BY THE LATE NEWMAN HALL.
I WAS walking one Lord’s day afternoon in a populous 1 part of London, and I saw over a hall of assembly a notice to the effect that a debate was then going on with reference to the claims of the Bible in the respect of man as to its moral teachings. I entered. The audience was composed, I believe, exclusively of men, and chiefly of the artisan class. A young man was in the rostrum, telling us he had been for years a diligent student of the Scriptures, and that he had come to the conclusion that they were false. He made certain quotations, and then went on to say that the wisest of all men, Solomon, became an atheist, and died an atheist, having written a book to show that men perish like the beasts, and that one event happens both to the righteous and to the wicked. He was succeeded by another, who referred, to the lying spirit that went forth to the prophets of Ahab, as an objection to the morality of the Scriptures; and said that the Bible was full of immorality from one end to the other.
The meeting being an open one, I walked up and took my place at the rostrum. I was gratified, and somewhat surprised, at the earnest cheering which accompanied my occupation of the desk. I began my address: ‘If I were to condemn you, thoughtful, inquiring-looking men, with being infidels, and if I were to regard your presence here as saying that the book which has been honored and loved for centuries by rich and poor, by wise and unlearned, is a false book, I should very much misrepresent you. Though some of you may be determined in your opposition to this book, I believe that a great proportion of you are earnest inquirers; and while you have objections to all the different modes in which the gospel is set before you in our churches, you want to know what the book itself teaches, and you have come here with earnest and honest hearts trying to find out what is right.’
The response with which that statement was received proved to me that I had rightly read their hearts, and that it would be wrong, coldly and harshly, to censure as infidels all who seemed to put themselves in the position of inquiry. I then referred to some objections which had been brought before the meeting. I said: ‘That gentleman who has been talking to you, tells us that he has been for years a diligent student of the Scriptures; but what will you say when I tell you that one of the books from which he has quoted, however excellent a book, is not the Bible at all? And then, as to the wisest of men dying an infidel, and writing a book in his last years to disprove religion, that man was Solomon, and that book the Book of. Ecclesiastes, which contains the confession of a converted atheist, and concludes with these words, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.’ Referring to the other gentleman who sat below me, I said: ‘He has alluded to the lying spirit that went forth into the prophets of Ahab. Surely that should not astonish you. God has, in all ages of the world, punished wicked men by allowing them to be misled: and if there are some of you here determined not to know God’s truth, you have only had before you what they had in ancient days; for I have been proving to you, that those who profess to be your teachers and guides know nothing of the book which they profess to explain, and this is nothing more than a recurrence of what is always going on: if men will not take pains to go right, they will be judicially deceived.’
Though that statement was not at all relished by the gentleman who had preceded me, I assure you it was taken up most enthusiastically by the audience, who seemed indignant that they had been so misled. And then, as to the question of immorality, I said: Immorality! Look at this book from Genesis to Revelation! Look at the law of Moses, delivered when all the world was in a state of corruption; look at the wickedness of the Egyptians, out of which the Israelites had come; think of the tyranny of the priesthood, all which tyranny was knocked down at a blow by the declaration that there is but one God. Call that a book full of immorality! Where was there such morality taught as by Moses in the ancient days of the world? But come to more recent times; come to the Psalms and the old Prophets. You call yourselves liberals, defenders of freedom, and assailants of oppression. Where is there so glorious an ode to liberty as that Psalm which was read at the commencement of this meeting ‘the King that shall rule in righteousness, that shall judge the poor of the people, and break in pieces the oppressor?’ Oh, ye that will not look at the Bible, know that it is your own book, it is the book of the people, it is the book of the poor, it should be your household book, and the book of your hearts. Then come to the New Testament. Look at Jesus, the founder of our religion: why, he was born a poor man; he worked at a carpenter’s bench, as some of you perhaps have, till he was thirty years old, to prove the dignity of obscure toil; he chose his disciples from amongst the working-men, to show that while he gave the glories of his religion to the highest and noblest, they were offered equally to the poorest and the humblest. Take his teaching: look at the sermon on the Mount; see how it begins, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit; blessed are the peacemakers; blessed are the merciful.’ Oh, if this religion, that tells us to do to others as we would they should do to us, were the religion of the world, what a millennium would at once dawn upon us, what a glorious socialism, what divine brotherhood should we then experience!
Then I said, in conclusion, something of this kind: ‘We, who love our Bible, love our different organizations and our different churches: but we love the Bible better. We do not want to proselytize you; we do not care if you come to our particular church or not, and listen to our particular preaching or not: what we want you to do is, to take this book and read it, and love the Saviour who is preached in this book, in whom there is no fault, though in all of us there is prodigious fault. Find not fault with us who preach, and with our churches, but look to the book; for if we are in fault, our own book condemns us. Be ye lovers of the Bible, and be ye followers of Christ, and we care not whether you belong to our particular church or not.’
My time had expired, ten minutes being allowed to each speaker. At the expiration of that time someone proposed a vote of thanks to me for coming amongst them; and it was suggested that I should be allowed to go on and address them for another ten minutes. The manner in which this was received was a proof to me that we have only, in a kind and friendly spirit, to explain what the Bible does teach, and multitudes, that we think to be hardened infidels, we should find to be ready and grateful to receive God’s word. So I went on to speak to them, in words which I shall mingle with a few thoughts with which I shall close my address. ‘Speak about charters! There never was such a charter for working-men as the Bible. What would all legislations and constitutions ever do for the working classes like one single thing given to them by this charter the sabbath-day rest in all ages? It is the best charter of the poor man’s rights. It is the most impartial code of laws. Do you complain that it protects the property of the millionaire? This same book that protects him in his property, protects you in yours, and in your honest earnings; and the penny of the poor man is as precious to Him as the pound or the thousand pounds of the rich man. Does it call upon servants to be obedient to their masters? It calls upon masters to render to their servants that which is just and equal. Does it call upon you, if you would live, to work and labor, and by the sweat of your brow to earn your bread? Then it also condemns those who grind down the poor in their wages, and tells them that they shall give a terrible account, who, having the means, do not pay their tradesmen’s bills, and thus expose the poor to misery and want. “Behold the voice of those whose wages are kept back crieth aloud, and the voice of those who have wept cometh into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.”’ Does this book tell you that you are to honor the queen, and pay tribute to whom tribute is due? The same book says the queen is to honor you; for it says, ‘Honor all men.’ Yes; and if her majesty and the poorest street-sweeper were to address in prayer the same God, they must come in the same language, and say, ‘Our Father.’ For however different their stations here, in the sight of God street-sweeper and queen lose all distinction, and are but recognized by Him as brethren; and therefore this book teaches us to recognize and care for one another as brethren of one family. O what a blessed book is this! what privileges does it give to the poor! How it tells the poorest, as well as the richest, that there is free and full forgiveness! How it goes to the very lowest depths of misery and vice, and tells that the loving hand of Jesus is stretched down so low that those who are most sunk may be lifted up by it! Oh, how it shows the poorest that he may now have the privilege of calling upon God as his Father, and that by-and-bye he shall dwell with Him, and wear a spotless robe and golden crown, and have a place in the palace of the great King forever and ever! Oh, this is the book of the poor. How it comforts lowly homes! What unknown heroes it makes in humble cottages in the conflict with temptation! what unmentioned martyrs in the patient endurance of trial! The rose that climbs up the cottage door sheds abroad its beauties and its fragrance as cheerfully as if it grew in the queen’s garden. And the open Bible, however plain its binding, upon the table of a cottage, is a brighter ornament than anything the palace itself contains beside. The sun that sparkles from the windows of Windsor Castle is reflected just as promptly and brightly from the casement window of the garret through which the eye of faith is looking to a God of love. And the volume which our queen values above all other volumes, is so prized by thousands of her meanest subjects, that they would think it a poor exchange to give up that book for all the splendors of that palace without it. And it makes them endure with cheerfulness pain and poverty, animated by the glorious hopes that it inspires.
This book of the poor oh, it bestows a wealth that outrivals gold, a dignity which no earthly patent of nobility can give! This book of the poor oh, it consecrates the hovel, and makes it a solemn temple; its inmates kings and priests unto God! It shows that, to the very meanest abode, there is a ladder let down from heaven, up which the humblest and the poorest are enabled to climb; while the angels and Jesus are at the top, inviting them to come and rejoice with them forever. Oh, this book of the poor There was a pauper visited, in the union workhouse, by a kind gentleman, who was commiserating him on account of his low condition. ‘Sir,’ said he, taking off his cap respectfully, ‘do not pity me; I am the son of a king, I am a child of God; and, when I die, angels will take me straight from this union workhouse up to the court of heaven.’