YOUR BIBLE by Julia H. Thayer

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Dec 23, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 49.

YOUR BIBLE.

By Julia H. Thayer

LET it be open upon your table at all times—you can afford to spare it room enough for that—where you may find it a refuge to which you may continually resort. Read it in the morning when your mind is clear, and before bodily fatigue renders the act a hard duty instead of a delight. Prepare your heart for conflict, out of this wonderful armory of everlasting truth, and learn at least one of its watch-words each day, that you may be ready to answer every challenge.

Do not think it your duty to enjoy equally each inspired book, simply because it is the word of God, but read and study at first such parts as you like best and can fully understand; and thus will you be led up gradually to a better appreciation of all the rest. One object of its infinite variety of style and subject would seem to be, that it affords satisfaction to every demand of heart, soul, and spirit.

Do not be afraid of injuring the books of your Bible by too much use, but mark freely your favorite passages. Let this book be indeed the "home of the soul;" live in it, use it daily. Furnish its spacious, white chambers of thought with the common experiences of your life, where helpful angels of memory will rise to greet you whenever you may choose to return to them.

When you come across any of those puzzling questions that you cannot understand, and that the ages have sought in vain to answer, exercise your faith by turning your mind away from them and dwelling, instead, upon such themes as are profitable to you. Those things that are closest to us, and ever within our reach, are the ones that are the most necessary to our highest good. Acknowledge the inadequacy of a finite mind to comprehend one that is infinite, and be content to wait for God's answer to every question that seems unanswerable.

Do not read your Bible hastily, formally, or from a sense of duty. Remember that the grandest human minds have acknowledged it to be the Book of books, considered both intellectually and spiritually. Make a study of its shining words, turning them over and over again and looking at them from all points of vision; for so long as you do this, just so long will they continue to crystallize into new and strikingly beautiful forms. Only those who look thus lovingly can see the divine revelations, for truly the "secret of the Lord is with them that fear him." Only the seeker is told that he shall find; only the asker is promised that he shall receive; only to the one who knocks comes the sweet assurance that the door shall be opened. The Bible is the "door," leading out of the black dungeon of sin into the blessed light and freedom of Christ's merciful love. Then search and ask and knock, for within that golden portal is eternal life.—Julia H. Thayer, in Interior.