of the Protestant over the Catholic Bible may be shown in the twenty-third Psalm, and elsewhere. The first says: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want;" the second: "The Lord ruleth me; and I shall want nothing." The first says: "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters; he restoreth my soul;" the second: "He hath set me in a place of pasture; he hath brought me up on the water of refreshment; he hath converted my soul" (thus completely losing the original metaphor of the shepherd). The first says: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;" the second: "For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils." In Job v. 7, the first says: "Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward;" the second: "Man is born to labor, and the bird to fly." In Job xiv. 1, the first says: "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble;" the second: "Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries." These examples will suffice to show the differences which pervade the two translations.
"INTENSE STUDY OF THE BIBLE
will keep any one from being vulgar in point of style," says Coleridge. "There are no songs," says Milton, "comparable to the songs of Zion, no orations equal to those of the prophets, and no politics like those which the scriptures teach." "The pure and noble, the graceful and dignified simplicity of language," says Pope, "is nowhere in such perfection as in the Scriptures. The whole book of Job, with regard both to sublimity of thought and morality, exceeds, beyond all comparison, the most noble parts of Homer." "I use the Scriptures," says Boyle, "not as an arsenal to be resorted to only for arms and weapons, but as
A MATCHLESS TEMPLE,
where I delight to contemplate the beauty, the symmetry, and the magnificence of the structure, and to increase my awe and excite my devotion to the Deity there preached and adored." "There never was found, in any age of the world," says Bacon, "either religion or law that did so highly exalt the public good as the Bible." "It is the window in this prison of hope," says Dwight, "through which we look into eternity." "How admirable and beautiful," says Racine, "is the simplicity of the Evangelists! They never speak injuriously of the enemies of Jesus Christ, of his judges, nor of his executioners. They speak the facts without a single reflection. They comment neither on their Master's mildness, nor on his constancy in the hour of his ignominious death, which they thus describe: 'And they crucified Jesus.'" "Men cannot be well educated without the Bible," says Dr. Nott. "It ought, therefore, to hold a chief place in every situation of learning throughout Christendom." "I am of the opinion," says Sir William Jones, "that the Bible contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever age or language they have been written." "I will answer for it," says Romaine,
"THE LONGER YOU READ THE BIBLE
the more you will like it; it will grow sweeter and sweeter; and the more you get into the spirit of it, the more you will get into the spirit of Christ." "The greatest pleasures the imagination can be entertained with," says Sir Richard Steele, "are to be found in the Bible; and even the style of the Scriptures is more than human."
THE BIBLE IS AUTHENTIC.
It is old. It is beautiful. It is the only hope we have. If we cast it away we become as the brutes of the field, both in spirit and in body. The strong take from the weak and perish into nothing—this is all that is offered us by those who reject and revile the Bible. Such have exceeding deep ignorance, exceeding ill manners, exceeding bad taste, and exceeding great folly. "I find more sure marks of the authenticity of the Bible," says Sir Isaac Newton, "than in any profane history whatever." We use the word "secular" nowadays where "profane" was formerly written. "Profane" meant "before" or "outside" the "fane," or "temple."
THE BOOK OF JOB