His Minister's Bible

    If I have a right to cut out a certain portion of the Bible, I don't know why one of my friends has not a right to cut out another, and another friend to cut out another part, and so on. You would have a queer kind of Bible if everybody cut out what he wanted to! Every adulterer would cut out everything about adultery; every liar would be cutting out what he didn't like.

    Once a gentleman took his Bible around to his minister, and said, "That is your Bible."

    "Why do you call it my Bible?" said the minister.

    "Well," replied the gentleman, "I have been sitting under your preaching for five years, and when you said that a thing in the Bible was not authentic, I cut it out."

    He had about a third of the Bible cut out; all of Job, all of Ecclesiastes and Revelation, and a good deal besides. The minister wanted him to leave the Bible with him; he didn't want the rest of his congregation to see it. But the man said:

    "Oh, no! I have the covers left, and I will hold on to them."

    And off he went holding on to the covers.