The Bible | AdventAI

California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists · Oakland, Cal. · Jan 28, 1875

The Bible.

THE land is full of Bibles. I am glad of it. I am no worshiper of the Bible, yet I reverence its wisdom, I honor its beauty of holiness, and love exceedingly the tranquil trust in God which its great authors had. Some of the best things that I have ever learned from man this book has taught me. Think of the great souls in this Hebrew Old Testament; of the two great men in the New—Jesus who made the great religious motion in the world's parliament and Paul who supported it. I am glad the Bible goes everywhere. But men take it for master, not for help, read it as a sacrament, not to get a wiser and higher light. They worship its letter, and the better spirit of Moses, of Esaias, of the holy psalms, so old and yet so young, so everlasting in their beautious faith in God—the sublime spirit of one greater than the temple, and Lord of the Sabbath, who scorned to put the new wine of God into the old and rotten bags of men that is not in Christendom. O, no! men do not ask that. The yeasty soul would rend assunder tradition's leathern bags. Worship of Bibles never made men write Bibles; it hinders us from living them. Worship no things for that; not the created, but, O Creator! let us worship Thee.—Theo. Parker.

NOT ASHAMED.

Justice McLean, of Ohio, heard a minister preach. He had been a skeptic, and this minister spoke to him in such a way as to convince him of the truth of the Christian religion. He was led to see how Christ had died for him, and was born again. He went home. He had hardly got there before he said: "We are going to have family prayer; let us go into the drawing room and pray together." "But," said his wife, "there are four lawyers in there; they have come to attend court. Let us go to the kitchen to have prayers." Judge McLean replied: "It's the first time I ever invited the Lord to my house, and I don't propose to invite him to the kitchen by any means." He went in to those lawyers and said: "My friends, I have found out that Jesus died on the cross for me, I have given myself to him, and now I propose to invite him to my house. You may do as you please; stay, or go. But I am now to make my first prayer in my own house." They said they would like very much to stay, and did stay. From that day Judge McLean lived a consistent Christian life, and died a Christian death.