Go stand upon the heights at Niagara, and listen in awe-struck silence to that boldest, most earnest, and most eloquent of all nature's oracles! And what is Niagara, with its plunging waters and its mighty roar, but the oracle of God—the whisper of his voice is revealed in the Bible as sitting above the waterfloods forever! Or view the stupendous scenery of Alpine countries, and there, amid rock and snow, overlooking the valleys below, we feel a sense of the presence of Divinity. Or, wandering on ocean beach, watching the play of the waves, or listening to the roar of the breakers, our hearts are impressed with a sense of the power and majesty of God. In short, wherever we contemplate the vast or wonderful in nature, there we experience a religious exaltation of spirit. It is the soul within us placing itself en rapport with the soul of nature, the great first cause.
Go stand upon the Areopagus of Athens, where Paul stood so long ago. In thoughtful silence look around upon the site of all that ancient greatness; look upward to those still glorious skies of Greece, and what conceptions of wisdom and power will all those memorable scenes of nature and art convey to your mind, now more than they did to an ancient worshiper of Jupiter and Apollo! They will tell of Him who made the worlds, "by whom, through whom, and for whom are all things." To you that landscape of exceeding beauty, so rich in the monuments of departed genius, with its distant classic mountains, its deep, blue sea, and its bright, bending skies will be telling a tale of glory that the Grecian never learned; for it will speak to you no more of its thousand contending deities, but of the one living and everlasting God.
The Bible
The Bible is a book whose words live in the ear like music that can never be forgotten, like the sound of church-bells, which the convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities often seem to be things rather than mere words. It is a part of the national mind, and the anchor of national seriousness. The memory of the dead passes into it; the potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of man is hidden beneath its words. It is the representative of his best moments, and all that has been around him of the highest and best speaks to him out of his Bible.
The Bible is the oldest surviving monument of the springtime of the human intellect. It reveals to us the character and intellect of our great Creator and Final Judge. It opens before us the way of salvation through a Redeemer, unveils to our view the invisible world, and shows us the final destiny of our race. God's Word is, in fact, much like God's world, varied, very rich, very beautiful. You never know when you have exhausted all its merits. The Bible, like nature, has something for every class of minds. Look at the Bible in a new light, and straightway you see some new charm. The Bible goes equally to the cottage of the poor man and the palace of the king. It is woven into literature, and it colors the talk of the street. The bark of the merchant can not sail to sea without it. No ship of war goes to the conflict but the Bible is there. It enters men's closets, mingling in all the grief and cheerfulness of life.
The Bible is adapted to every possible variety of taste, temperament, culture, and condition. It has strong reasoning for the intellectual. It takes the calm and contemplative to the well-balanced James, and the affectionate to the loving and beloved John. Not only is this book precious to the poor and unlearned, not only is it the consoler of the great middle class of society, both spiritually and mentally speaking, but the scholar and the sage, the intellectual monarch of the age, bow to its authority.
To multitudes of our race it is not only the foundation of their religious faith, but it is their daily practical guide as well. It has taken hold of the world as no other book ever did. Not only is it read in all Christian pulpits, but it enters every habitation, from the palace to the cottage. It is the golden chain which binds hearts together at the marriage altar; it contains the sacred formula for the baptismal rite. It blends itself with our daily conversation, and is the silver thread of all our best reading, giving its hue, more or less distinctly, to book, periodical, and daily paper. On the seas it goes with the mariner as his spiritual chart and compass, and on the land it is to untold millions their pillar cloud by day and their fire column by night.