p. 131 | The Bible by Editor

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 9, 1858

The Bible.

By Editor

The Bible is a venerable book. Most venerable. For four thousand years as a part or a whole it has been "a road through the abyss of time," upon which men have walked as if it were a solid pavement. It is the only bridge spanning the gulf, buttressed and upheld by divine veracity. Beneath it hell yawns. Faith goes up upon it singing. Rainbows of Hope and Promise hover over it. Everlasting Joy and Blessedness beckon at the end. There always is light when everywhere else is darkness; ever and anon God's smile breaking through; death itself no longer dreadful—

"Only a gray eve 'tween two shining days,"

a comma betwixt this and that, betwixt two existences yet one, betwixt time and eternity, betwixt earth and heaven. Receiving it as God's Gift-Book, Keepsake, Souvenir, how delightful to turn its pages filled with testimonies of His love, odorous with His breath, musical with His voice! How the soul leaps up to meet the paternal stoop of divine condescension when imparting to us "the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father!" Apprehensive, trembling, filled with remorse, falling into despair, how sweet to know that there is "forgiveness with God;" that He "can be just and yet the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." When tossed, tempted and afflicted, how calm and safe this anchorage! What equanimity and equipoise it gives to the soul! what fortitude; what patience; what moral strength; what elevation; what grandeur; what happiness! How it fills, satisfies and blesses! How adapted every way to the wants of man! Not light is so suited to the eye, nor sound to the ear, nor food to the taste. The evidence of its truth is within. He needs no chemist to tell him that it is sweet, wholesome, beneficent in its operation; for has he not experienced it a thousand times? How can be doubt? When the sun shines does he not know it, having eyes to see! What horror in the thought could he once imagine that the curtain thus lifted between God and man might fall again, and this awful apocalypse and revelation of Divine Mercy be shut out forever. How think you then must he feel when he sees Atheistic men madly wishing and working for this very thing? How melancholy to know that the audacious attempt will not wholly fail. In his last illness, a few days before his death, Sir Walter Scott asked Mr. Lockhart to read to him. Mr. Lockhart inquired what book he would like. "Can you ask?" said Sir Walter; "There is but ONE," and requested him to read a chapter of the gospel of John. One sun, one Bible. The place which the first holds in the natural world the last holds in the moral; blot either, and what were our state then?

"O dark, dark, dark, irrecoverably dark, Total eclipse without all hope of day."

Although no power of malice can do this, yet it can do that which is tantamount to it. There is the sight which, being

"To such a tender ball as the eye confined, Is obvious and easy to be quenched."

Who robs me of my faith puts out the eyes of my soul, exiles me from light.

"To live a life half dead, a living death, And buried; but, O yet more miserable, Myself, my sepulture, a moving grave.—"

makes me the dungeon of myself, and reserves me under chains of darkness against the judgment of the great day.—Medical and Surgical Reporter.