Bible Valued | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 21, 1857

Bible Valued.

WHAT an invaluable blessing is it to have the Bible in our own tongue! Our forefathers rejoiced when they were first favored with the opportunity of reading for themselves. We are told, that when Archbishop Cranmer’s edition of the Bible was printed in 1538, and fixed to a desk in all parochial churches, the ardor with which men flocked to read it was incredible. They who could, procured it; and they who could not, crowded to read it, or to hear it read in churches, where it was common to see little assemblies of mechanics meeting together for that purpose after the labor of the day. Many even learned to read in their old age that they might have the pleasure of instructing themselves from the Scriptures. Mr. Fox mentions two apprentices who joined each his little stock, and bought a Bible, which at every interval of leisure they read; but being afraid of their master, who was a zealous papist, they kept it under the straw of their bed.

By law, however, in the 34th of Henry VIII, it was enacted, that no women, except noblewomen and gentlewoman, might read to themselves alone, or to others, any texts of the Bible, &c.; nor artificers, apprentices, journeymen, husbandmen, nor laborers, were to read the Bible or New Testament in English to themselves, or to any other person, privately or openly. With what pleasure ought we to reflect on our deliverance from those times of darkness, and that now we live in a land of Bibles, and in a time when they are circulating in almost every part of the world!

The Rev. Mr. Newton, of Wakefield, speaking in favor of Bible Associations, mentioned a circumstance which took place in one of the Associations at the west end of London. The persons who had undertaken to solicit subscriptions called on the master of an ale-house, who refused to subscribe. They proceeded to state some of the benefits of the Associations, and the great want of Bibles; but still he refused. They then asked his reason. He replied, “They do harm.” “How so?” “Why since the poor have subscribed to your Association, they have not frequented my house so much as they did.” “But they still will come to you for what they want.” “True; but before they used to come on Sunday evenings, and smoke their pipes, but now they stay at home and read their Bibles—I will therefore have nothing to say to you.” The friends of the Bible, however, still persevered, saying, “Those who read their Bibles, there find it written, ‘owe no man anything’; they therefore learn to pay for what they have.” “Ah! ah! I never thought of that,” cried he; “it is better, then; I find, to sell less, than to have many bad debts;” and with this he immediately subscribed.

Admonitions of the Bible.

Among the Lacedæmonians there was a law that none should inform his neighbor of any evil that had befallen him; but every man should be left to find it out in process of time. How many ministers and people act as if such law existed in Britain! They dare not tell, and are unwilling to be told, that “the wages of sin is death,” and that the wrath of God abideth on every unbeliever. But the law of God’s house is exactly the reverse of that we have mentioned. “Son of man,” saith the Lord, “I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel;” &c., &c.

Attachment to the Bible.

One thing which evidently distinguishes the Christian from other characters, is his attachment to the Bible. Some have been ready to part with all rather than with the Scriptures. We read of one that gave a load of hay for only a leaf of one of the epistles. The famous Boyle, who died 30th December, 1691, said, speaking of the Scriptures, “I prefer a sprig of the tree of life to a whole load of hay.” Judge Hale, that ornament of his profession and country, said that if he did not honor God’s word by reading a portion of it every morning, things went not well with him all the day. Robert, king of Sicily, said, “The holy books are dearer to me than my kingdom, and were I under any necessity of quitting one, it should be my diadem.” And such is the love of every Christian to the sacred volume, that he esteems it, as Job says “more than his necessary food.”—Relig. Anec.