is older than any other writing on earth. It antedates the Chinese Empire. It is lost in the mist of years. The histories of Moses are as old as the pyramids, and the pyramids and obelisks proclaim the integrity of the Hebrew leader and chronicler. So let us prize this greatest gift of God to man. Let us humbly thank Him for the liberties and comforts it has brought us—for even the Atheist himself refrains from robbing us of our property through the influence of the Christian religion. Let us thank God for the schools, and the hospitals, and the charities which have
THE BIBLE AT THEIR FOUNDATION,
and which, without it, it is fair to say, would not be in existence to-day. Those who are the best are guided by its precepts. Those who are the wisest have implicit confidence in it. Those who are the most eloquent have studied it intensely. Those who are powerful in narration of events have imitated its divine simplicity. Have it at your bedside. Your mind will broaden faster under its influence than under that of the daily newspaper. If you have not time to read both, sacrifice the paper. The paper is trash. The Bible is solid gold. If you fill your mind with grand thoughts, your mind will be noble. You will have principle.
WHERE CAN YOU FIND AS GRAND LANGUAGE
in any politician's speech?—"The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thundereth; deep calleth unto deep; the voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness." Where can you find as graceful speech?—"He shall come down as rain upon the mown grass; mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." The day is now dawning in this Western world when taste and poetic feeling are to flourish. We have got the dollars. We must now get something for the dollars. Now will the Bible, as ever at such epochs in the past, shine out anew, the criterion, not only of the soul, but of the sentiments—the book that is first under the scholar's lamp and alone in his bedchamber.
Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,
Nor leave thee when gray hairs are nigh
A melancholy slave;
But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.—Wordsworth.