Three Reasons for Reading the Bible.
A ROMISH priest, who found one of his flock getting very familiar with the Bible, and fearing the result, tried to persuade him to turn his attention more to “the fathers.” “And who are the fathers?” he inquired. “Those good men,” said the priest, “who lived near the times of the apostles and, who are said to have best understood what the apostles meant.” “Well,” said the man “as they lived after the apostles, I shall prefer attending to the apostles themselves; I think the GRANDfathers are better guides than the fathers.” and so he continued reading, and found the entrance of God’s word gave him light and life. Another priest, wishing to induce a man to give up his Bible-reading, argued thus: “Suppose, now, you were going to Dublin, and came to that spot where four crossroads meet, and you did not know the way, and one person told you to go to the right, and a great number told you to go to the left, to whom would you listen? In other words would you mind what Luther, a single heretic, says, or what the pope, the cardinals, and all the other doctors of the Catholic church teach you?” “Well,” replied the man, “if I had a road-book I should not mind what any of them said. Now [producing his Bible] I have here a road-book to Heaven, and, God helping me, I mean to follow it in spite of all that popes and cardinals may say.” “What warrant have you to read the Bible?” said another priest to a poor Irish lad. “The best of all warrants,” shrewdly replied the boy, “namely, a search-warrant; see, here it is, John 5: 39: ‘Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me.’” “Is not He whose right it is to reign preparing his people for some great crisis which is to precede his coming to claim the kingdoms of this world? So we are disposed to think. The signs of the times are portentous. Let us, beloved, keep our lamps trimmed and brightly burning—looking for, and hastening unto, the coming of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Jesus, our absent Lord, has told us that he would come again. He has been away nearly two thousand years. Nearly six thousand years has he stood forth before a fallen, redeemed race, as the Lamb newly slain. The Jubilee of Heaven and earth—the grand Sabbatic year—is about to break upon us. By the foreshowings of Scripture, we seem to see that there will be a short, sharp conflict with the man of sin. But though we may be called to pass through seas of blood, it will but quicken our heart-longing cry, ‘Come Lord Jesus, come quickly!’”—Guide to Holiness.