The Bible by Theodore Parker

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 12, 1872

The Bible.

By Theodore Parker

The Bible is read of a Sunday in all the thirty thousand pulpits of our land. In all the temples of Christendom is its voice lifted up week by week. The sun never sets on its gleaming page. It goes equally to the cottage of the plain man and the palace of the king. It is woven into the literature of the scholar, and colors the talk of the street. The bark of the merchant cannot sail the seas without it—no ship of war goes to the conflict but the Bible is there. It enters men's closets, mingles in all the grief and cheerfulness of life. The affianced maiden prays God in Scripture for strength in her new duties; men are married by Scripture. The Bible attends them in their sickness; when the fever of the world is on them, the aching head finds a softer pillow if its leaves lie underneath. The mariner escaping from shipwreck, clutches this first of his treasures, and keeps it sacred to God. It goes with the peddler in his crowded pack, cheers him at eventide when he sits down dusty and fatigued, and brightens the freshness of his morning face. It blesses us when we are born, gives names to half Christendom, rejoices with us, has sympathy with our mourning, tempers our grief to finer issues. It is the better part of our sermons. It lifts man above himself; our best of uttered prayers are in its storied speech, wherewith our fathers and the patriarchs prayed. Timid man, about awakening from this dream of life, looks through the glass of Scripture, and his eyes grow bright; he does not fear to stand alone, to tread the way, unknown and distant, to take the Death Angel by the hand and bid farewell to wife, and babies, and home. Men rest on their dearest hopes.—Theodore Parker.