THE FULNESS AND RICHNESS OF THE BIBLE.
ONE of the most remarkable points of difference between the Bible and other books is to be found in the fact that the more the sacred volume is studied the more novel and fresh do its teachings appear, while, in the case of other books, the ideas are mastered after a certain amount of time has been spent upon them. In other words, the Bible is inexhaustible, while the ideas of other books can be comprehended and exhausted. As has been well said of the Bible, the person “who searches most finds most to reward his pains.” When we consider the fact that for ages this book has been studied by the wisest of men and women, and that millions of people diligently study its pages at the present time, we can not but be amazed that its treasures are still far from being exhausted. Dr. H. Clay Trumbull has said, “Out of the Old Testament and out of the New a studious learner can ever bring forth precious things—both new and old.” Prof. Calvin E. Stowe once said that, altho he had gone carefully over the Bible in the original languages more than a score of times, studying it verse by verse and word by word, he had never gone over any passage without finding some important truth that was new to him. “Never suppose,” said he, in an address to Sunday-school teachers, “that you have yet gained in your studies the fullest meaning of the simplest text of the Bible.” Said the great preacher, Charles H. Spurgeon: “After preaching the Gospel for forty years, and after printing the sermons I have preached more than six and thirty years, reaching now to the number of two thousand two hundred, in weekly succession, I am fairly entitled to speak about the fulness and the richness of the Bible as a preacher’s book. . . . There can be no difficulty about finding themes totally distinct from those we have handled before; the variety is as infinite as the fulness. A long life will only suffice to skirt the shores of this great continent of light. In the forty years of my ministry, I have only touched the hem of the garment of divine truth; but what virtue has flowed out of it! The word is like its Author,—infinite, immeasurable, without end. If you were ordained to be a preacher through eternity, you would have before you a theme equal to everlasting demands.” Said Bishop Butler, “It is not incredible that a book which has been so long in the possession of mankind contains many truths as yet undiscovered.” Even infidels have testified to the fact that the Bible is an inexhaustible book. Heine, the great poet, in spite of the fact that he was not a believer in the divine origin of the Bible, said of the volume: “What a book! Vast and wide as the world, rooted in the abyss of creation, and towering up beyond the blue secrets of heaven! Sunrise and sunset, promise and fulfilment, life and death, the whole drama of humanity, are in this book.” But, while the Bible is an inexhaustible book, a child can read it with appreciation. Its most important truths—those relating to salvation—are not beyond the comprehension of the most simple mind, altho they are too deep for even the greatest minds to grasp in their fulness. As has been well said, the Bible “is a brook where a child may wade; it is an ocean where a whale may gambol.”—Union Signal.