Part 18 (1/2)

While copies of the cla.s.sics--Virgil, Zenophon, Caesar, Sophocles, Pindar and Martial--are to be counted by a few thousands, and are cast aside by students as soon as they have graduated, and are forgotten in a twelvemonth, this Bible goes on printing every year millions of copies in all languages and dialects of earth; so far from casting it aside, when once read, men take it up and read it again and again, study it through life, dig into it as for hid treasure, and make it the pillow on which to lay their dying head.

With each succeeding year the demand for it increases and voices are continually crying--give us _The Book_.

It is the supreme book.

It is the book we need when the fire of sin gleams in our eye and its poison burns in our veins. It is the book we need when the heart is sore, when our soul is troubled, and when peace is no longer a guest in our home.

It is the book we need; for from its pages alone do we behold the light which s.h.i.+nes from a Saviour's empty grave; from its pages alone do we receive a.s.surance of the resurrection of the dead, of immortality and the life to come; and from its pages alone do we hear the tender and welcoming words which seek to greet us and to comfort us while we struggle here ofttimes beneath the burden's growing weight, those words of heavenly music: ”Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

What author on earth would think his book dead and out of date if year after year the publication of it taxed the printing presses of the world? What author would deem his book out of date when the voices of everywhere proclaimed it the book of books, and mult.i.tudes unnumbered confessed that from its pages alone they found the way of life and peace?

Such a book is neither out of date nor dead; and its throbbing vitality tells of a life impulse and inspiration that are not of man.

And, finally,

This book inspires men for G.o.d.

Every year books on morality and essays on conduct are written and published. They get as far as a first edition and are never heard of again; but this book, which binds all its parts about the person, the work, the office and the glories of Christ, changes the life, the character, the time and the eternity of men.

Place this book in the midst of the vilest and most abandoned community of desperate and devilish men and, sooner or later, you will hear a cry coming from the depths of sin and shame, bitter cries of repentance and yearnings after G.o.d; and by and by that community will be transformed, men will no longer be demon filled, but possessed with a spirit of truth and love; and G.o.d will be found to reign and rule in the midst.

Whatever there is of sweetness and truth and righteousness in the world to-day; whatever there is that gives hope and comfort on earth and holds men back from very madness and despair, is due directly and indirectly to this book.

Take up a map and find the lands where sin and vice skulk in the darkness; where virtue is honored and purity enthroned; go mark on the map the lands where the men are the most manly and the women the most womanly, and you will find it in those lands where the Bible is exalted, not as the word of man, but, in deed and truth, as the Word of G.o.d.

Find the men and women who know most of G.o.d, who have the deepest consciousness of him in the soul, and who walk every day with the a.s.surance of his _real presence_--to whom the unseen becomes from hour to hour the thing that is alone real--and who live as kings above their prostrate pa.s.sions--and they will be those who make this book the supreme authority in their daily lives; who hear it when it speaks to them as the very voice of G.o.d.

A book which thus inspires men _for_ G.o.d is, indeed, a book which, by every law of logic, must have been inspired _by_ G.o.d.