Young Folks' Bible in Words of Easy Reading / The Sweet Stories of God's Word in the Language of Childhood

by Josephine Pollard

Some years ago a black prince in Africa sent a messenger to Queen Victoria, a man who was to ask her what was the reason that England was so rich and prosperous; and she sent back to this African savage something that told the whole story. What do you suppose it was? Not a rifle, not a sword, not a steam-engine, not a plow, not a sewing-machine, but a copy of the Bible. Let me tell you five things about this book, and if you know how to spell the word Bible you will find them easy to remember—B-I-B-L-E.

First, then, the Bible is a beautiful book. I do not mean as to its shape and color. It may be very lovely or it may be very plain, as it looks to your eye. I have seen Bibles that you could buy for a sixpence, and I have a New Testament that I bought for a penny. I have seen Bibles which were copied with a pen and filled with pictures on which men labored for years, and which you couldn't buy for a thousand dollars. When I say that the Bible is a beautiful book, I mean that it is full of beautiful thoughts and beautiful pictures and beautiful stories that speak to our minds. God often talks with children through pictures. You love things that speak to you through the eye, like flowers and birds, and your dear mother's face. Just think of some of the pictures God has given us in this Book.

I see, with my mind's eye, a garden, large, fair, with great trees and beautiful walks, pure, clear streams with lovely flowers, with animals playing about, with two trees that were set apart from the rest, one called the Tree of Life and the other the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I see a man in this garden, and animals passing before him and hear him giving them names. Now I see a city with twelve gates, each gate a pearl. The city has walls made of twelve kinds of jewels, and the streets are of pure gold, and there is no temple in the city and no sun, but it is very glorious and wonderful. I see a beautiful River and a glorious Sea, and a great multitude of shining ones with harps in their hands, and I see a throne and One that sits thereon, more lovely and beautiful and mighty and glorious than any words can say.

The little three-year-old boy before he can read, loves to take his picture book and see things that are to him very wonderful, and when he gets a little older he loves to take a box of paints and a brush and color the pictures in some of his books. The first book I ever colored was full of Bible pictures. There was the picture of a man on the top of a hill with his son laid on a heap of stones. The father's face was sad, and the old man was lifting a knife in his hand; and there was a sheep caught in a bush near by; and there was the figure of an angel in the sky. Then there was the picture of a young man lying on the ground, with stones under his head for a pillow, and a stairway or ladder reaching up to the heavens above, with angels going up and down. There was the picture of a boy whose father gave him a coat of many colors, and how I liked to daub on the red and yellow and blue paint, and I am afraid I took a pin and punched out the eyes in the pictures of the brothers of this boy—those brothers who, as you remember, cast him into a dry well and afterward sold him as a slave. There was a picture of a little boy lying in a little boat which was among the tall grasses of a river. There was the picture of a great tent in the desert, with altars on which fire was burning, and a great pillar of cloud resting down on it in the midst of the tent. And then far over in the book was the picture of the best Man who ever lived, taking little children in His arms, putting His hands on them and blessing them.

The Bible is a beautiful book for a great many reasons that I can't speak of now. Its beauty is not like that of an apple blossom, which soon fades away. It grows more and more lovely as you grow older. I like to see a little child reading with happy face from this book which tells of God's love; but it is lovelier still to see the old grandmother, who loved the Bible in childhood, putting on her spectacles and reading these words of David: "Oh, how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day. How sweet are thy words to my taste, yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" Two of the most beautiful things that we ever see are gold and honey—gold, bright shining, and the honey which looks like liquid gold, shut up in little boxes of pearl. Now I am going to end what I have to say about the Bible as beautiful, by telling you what David said of the words of the Lord that are found in this book: "More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honey comb."

But the Bible is not only a beautiful book for children, but it is an interesting book. You like to read it and hear it, partly because it tells so much about children, boys and girls like you. You read in this book about two brothers, one of whom loved God, and the other did not love his brother, and slew him because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. You read about a little girl who was taken off in a certain war, and became a servant for the wife of a great general. He was a leper, and this little girl, believing in God and in God's prophet, Elisha, told her mistress that the prophet in Israel could heal her master of his awful disease. You read the story of a little boy whose mother gave him early to the Lord, and who went to live with an old man in a great tent, which was God's house, and who heard the voice of the Lord calling to him in the night. Did you never hear God's voice speaking to your heart, and do you always answer as did this boy in the tabernacle at Shiloh: "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth"?

And in this Book you have read of four boys in the court of the great king of Babylon who would not defile themselves with the rich meats and the fiery wines, and who formed a boys' temperance society in the court of the king, and who rose to high honor and great fame. Above all, you read of the perfect Child who was obedient to his earthly father and mother, and who did the will of his Heavenly Father, and who grew into the bravest, noblest, truest, most manly man that ever lived, and who died for us all—that Man whose words are, I think, the first words of the Bible that you learned by heart. I have heard of a little girl who lived where the Bible is not permitted to be read by the children. But she had a present of the good Book from her Sunday School teacher. It was discovered that she had this book; it was snatched from her and thrown into the fire. She watched it burn, while the tears rolled down her cheeks, and turning sadly away, said: "Thank God, there are fourteen chapters of the Gospel of John which they can't burn up, for I have committed them to memory."

The Bible interests you because it is full of wonderful things. It tells of a wonderful God who doeth marvelous things for His people. It tells of the flood which swept away the wicked world; of the plagues which fell on wicked Egypt; of the march of two millions of people through the Red Sea which God divided; it tells you of the wonderful life of the children of Israel in the desert, with God's hand feeding them with the birds and the bread; it leads you to the foot of a great mountain, on which God came down in a chariot of fire, while the thunders roared and the trumpet blown by some mighty angel sounded loud and long, and the mountain shook and smoked like a great furnace, and all the people trembled while God gave the law which begins: "I am the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt. Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

This Bible has more wonderful things than you will find anywhere else. It tells of great battles, of the sun and moon standing still, of cities falling down at the blowing of trumpets; of fire descending from heaven; it tells of shipwrecks and storms, and cruel kings, and men willing to die for the name of Jesus. It tells of God's wonderful love, and how the Son of God came from heaven to earth and died for us on the Cross and rose from the grave. And the best thing, children, about all these Bible wonders, is this, that they are true. A wonderful God doeth wonderful things. This is a wonderful world we live in. You children know it and feel it, and some older people have got to become much wiser than they now are to be as wise as you are. Is not the Bible an interesting Book? My children will listen longer to the story of the Bible than anything else. And as you grow older, if you will only keep on studying the Bible, it will keep its interest till you die.