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Show DR. DE COSTA'S SACRED FIGHT. Dr. De Costa has made a. determined fight for the preservation'of the Bible. He went out from Protestantism because be-cause he saw the leaders in their imprudent im-prudent zeal for .Higher Criticism destroying de-stroying all reverence for the Bible and blighting its influence for good among the people.- In the Catholic Church he still is doing the work of a valiant defender de-fender of the "Divine Library." His articles in the. Catholic World Magazine Maga-zine on the Bible are attracting no little attention among his former brethren. In the article in the current issue he tells of the Catholic devotion to the Sacred Scriptures. He says: "The offices of the Church, besides a mass of lesser devotional books, were constantly employed to bring home the Bible to the hearts of the people, and enshrine it in their lives. With the invention of printing, the Church, in the most liberal spirit, set out upon the work of giving the Scriptures to the people in vernacular tongues. The history of the Bible in the Catholic Church abounds with the grandest encouragement en-couragement for laboring to place the Sacred Word in immediate contact with the life and thought of the present generation. gen-eration. By her monuments, sculpture, painting and architecture, indeed by every department of 'art, the Church has sought to advance the Bible in tne estimation of. her children. The work that ended in the bronze gates of Florence Flor-ence was begun in the Catacombs. Rus-kin Rus-kin shows how chisel and pencil were employed to popularize the Bible, and declares that the Church of St. Mark, Venice, with its Byzantine splendor, was really designed to be 'a type of the Redeemed Church of God, and a scroll for the written word of God.' It was to be to the Venetians 'both an image of the Bride, all glorious within, her clothing of wrought gold; and the actual Table of the Law and the Testimony Tes-timony written within and without.' 'Not in wantonness of wealth,' he says, 'were the marbles hewn into transparent transpar-ent strength and the arches arrayed in the colors of the iris! Never had a city a more glorious Bible.' " |