p. 87 | The Abiding Word

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 27, 1872

The Abiding Word.

NO ARMY ever survived so many battles as the Bible; no citadel ever stood so many sieges; no rock was ever battered by so many hurricanes and so swept by storms. And yet it stands. It has seen the rise and downfall of Daniel's four empires. Assyria bequeaths a few mutilated figures to the riches of the British Museum. Media and Persia, like Babylon, which they conquered, have been weighed in the balance and long ago found wanting. “Greece faintly survives in its historic name;” “’Tis living Greece no more;” and the iron dome of the Caesars is held in precarious occupation by a feeble hand. And yet the book that foretells all this survives. While nations, kings, philosophers, systems, institutions have died away, the Bible now exercises man's deepest thoughts, is examined by the keenest intellects, stands revered before the highest tribunals, is more read, and sifted, and debated, more devoutly loved, and more vehemently assailed, more defended and more denied, more industriously translated and freely given to the world, and honored and abused, than any other book the world ever saw. It survives all changes, itself unchanged; it sees millions of other books engulfed in the stream of time, yet it is borne along triumphantly on the wave; and it will be borne along, until the mystic angel shall plant his foot upon the sea, and swear by Him that liveth forever and ever that time shall be no longer. “For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever.”