198. Captious Criticism

Captious Criticism

Psa_73:9 : ’93They set their mouth against the heavens.’94

This is a full-length portrait of a blasphemer. As a wolf howls at the sky, or a dog bays at the moon, so in my text the blasphemer is represented as making mouths at the heavens; and on the night when the wolf shall frighten away the sky, and the dog shall stop the moon, that night will the blasphemer drive away the God of the Bible.

The modern blasphemer finds great cause for caricature in the Bible statement that in Joshua’92s time the sun and moon stood still to allow him to complete his victory. He declares that an impossibility. If a man have brain and strength enough to make a clock, can he not start it and stop it, and start it again and stop it again? If a machinist have strength and brain enough to make a corn-thresher can he not start it and stop it, and start it again and stop it again? If God have strength and wisdom to make the clock of the universe, the great machinery of the worlds, has he not strength enough and wisdom enough to start it and stop it, and start it again and stop it again? or stop one wheel, or stop twenty wheels, or stop all the wheels? Is the clock stronger than the clockmaker? Does the corn-thresher know more than the machinist? Is the universe mightier than its God?

The infidel finds great cause of glee in the fact that the Bible states that the moon stopped as well as the sun. If you have never seen the moon in the daytime, it is because you have not been a very diligent observer of the heavens. Beside that, it was not necessary for the world literally to stop. By unusual refraction of the sun’92s rays the day might have been prolonged. So that, while the earth continued on its path in the heavens, it figuratively stopped. You must remember that these Bible authors used the vernacular of their own day, just as you and I say the sun went down. The sun never goes down. We simply describe what appears to the human eye.

Beside that, within the memory of man there have been worlds that were born and that died. It is not long since astronomers telegraphed through the Associated Press to all the world’97the astronomers from the city of Washington’97that another world had been discovered. Within a comparatively short space of time, astronomers tell us, thirteen worlds have burned down. From their observatory they noticed first that the worlds looked like other worlds, then they became a deep red, showing they were on fire; then they became ashen, showing! they were burned down; then they entirely disappeared, showing that even the ashes were scattered. Now I say, if God can start a world, and swing a world, and destroy a world, he could stop one or two of them without a great deal of exertion, or he could by unusual refraction of the sun’92s rays, continue the illumination.

Then the critics make great scoff and jeer at that battle which Joshua fought, as though it were an insignificant battle, and was not worthy to have the day prolonged. Why, sirs, what Yorktown was for Revolutionary times, and what Gettysburg was in our civil contest, and what Sedan was in the Franco-German war, and what Waterloo was in Napoleonic destiny’97that was this battle of Joshua against the five allied armies of Gibeon. It was a battle that changed the entire course of history. It was a battle to Joshua as important as though a battle now should occur in which England and the United States and France and Germany and Italy and Turkey and Russia should fight for victory or annihilation. However much any other world, solar, lunar, or stellar, might be hastened in its errand of light, it would be excusable if it lingered in the heavens for a little while and put down its sheaf of beams, and gazed on such an Armageddon.

In the early part of this century, there was what was called the Dark Day. Some of these aged men perhaps may remember it. It is known in history as the ’93Dark Day.’94 Workmen at noon went to their homes, and courts and legislatures adjourned. No astronomers have ever been able to explain that Dark Day. Now, if God can advance the night earlier than its time, can he not adjourn the night until after its time?

I often used to hear my father describe a night’97I think he said it was in 1833’97when all the heavenly bodies seemed to be in motion. People thought our earth was coming to its destruction. Tens of thousands of stars shooting. No astronomers have ever been able to explain that star shooting. Now, does not your common sense teach you that if God could start and stop tens of thousands of worlds or meteors, he could start and stop two worlds?

A celebrated eye doctor in Boston recently declared that right after an eclipse of the sun, he had an unusual number of cases of diseases of the eye to treat, and he accounted for it by the fact that so many people were through smoked glass looking at the sun in eclipse. So it seems that the sun that stood above Gibeon damaged the eyes of the nineteenth-century infidel, because he looks at it through a glass smoked with the fires of his own hatred against Christianity and against God. Under this explanation, instead of being sceptical about this sublime passage of the Bible, you will when you read it feel more like going down on your knees before God, as you read: ’93Sun, stand thou still above Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon.’94

Then some blasphemer goes on still further, and laughs at the anointing oil used in setting apart Aaron to his office, and he jeers at the judgments of God for the misuse of the anointing oil in olden time. Now, my friends, it is very easy to scoff at anything which is used as a symbol. I do not belong to the Order of Masons, nor have I ever seen the ceremony, but when the Order of Masons puts anointing oil on the cornerstone of a new building, no good man would laugh at it. Any man would know that it is a symbol of dedication and consecration; anybody would know that it is a prayer; just as in one case it might be a prayer of the lips, in the other case it is a prayer of the right hand’97as much as to say: ’93Let this be a prosperous building, let this be a consecrated building.’94

A man might just as well laugh at the water used in holy rite in the Church; whether sprinkled from the font, or standing in the baptistery, it is simply a farce unless it be a symbol, and if a symbol, then every earnest man, whether Christian or unbeliever, sees it to be beautifully significant. A man’92s immortal nature must be awfully a-twist who can find anything to laugh at either in the water of baptism, or in the anointing oil on the cornerstone of a new building, or in the oil of the ancient sanctuary used in consecration. A man can laugh at anything he wants to. He might laugh at the screws on his child’92s coffin. There are some men who might jeer at the Stars and Stripes which float over our public buildings and on the masts of our ships, ’93It is only a piece of muslin or bunting,’94 and that is true. But let any foreigner throw mud on it or insult it, and he would soon find the force there is in a symbol.

Again; infidels have found great cause of caricature in the Bible statement that a whale swallowed Jonah and ejected him upon the dry ground in three days. If they would go to the museum at Nantucket, Massachusetts, they would find the skeleton of a whale large enough to swallow a man. I said to the janitor while I was standing in the museum, ’93Why, it does not seem from the looks of this skeleton that that story in the Book of Jonah is so very improbable, does it?’94 ’93O, no,’94 he replied, ’93it does not.’94 There is a cavity in the mouth of the common whale large enough for a man to live in. There have been sharks found again and again with an entire human body in them.

Beside that, if the scoffers at the Bible would only read this Book of Jonah a little more carefully, they would find that it says nothing about a whale. It says, ’93the Lord prepared a great fish;’94 and there are scientists who tell us that there were sea monsters in other days that make the modern whale seem very insignificant. I know in one place in the New Testament it speaks of the whale as appearing in the occurrence I had just mentioned; but the word may just as well be translated ’93sea monster’94’97any kind of a sea monster. Procopius says in the year 532 a sea monster was slain which had for fifty years destroyed ships. I suppose this sea monster that took care of Jonah may have been one of the great sea monsters that could have easily taken down a prophet, and he could have lived there three days if he had kept in motion so as to keep the gastric juices from taking hold of him and destroying him’97a sea monster large enough to take down the modern infidel and all his blasphemy, and at the end of three days it would be as sick as the historic whale which regurgitated Jonah!

Beside that, my friends, there is one word which explains the whole thing. It says, ’93the Lord prepared a great fish.’94 If a ship carpenter prepare a vessel to carry Texan beeves to Glasgow, I suppose it can carry Texan beeves; if a ship carpenter prepare a vessel to carry coal to one of the northern ports, I suppose it can carry coal; if a ship carpenter prepare a vessel to carry passengers to Liverpool, I suppose it can carry passengers to Liverpool; and if the Lord prepared a fish to carry one passenger, I suppose it could carry a passenger and the ventilation have been all right.

Then, too, I have heard it asserted that the Bible is full of indecencies. An infidel lecturer will pick up the Bible from his lecture stand, read a little and say: ’93I cannot read it all; it would not be proper for me to read it all,’94 and then affect to blush. He is overcome with modesty and delicacy! He dares the clergy to read certain passages in the pulpit, and dares parents to read certain passages in the family circle. Now my reply is this: There are parts of the Bible that were not intended either to be read in the pulpit or family circle, just as I can go into any physician’92s office in Brooklyn or elsewhere and find medical journals on the table, or books in his library, which he never has read to his family, yet good books, pure books, scientific books, without studying which he would not be worthy the name of physician. They are to be read in private.

You must know that there is such a thing as the pathology of disease. You must know that there are parts of the Bible which are the anatomy of iniquity, which are descriptions of the lazar house of the soul when it is unrestrained, and from the reading of those portions in private we arise with a healthy disgust and horror for sin. The pathology must come before the pharmacy and the therapeutics. Every physician knows that. Any man who has the least smattering of medicine knows that. The pathology, or discussion of disease, before the pharmacy, or the cure of it. From certain portions of the Word of God we go forth as from a dissecting room, more intelligent than when we went in, but in no wise enamored of putrefaction. There is a Byronic description of sin which allures and destroys, but there is a Bible description of sin which warns and saves. The infidel has no right to denounce the whole Bible, because there are portions of it especially appropriate to be read in private, than he has a right to denounce all medical journals and all books of pathological discussion in a physician’92s library. If he does one, he must do the other, to be consistent.

The blasphemer also runs his head against the tables of stone and tries to break off one of the ten commandments. He says when the Bible declares we must not make any graven image, it prohibits art and it killed all art in Palestine. He says that a commandment which is opposed to art cannot be a good commandment; it must be a bad commandment. Now every man of common sense knows that when the commandment prohibits the making of graven images, it is the making of them for purposes of worship, and that it does not forbid painting and sculpture, which are the regalement of elevated taste.

Let us see’97is the Bible opposed to art? Just look over and find that God sent two sculptors, Bezaleel and Aholiab, to ornament the ancient temple. If God were opposed to art, if the Bible were hostile to sculpture, would Bezaleel and Aholiab have been ordained of high heaven to ornament that ancient building? Is the Bible antagonistic to painting? Go through all the picture galleries of the world, and find that the great subjects of the painters are Bible subjects. Blot out all the Bible subjects from the art galleries of the world and you blot out the best part of the galleries at Naples, and at Florence, and at Rome, and at Paris, and at Edinburgh, and of all the private picture galleries of the world; and you tear down St. Paul’92s, and Westminster Abbey, and the cathedrals of Cologne and Milan, and you destroy the Vatican.

Is the Bible opposed to the art of painting? What were the subjects of Raphael’92s great paintings? ’93The Transfiguration,’94 ’93The Miraculous Draught of Fishes,’94 ’93The Charge to Peter,’94 ’93The Holy Family,’94 ’93The Massacre of the Innocents,’94 ’93Moses at the Burning Bush,’94 ’93The Nativity,’94 ’93Michael the Archangel,’94 and four or five exquisite Madonnas. What were Paul Veronese’92s great pictures? ’93Queen of Sheba,’94 ’93The Marriage in Cana,’94 ’93Magdalen Washing the Feet of Christ,’94 ’93The Holy Family.’94 Who has not heard of Da Vinci’92s ’93Last Supper?’94 Who has not heard of Turner’92s ’93Pools of Solomon?’94 Who has not heard of Rubens’92 ’93Scourging of Jesus Christ?’94 When the janitor pulled aside the covering of that picture, ’93The Scourging of Christ,’94 as I stood looking at it in the cathedral at Antwerp, I looked only a minute, and then I staggered back against the columns, exhausted, body, mind, and soul, with emotion. Who has not heard of Dor’e9 on everything from the creation to the last conflagration? The mightiest paintings ever made on Bible subjects, and yet there are men who dare to stand in the presence of an American audience and assert that the Bible is antagonistic to art. Never a ghastlier or more outrageous misrepresentation since the world stood. The very best painting, the very grandest art, born at the altars of The Bible has been denounced on the allegation that there is not a word in the Old Testament but is woman’92s shame and humiliation; passages are quoted to show that the Bible all the way through is the degradation of woman. Come now, let us see. Come into the picture gallery, the Louvre, the Luxembourg of the Bible, and see which pictures are the more honored. Here is Eve, a perfect woman, as perfect a woman as could be made by a perfect God. Here is Deborah, with her womanly arm hurling a host into the battle. Here is Miriam, leading the Israelitish orchestra on the banks of the Red Sea. Here is Ruth, putting to shame all the modern slang about mothers-in-law as she turns her back on her home and her country and faces wild beasts and exile and death, that she may be with Naomi, her husband’92s mother. Ruth, the queen of the harvest fields. Ruth, the grandmother of David. Ruth, the ancestress of Jesus Christ. The story of her virtues and her life sacrifice the most beautiful pastoral ever written. Here is Vashti, defying the bacchanal of a thousand drunken lords, and Esther, willing to throw her life away that she may deliver her people. And here is Dorcas, the sunlight of eternal flame gilding her philanthropic needle, and the woman with perfume in a box made from the hills of alabastron, pouring the holy chrism on the head of Christ, the aroma lingering all down the corridor of the centuries. Here is Lydia, the merchant of Tyrian purple, immortalized for her Christian behavior.

O, how the Bible hates women! Who has more worshipers today than any being that ever lived on earth, except Jesus Christ? Mary. For what purpose did Christ perform his first miracle upon earth? To relieve the embarrassment of a womanly housekeeper at the falling short of a beverage. Why did Christ break up the silence of the tomb, and tear off the shroud and rip up the rocks? It was to stop the bereavement of the two Bethany sisters.

For whose comfort was Christ most anxious in the hour of dying excruciation? For a woman, an old woman, a wrinkle-faced woman, a woman who in other days had held him in her arms, his first friend, his last friend, as it is very apt to be, his mother. All the pathos of the ages compressed into one utterance, ’93Behold thy mother.’94 O, how the Bible hates women!

If the Bible is so antagonistic to woman, how do you account for the difference in woman’92s condition in China and Central Africa, and her condition in England and America? There is no difference except that which the Bible makes. In lands where there is no Bible, she is hitched like a beast of burden to the plough, she carries the hod, she submits to indescribable indignities. She must be kept in a private apartment and if she comes forth she must be carefully hooded and religiously veiled as though it were a shame to be a woman.

Do you not know that the very first thing the Bible does when it comes into a new country is to strike off the shackles of woman’92s serfdom? O woman! where are your chains today? Hold up both your arms and let us see your handcuffs. Oh! we see the handcuffs; they are bracelets of gold bestowed by husbandly, or fatherly, or brotherly, or sisterly, or loverly affection. Unloosen the warm robe from your neck, O woman! and let us see the yoke of your bondage. Oh! I find the yoke is a carcenet of silver, or a string of cornelians, or a cluster of pearls that must gall you very much. How bad you must all have it!

Since you put the Bible on your stand in the sitting-room, has the Bible been to you, O woman! a curse or a blessing? Why is it that a woman when she is troubled will go to her worst enemy, the Bible? Why do you not go for comfort to some of the great infidel books, Spinoza’92s ’93Ethics,’94 or ’93Hume’92s Natural History of Religion,’94 or Paine’92s ’93Age of Reason,’94 or Dedro’92s dramas, or any one of the two hundred and sixty volumes of Voltaire? No, the silly, deluded woman persists in hanging about the Bible verses, ’93Let not your heart be troubled,’94 ’93All things work together for good,’94 ’93Weeping may endure for a night,’94 ’93I am the resurrection,’94 ’93Peace, be still.’94 Why do more women than men read the Bible? Because while the Bible is a good book for a man, it is a better book for a woman, and it has done her more good and more kindness, and brought her more grace. The Bible is a friend of man; it is a better friend to woman.

Just read some of the cruel injunctions this Bible gives in regard to woman. See how the Scriptures maltreat her case. ’93Honor thy mother,’94 ’93Husbands love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it.’94 ’93She hath done what she could.’94 Ah! you know there is not a person in all the house today but knows that the Bible is woman’92s emancipation, woman’92s eulogy, woman’92s joy, woman’92s heaven, and yet an infidel will stand in the presence of an audience and declare that the Bible is woman’92s shame, woman’92s degradation, woman’92s enemy, and one thousand idiots clap their hands in commendation!

While I must adjourn to other Sabbath mornings much of what I have to say in reply to the blasphemers of America, I want this morning to caution you against putting off making up your mind about this Book. Ever since 1772 there has been great discussion as to who was the author of Junius’92s Letters, those letters so full of sarcasm and vituperation and power. The whole English nation stirred up with it. More than a hundred volumes written to discuss that question, Who was Junius? Who wrote Junius’92s Letters? Well, it is an interesting question to discuss, but still, after all, it makes but little practical difference to you and to me who Junius was, whether Sir Philip Francis, or Lord Chatham, or John Horne Tooke, or Horace Walpole, or Henry Grattan, or any one of the forty-four men who were seriously charged with the authorship. But it is an absorbing question, it is a practical question, it is an overwhelming question to you and to me, the authorship of this Holy Bible’97whether the Lord God of Heaven and earth, or a pack of dupes, scoundrels, and impostors. We cannot afford to adjourn that question a week, or a day, or an hour, any more than a sea captain can afford to say, ’93Well, this is a very dark night. I have really lost my bearings; there’92s a light out there; I don’92t know whether it’92s a lighthouse or a false light on the shore; I don’92t know what it is; but I’92ll just go to sleep and in the morning I’92ll find out.’94 In the morning the vessel might be on the rocks, and the beach strewn with the white faces of the dead crew. The time for that sea captain to find out about the lighthouse is before he goes to sleep.

O my friends! I want you to understand that in our deliberations about this Bible we are not at calm anchorage, but we are rapidly coming toward the coast, coming with all the furnaces ablaze, coming at the rate of seventy heart throbs a minute, and I must know whether it is going to be harbor or shipwreck.

I was so glad to read in the papers, that morning in 1882, of the fact that the steamship Edam had come safely into harbor. A week previous, the Persian Monarch ploughing its way toward the Narrows, a hundred miles out saw signals of distress, bore down upon the vessel, and found it was the steamship Edam. She had lost her propeller. She had two hundred passengers on board. The merciful captain of the Persian Monarch endeavored to bring her in, but the tow-line broke. He fastened it again, but the sea was rough and the tow-line broke again. Then the night came on and the merciful captain of the Persian Monarch ’93lay to,’94 thinking in the morning he could give rescue to the passengers. The morning came, but during the night the steamship Edam disappeared and the captain of the Persian Monarch brought his vessel into harbor saying how sad he felt because he could not give complete rescue to that lost ship. I am glad that afterward another vessel saw her and brought her into safety. But when I saw the story of that steamship Edam drifting, drifting, drifting, I do not know where, but with no rudder, no lighthouse, no harbor, no help, I said: ’93That is a sceptic, that is an infidel, drifting, drifting, drifting, not knowing where he drifts.’94 And then, when I thought of the Persian Monarch anchored in harbor, I said: ’93That is a Christian, that is a man who does all he can on the way crossing the sea to help others, coming perhaps through a very rough voyage into the harbor, there safe, and safe forever.’94

Would God that there might be some one today who would go forth and bring in these souls that are drifting. In every town, how many’97a score shall I say, or a hundred, or a thousand?’97not quite certain about anything in the Bible, not quite certain about their immortality, not certain about anything, drifting, drifting, drifting. Oh! how I would like to tow them in. I throw you this cable. Lay hold of that cable of the Gospel. Lay hold of it. I invite you all in. The harbor is wide enough, large enough for all the shipping. Come in, O you wanderers on the deep! Drift no more, drift no more. Come into the harbor. See the glorious lighthouse of the Gospel. ’93Peace on earth, good will to men.’94 Come into the harbor. God grant that it may be said of all you who are now drifting in your unbelief as it might have been said of the passengers of the steamship Edam, and as it was said centuries ago of the wrecked corn ship of Alexandria, ’93it came to pass that they all escaped safe to land.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage