p. 147 | The Bible

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 21, 1873

The Bible.

Unlike books of history or fiction, the Bible never grows monotonous. There is always something fresh and new, often as we may read it. And for pathos, history, poetry, and sublimity, where will we find its equal? Yet to some it is a dull, uninteresting book, used only from compulsion or from a sense of duty. But how important that we study it, and as a matter of choice and pleasure. And the more that we do, will our happiness be increased. But unless we make it our rule of conduct, we study it, not with the right motives, and will have need of inquiring,

“What sheaves have I gathered in the world's great field, To be burned at the Judgment day?”

To study merely for a display of our knowledge in any branch, is not surely the motive underlying principle; but how much more a mockery and display of egotism is that study than any other?

“And better had they ne’er been born, Than read to doubt, or read to scorn.”

And wherever the Bible has been suppressed, we find ignorance, superstition and vice, the result.