 
 He said to them, in our lesson : 
 
 "The days are coming, saith the Lord God, 
 that I will send a famine in the land, not a 
 famine of bread, nor a thirst for water ; but of 
 hearing the words of the Lord. 
 
 "And they shall wander from sea to sea, and 
 from the north even to the east ; they shall run 
 to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and 
 shall not find it." 
 
 People who have the Bible sometimes dis- 
 regard it. They stop reading it. They put it 
 out of their lives. They murder their own 
 faith in it. And then there comes a terrible 
 day when they want it back ; they cry for it ; 
 they grope for it ; they yearn for their old 
 faith ; but it is gone. 
 
 A speaker at one of our Pan-Presbyterian 
 Councils a number of years ago related a 
 "Persian Fable" which I remember too ob- 
 scurely to reproduce it in its full beauty ; but 
 it told of a young prince wdio brought to his 
 royal father a nutshell, which, opening on a 
 hinge, contained a magical tent. 
 
 3 
 
This little tent was of such miraculous con- 
 struction that, when spread in the nursery, the 
 babes could play beneath its folds. 
 
 When it was set up in the throne-room the 
 King and his regal company could converse 
 under its shelter. 
 
 When opened in the courtyard, the family 
 and all the servants could come together be- 
 neath its shadow. 
 
 When spread wide open in the camp where 
 the soldiers were training, it became a vast 
 pavilion in which the whole army could as- 
 semble. 
 
 Surely this little tent may be called a sym- 
 bol of God's word. Everything is contained 
 within the nutshell of the Bible. Open it in 
 the nursery and the parents and children will 
 gather with rapture beneath its folds. 
 
 Spread it in the courtyard, and the entire 
 household may assemble for miorning and 
 evening devotions under its shelter. 
 
 Set it up in the village, and it becomes a 
 church, and the whole town sings praises to 
 God under its canopy. 
 
 Pitch it upon the plain and a great army 
 will gather within it. 
 
 vSend it to the heathen lands, and it opens 
 out into a great tabernacle that fills and cov- 
 ers the world. 
 
 Does our civilization owe anything to the 
 Bible? Our civilization owes everything to 
 the Bible. No Bible, no civilization! Our 
 civilization owes it to the Bible that it is de- 
 livered from superstition. The Bible is not a 
 Dream-Book. It is not a puzzle-book. It is 
 not a trick-book. It is not a book to be read 
 in the dark. Its messages are as clear as crys- 
 tal. It had no underground crypts in it. It 
 
 4 
 
is a book of the Open Door. When you study 
 it, study it in the light. Take it out where 
 the sunshine can smite its fair pages with 
 white light. Show it to the world; let the 
 world study it ; examine it ; analyze it. It can 
 bear investigation. 
 
 The Bible gives us courage ; it gives us 
 hope; it floods our souls with its glowing radi- 
 ance. It enables us to see a light that shines 
 beyond this world and projects its luster over 
 into the world of reality on the other side of 
 the grave. 
 
 Dr. Bustard says: *'If we do not believe in 
 the authority and inspiration of the Scriptures, 
 we shall be useless in Christian service." 
 
 This is the Book which can never be super- 
 seded or destroyed. Men have dissected this 
 book. They have burned it and scattered its 
 ashes upon the waters. They have trampled 
 it under the feet of. their horses. And yet, 
 every book in this old volume is still crying 
 out to the critics what Paul said to the jailer: 
 '*Do thyself no harm ; we are all here !" 
 
 "This little Book I'd rather own 
 Than all the gold and gems 
 That e'er in monarch's coffers shone, 
 Than all their diadems. 
 
 Nay, were the sea a chrysolite, 
 
 The earth a golden ball. 
 And diamonds all the stars of night, — 
 
 This Book were worth them all." 
 
 Is it possible to murder the Bible? No! 
 Absolutely no ! Should this earth endure for 
 a million years, and then for millions more, 
 as I sincerely and devoutly believe it will, the 
 Bible will be the one document that will retain 
 its youth in imperishable splendor, and will 
 
 5 
 
be the guide of the footsteps of mankind 
 through the ages of the ages ! 
 
 It is not possible to murder the Bible, but 
 it is entirely possible to murder one's faith in 
 the Bible, to murder a whole nation's faith in 
 the Bible. 
 
 You, sir, — you, — you, — may murder your 
 own faith in the Bible. You may neglect it. 
 You may scorn it. You may despise it. You 
 may laugh at it. And, by and by, on some 
 lonely day when the burdens begin to break 
 you, and dear friends have gone away into the 
 Great Silence, and the skies around you are 
 growing dark, and you want to get something 
 out of the Old Book to help you and to sus- 
 tain you in the time of sore testing, you may 
 learn that that something has vanished away. 
 You have murdered your Bible by murdering 
 your own faith in your Bible. 
 
 It is written in this Book that there are 
 some things that one can do, the doing of 
 which will destroy his own soul. 
 
 We are going to ask and to answer, this 
 hour, the question : "Did Germany Murder its 
 Bible?" Also we are going to ask the ques- 
 tion : ''Might it be possible for America to 
 murder its Bible?" And another question: 
 "What might happen to those who murder 
 their Bible?" And yet another question: "Will 
 there be found a way back to a forsaken and 
 neglected Bible?" 
 
 I believe that I am in agreement with the 
 majority of scholarly men when I say that it 
 was in Germany that the destructive criticism 
 of the Bible had its birth. It was in Tubingen 
 University in Germany that the first foun- 
 tain of deadly unbelief began to spurt forth its 
 jets of intellectual and moral and spiritual 
 poison. The section of Germany that consid- 
 
ers itself "learned," drank that poison in huge 
 gulps that intoxicated its brain. But that 
 same subtle venom has been tasted by all 
 Germany and has cankered and polluted all 
 Germany, and has spread into every nation 
 and kindred and tongue and people where 
 German literature has penetrated. 
 
 Destructive criticism of the Bible may be 
 stamped : *'Made in Germany." 
 
 I think it was Ferdinand Christian Baur 
 who was the real patentee of the German 
 Poison-Fountain. He was Professor of Church 
 History at the University of Tubingen. As a 
 church historian he is recognized as a man of 
 distinguished ability. He was a follower of 
 Hegel in his philosophy, and a large propor- 
 tion of the disciples of Hegel become critical 
 and distrustful of nearly everything. 
 
 This Professor Baur insisted that the dis- 
 putation between Paul and Peter as related in 
 the book of Acts was never settled, and that 
 the two men never became reconciled ; that 
 the early church was split into two factions, — 
 one faction standing with Paul and the other 
 with Peter. He denied that Paul wrote any 
 of the Epistles that bear his name, except 
 First and Second Corinthians, Galatians, and 
 the major part of Romans. 
 
 He practically ignored in his earlier writ- 
 ings the Gospel accounts of the Death and 
 Resurrection of our Lord, though he after- 
 wards, — somewhat reluctantly, it seems to me, 
 and with mental reservations, — assented to 
 the Resurrection. He taught that the advent 
 of Jesus was the advent of Pure Reason ; that 
 Pure Reason began with the coming of Christ. 
 
 From this noxious thinker, Baur, and from 
 his co-worker in unbelief, David Friederich 
 Strauss, the poison spread like an infection. 
 7 
 
Following them came Zeller and Schvvegler, 
 Koestlin and Planck, Hilgenfeld and Holsten, 
 Kuenen and Wellhausen, Gunkel and 
 Procksch, Schraeder and Spiegelberg, — men 
 whose names could hardly be mistaken for 
 Irish names, — and by their writings they 
 broke down and destroyed the faith of all Ger- 
 many • in the Inspiration of the Bible and its 
 great messages. Destructive Criticism bled 
 the faith of the German people to death. 
 
 Very hurriedly, and without paying much 
 attention to their historical sequence, let me 
 name a few of the deliverances of the school 
 of unbelief: 
 
 Abraham and the other patriarchs were only 
 myths ; Moses is not to be considered a his- 
 torical person. Every page of the Old Testa- 
 ment is freckled and spotted with fable. There 
 is no such thing as Sacred History. The Pen- 
 tateuch is anonymous. The historical books 
 are only a hodge-podge. There never was any 
 Adam. Paradise is a fairy-tale. There never 
 was any Fall of Man. No such monument as 
 the Tower of Babel was ever built. Human 
 speech was never stricken with confusion. 
 There never was such a person as Noah ; and 
 nobody ever built an ark ; and there never was 
 a universal Flood. The story of Joseph and 
 his Brethren is pure folk-lore. Samson is a 
 made-up hero for the children. The champion, 
 Goliath, was invented by David's admirers. 
 No nation ever wandered in the wilderness. 
 The Ten Commandments were not given on 
 Mount Sinai. The Jordan river never stopped 
 in its course since it began to flow. There is 
 no such thing as Inspiration. There never 
 were any miracles. There is no supernatural. 
 The books of the Bible are to be placed on the 
 same plane with the literary remains of the 
 pagan nations, Rome, Greece, and India. 
 
These are a few of the things that were ut- 
 tered by the be-spectacled scholars of Ger- 
 many for the murdering of the Bible, or for the 
 murdering of the faith of the people in the 
 Bible. 
 
 Professor Beyschlag of the University of 
 Halle, at a Christian conference held in Ber- 
 lin, when destructive criticism was at the peak 
 of its popularity, declared that there was not 
 to be found a solitary professor in a German 
 Institution whose orthodoxy was beyond ques- 
 tion on the subjects of Inspiration and the Per- 
 son of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Germany did murder its Bible by murdering 
 the faith of its people in the Bible, — and this 
 accounts for the inexcusable and unprovoked 
 war that Germany started and that Germany 
 is waging today against the nations of the 
 world. 
 
 Germany has flung the Christian God out of 
 its heaven and has erected a sort of cast-iron 
 devil to rule in God's stead. 
 
 Germany has taught her people that the Ger- 
 mans are supermen, destined to rule all other 
 men, and to trample all other peoples under 
 their feet. 
 
 Mr. Herman Fernau in his book, "The Com- 
 ing Democracy," defines German "kultur" as 
 being "Learning without character, knowl- 
 edge without conscience, organization without 
 humanity, ideals without dignity." 
 
 The words of Mr. Vachel Lindsay might be 
 applied to the poisoned German soldier whose 
 belief in God has been taken away from him, 
 whose faith in the Bible has been stolen from 
 him, who is only a poor automaton, slavishly 
 obedient to the commands of his brutal mili- 
 tary masters : 
 
 9 
 
"Not that they starve, but starve so dream- 
 lessly, 
 Not that they sow, but that they seldom 
 reap; 
 Not that they serve, but have no gods to 
 serve ; 
 Not that they die, but that they die like 
 sheep." 
 
 I owe you an apology, sirs, in advance, for 
 now plunging you into a bath of German liter- 
 ature ; but there are certain writers so fre- 
 quently named in our speech of today that I 
 have thought it wise to make selections from 
 some of the books of Nietzsche, Treitschke, 
 and Von Bernhardi ; and then from the utter- 
 ances of some of the German pastors, in order 
 to show how far the teachers of Germany 
 have departed from the ethics of the Bible. 
 
 From Nietzsche's book, 'The Antichrist," I 
 copy this: '*I condemn Christianity. I bring 
 against the Christian Church the most terrible 
 accusation ever voiced. Christianity is to me 
 the greatest of all imaginable corruptions. I 
 call Christianity the one immortal blemish on 
 the human race." 
 
 From the same book: *'The weak must 
 perish ! That is the first principle of our char- 
 ity. And we must help them to perish." 
 
 From his ''Also Sprach Zarathustra" : "One 
 must refuse to be eaten at the time one tast- 
 eth best." 
 
 From his "Goetzendaemmerung" : "The 
 time is coming, I promise it, when the priest 
 will be regarded as the lowest type, as the 
 most mendacious, the most disreputable vari- 
 ety of human being." 
 
 A second quotation from his "Goetzendaem- 
 merung" : "The man who is truly free treads 
 
 10 
 
under foot that contemptible species of secur- 
 ity dreamt of by shopkeepers, Christians, 
 cows, women, Englishmen and other demo- 
 crats. The free man is a fighter." 
 
 Nietzsche was for eleven years, from 1889 
 till 1900, a madman. He died insane in 1900, 
 — but he is read and quoted and believed in 
 by millions in Germany. 
 
 Here are some quotations from Von Bern- 
 hardi's book, ''Germany and the Next War:" 
 "The proud conviction forces itself upon us 
 with irresistible power, that a high, if not the 
 highest, importance for the development of 
 the human race is ascribable to the German 
 people." 
 
 On another page : "VVe now claim our share 
 in the dominion of the world, after we have 
 for centuries been supreme only in the realm 
 of the intellect." 
 
 Another page : "Our next war will be fought 
 for the highest interests of our country and 
 of mankind. 'World-power or downfall,' will 
 be our rallying cry." (Let me say here in par- 
 enthesis, that, in the war they are waging just 
 now, it is downfall that is awaiting them.) 
 
 Another quotation : "Is the weak nation to 
 have the same right as the powerful nation? 
 The very idea represents a presumptuous en- 
 croachment on the natural laws of develop- 
 ment." 
 
 One more page from Von Bernhardi : 
 "Might is the supreme right, and the dispute 
 as to what is right in war is decided by the 
 arbitrament of war. War gives a biologically 
 just decision." 
 
 Here are a few quotations from the war 
 book of Henrich Von Trietschke : "The Ger- 
 mans are always in danger of forgetting their 
 11 
 
power and their nationality through an ex- 
 cess of modesty." 
 
 On another page: "We must see to it that 
 the outcome of our next successful war shall 
 be the acquisition of colonies by any possible 
 means." 
 
 Another quotation : ''This Germany of ours 
 was once the greatest of sea-powers, and, God 
 willing, she shall be so again." 
 
 One more quotation : "It is not worth while 
 to speak of these matters, for God above us 
 will see to it that war shall always remain as 
 a drastic medicine for ailing humanity." 
 
 A last quotation from Von Treitschke : 
 "Merely to be able to say, 'I have never lied,' 
 — this is nothing but a monkish type of mor- 
 ality." 
 
 And now, after two or three quotations 
 from the Reverend Clergy of Germany, I shall 
 let you emerge from your German bath. 
 
 It must be remembered that these words 
 following come from the clergy of the State 
 Church, who speak according to the German 
 Kaiser's will. 
 
 Here is a quotation that ought to be spoken 
 in a whisper. It is taken from a sermon by 
 Rev. H. Francke: "We can say that, as Jesus 
 was treated, so have the patient people of Ger- 
 many been treated." 
 
 From a sermon by Rev. F. X. Muench : "Is 
 not our Germany itself transformed into a suf- 
 fering Christ?" 
 
 From a sermon by Rev. Dr. Preuss : "Ger- 
 many is experiencing a repetition of the Pas- 
 sion of Christ." 
 
 Could blasphemy go farther? Has Germany 
 murdered its Bible? Has Germany murdered 
 truth? Has Germany murdered decency? 
 
 I quote from a sermon by Rev. M. Hennig: 
 12 
 
"Each soldier must do his duty so that, when 
 he shall one day answer the heavenly bugle- 
 call, he may stand forth with a good con- 
 science before his God, and his old Kaiser." 
 
 This bit of coarse sacrilege was amplified in 
 a magazine, *'The Young German's Weekly," 
 to read like this : ''When here on earth a bat- 
 tle is won by the German arms, and the faith- 
 ful ascend to heaven, a Potsdam lance-cor- 
 poral will call the guard to the door, and 'Old 
 Fritz,' (meaning Almighty God), springing 
 from His golden throne, will give the com- 
 mand: 'Present arms!'" 
 
 There you have it. "Old Fritz" on the 
 throne instead of God. A Potsdam soldier as 
 the orderly of high heaven ; a guard of Prus- 
 sian soldiers to keep the door of heaven ! And 
 then add to this the Hymn of Hate that is 
 sung all over Germany, and you will be ca- 
 pable of answering the question : "Did Ger- 
 many murder its Bible?" 
 
 Germany did murder its Bible. Might it 
 be possible for America to murder its Bible? 
 
 Is America reading its Bible? Is America 
 shaping its life by the Bible? Is America 
 obedient to the mandates of the Bible? 
 
 Honor bright, sir, how many hours a day do 
 you spend over your Bible? How many min- 
 utes a day? And you, — and you, — and you? 
 Do you ever miss a day? Do you ever miss 
 two days? Do you ever miss a week? Two 
 weeks? How long is it, — be honest, — how 
 long is it since you let the light shine on your 
 Bible while you read a chapter in it and then 
 got down on your knees and prayed God, for 
 Jesus' sake, to bless that chapter to the heal- 
 ing of your soul? How long is it? 
 
 Are you murdering your Bible by neglect- 
 ing it? Are you letting yourself drift, and 
 
 13 
 
drift, and drift, farther and farther away from 
 this Book that is a Fountain of Light? 
 
 Slow poison may take years to kill, but it 
 kills. In the "Count of Monte Cristo" you are 
 shown a case of slow poisoning which is as 
 surely murder as if it were done with a dag- 
 ger. 
 
 It is possible for the Bible to be murdered 
 here in America. 
 
 And what happens to those who murder the 
 Bible? The text tells you. You will get hun- 
 gry for a taste of real bread, and thirsty for a 
 draught of real water. "They shall wander 
 from sea to sea, and from the north even to 
 the east, they shall run to and fro, seeking, 
 seeking for the Word of God, and shall not 
 find it." Thus it is written here. 
 
 I wonder how many persons there are in 
 this room who are wandering; running to and 
 fro! I wonder how many persons there are in 
 this room, who, at some time in their lives, 
 have seriously called on a Moonshee, a Swami, 
 a Yogi, a Mahatma, a Guru, or the Seventh 
 Son of a Seventh Son, — persons who put the 
 opening of the veils of the future on a dread- 
 fully commercial basis ! 
 
 That is what follows the forsaking of your 
 Bible, the murdering of your Bible. You drift. 
 You wander about. The wires are down be- 
 tween you and the Father in heaven. 
 
 Maybe you have money and much of it. But 
 your money, your stocks and bonds, your 
 great houses of merchandise, your miles of 
 railway that you call your own, — these do not 
 take the place of Jesus Christ, — and you know 
 it. Your soul thirsts for God ; you cry out 
 for the living God. "Give me Heaven !" They 
 want heaven to speak by wire or by wireless. 
 
 The sorest tragedy that can overtake a hu- 
 man soul is to have faith in the Bible eclipsed ! 
 
 14 
 
God blotted out! Christ blotted out! Hope 
 blotted out! 
 
 We spoke here last Sunday morning about 
 the reasons for the war in Europe. This pres- 
 ent war did not burst upon the world without 
 a sufficient cause. It was Germany, God-de- 
 fying Germany, Bible-murdering Germany, 
 that danced around its witches' caldron, and 
 sang the weird dirge, "Double, double toil 
 and trouble, — fire burn and caldron bubble !" 
 It was because there was no Christ love to 
 restrain them, no words of authority out of 
 the sacred Book to bridle and suppress them, 
 that blood-lust, lust for dominion, lust for 
 power possessed them, and they began a ma- 
 niacal warfare that can have but one possible 
 ending, — the crushing and humiliating and 
 dismembering of the German Empire. 
 
 Civilization will never again be safe, — and 
 civilization knows it now, — ^until it wrenches 
 the sword out of Germany's hand and splint- 
 ers it to pieces ! 
 
 God has His high purposes in this war. He 
 means to bring back to mankind a high and 
 holy faith. 
 
 In America there are individuals who have 
 murdered their Bible; in Germany there is a 
 whole nation. Kaiser, warriors, philosophers, 
 professors, preachers, citizens, school-boys, 
 school-girls, — down to the humblest crafts- 
 man, the obscurest vassal, who have scorned 
 the Bible, who have struck the Bible in the 
 face. 
 
 God will see to it that those who want their 
 faith in the Bible to come back shall have that 
 faith again. God will see to it that the Light 
 shall break again over the many who now sit 
 in darkness and are praying for the return of 
 the Light. 
 
 15 
 
Amid the encircling gloom there is only one 
 light that is safe to follow, and that is the 
 light that shines from the Cross of our dear 
 Lord. ''All the light of sacred story gathers 
 round its head sublime." 
 
 Kossuth used to say, speaking of the march 
 of intelligence: "I know that the light has 
 spread, and that even the bayonets think." 
 
 It is my own fixed belief that the devil is 
 just now taking his last horseback ride across 
 the plains of Europe. 
 
 I do not believe for one moment that the 
 consummation of the age is near or that the 
 final catastrophe is approaching. The Golden 
 Age is not past. The Golden Age is coming. 
 God the Father has uses for this fine old world 
 that is not yet half-finished, and He is not 
 going, suddenly, to burn it up or blot it out. 
 
 There is a vision fairer than any dawn that 
 is going to be thrown upon the screen to be 
 looked at by this world's tomorrow. 
 
 The war will pass and peace will come. Un- 
 belief will pass and faith will come. God's 
 Word will take its place in the van of civiliza- 
 tion, and all the nations of the world will walk 
 together in the Light of it. 
 
 We've traveled together, my Bible and I, 
 Thro' all kinds of weather, with smile or with sigh; 
 In sorrow or sunshine, in tempest or calm, 
 Thy friendship unchanging, — my Lamp and my 
 Psalm. 
 
 We've traveled together, my Bible and I, 
 
 When life has grown weary, and death, e'en, was 
 
 nigh. 
 But all thro' the darkness of mist and of wrong, 
 I've found Thee a solace, a prayer or a song. 
 
 Shall I now give Thee up, Thou Revealer of Light? 
 Thou Sword of the Spirit, put error to flight; 
 And thro' my life's journey, until my last sigh. 
 We'll travel together, my Bible and I. 
 
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