THE BIBLE by N. Y. Observer

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 20, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 19.

THE BIBLE.

By N. Y. Observer

THE greatest and best books of the world would never have been written if the Bible had not existed. The three great books that, for intensity of thought, mastery of language, and scope of imagination, are unequaled, derive their being from the Bible. They are the only books that have sought to set forth, so far as human language can, the facts of the other world—the books of Dante, Milton, and Bunyan.

What book then can afford so great and abundant supplies for study and entertainment, such realms of literary pursuit, such historical and biographical surveys, such demonstrations of the moral and spiritual agencies that have wrought out and are working out the racial, national, social, domestic, and individual character and destiny of humanity? Consider the men and women of whom it makes mention, and all that with which they were concerned; the avenues which it opens to the dim realms of the farthest past, the clearings which it cuts along its descending path toward the future, which become the starting-points into all its contemporaneous history; the themes of its various books, their development and illustration; its concern with everything relating to man from his infancy to the grave, everything included in his relations in time and eternity.

It is manifest that this is the Book of books, and of all books the one, not only for private and pious study, but for social study and entertainment. Besides the invaluable Sabbath-school and Bible-class study, we wish that Bible clubs might be formed throughout our country upon the plan of the Shakespeare clubs, conducted by similar methods. These clubs are composed of a limited number of ladies and gentlemen, who meet one evening in the week to study and discuss a selected portion of the work. At the last meeting in the month invited guests are present, and a carefully prepared paper is read, after which the evening is devoted to social enjoyment and discussion. This has vastly increased the number of students and careful readers of English classics, and has made them more widely understood. We are sure that similar engagement with the inspired writers of the Scriptures would furnish the most agreeable, elevating, and stimulating intellectual enjoyment possible to be obtained by thoughtful persons.—N. Y. Observer.