Importance of Reading the Bible.

"Thou truest friend man ever knew,

Thy constancy I've tried;

When all were false I found thee true,

My counsellor and guide.

The mines of earth no treasures give

That could this volume buy:

In teaching me the way to live,
It taught me how to die."

HISTORY informs us that, when Archbishop Cranmer's edition of the Bible was printed, in 1538, it was fixed to a desk in all parochial churches, and men, with incredible ardor, flocked to read it. 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, the martyrologist, 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 a law, however, in the 34th of Henry the VIII., it was enacted, that no woman, except noblewomen and gentlewomen, 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.

Happily for us, in this age of light and liberty, we have the Bible in our own tongue; every man can purchase a copy of it for a very small sum, or receive it as a gift if he is too poor to buy it; and, amidst the means of education which abound on every side, and the religious liberty which we enjoy, no one need remain unable, or feel afraid, to read for himself the Word of God. How great our privileges! How vast our responsibility! What obligation is resting upon us to improve the blessing thus placed within our reach! We cannot, indeed, form any adequate estimate of the injury to ourselves, or the offence to the Almighty, which a neglect of His truth must involve.

"Let a subject," says Payson, "receive a communication from his acknowledged sovereign, and as it claims, so it will receive his immediate attention. Nor will he, especially if it contains various and important instructions, think a hasty perusal of it sufficient. No, he will study it till he feels confident that he is acquainted with its contents, and understands their import. At least equally certain, and

equally evident is it, that every man whose heart acknowledges God to be his rightful sovereign, and who believes that the Scriptures contain a revelation from Him, will study them attentively, study them till he feels confident that he understands their contents, and that they have made him wise unto salvation. The man who does not study them, who negligently suffers them to lie, for days and weeks, unopened, says, more explicitly than any words can say, I am Lord, God is not my Sovereign, I am not his subject; nor do I consider it important to know what he requires of me. Carry his messages to those who are subject to Him, and they will, perhaps, pay them some attention."

The Scriptures should be Read, because this is Divinely required.

The very writing of them infers an obligation to read them; and to refuse to do so, is to frustrate, as far as we can, the gracious ends and designs of their donation. But this duty does not rest merely on an inferential basis. The Jews were commanded to have all the words which they received from God, in their hearts, and to teach them diligently unto their children. (Deut. vi. 6, 7). The Psalmist gives it as the character of a good man, that "his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night." Solomon enjoins upon us to "cry after knowledge, seek her as silver, and search

for her as for hidden treasure." Paul says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." What John affirms of a part of the Bible is applicable to the whole (Rev. i. 3), "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this revelation, and keep those things which are written therein." And a greater than all these, even Jesus Christ himself, says, "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they testify of me."

The Scriptures should be Read, because by them only can we attain a competent knowledge of our duty and destiny.

Emphatically may they say, as the Saviour himself said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me." We cannot even think of abandoning them without being forced to the exclamation of the disciples, "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life." Talk of Reason, as a sufficient

guide to the race! She has no just claim to any ..such character, and the individual who should venture to follow her direction, has most fitly been compared to a man carrying a little glimmering taper in his hand at noonday, with his back turned to the sun, and foolishly endeavoring to persuade himself and others that he had no need of the sun, and that his taper gave more light than that glorious lumi

nary. If, as some allege, she is able to guide us in the path of truth and happiness, why has she accomplished so little in lands where her feeble beams alone have struggled with the thick darkness? Why did she not teach the learned Egyptians to abstain from worshipping their leeks and onions? Why not instruct the polished Greeks to renounce their sixty thousand gods? Why not persuade the enlightened Romans to abstain from adoring their deified murderers? Why not prevail on the wealthy Phoenicians to refrain from sacrificing their infants to Saturn? Why not teach the pagan philosophers the great doctrine of the soul's immortality, which they so earnestly labored in vain to discover? No, verily, Reason cannot lead man to a knowledge of his God and of himself, his past, his present, and his future. Whatever may be her proper province and power, it is not to find and fathom the mysteries which Faith alone can discern. She may see that such mysteries exist when they are revealed to her, as Moses descried the promised inheritance, but, like him, "she must not come into the Holy Land."

"Dim as the borrowed beams of moon and stars

To lonely, weary, wandering travellers,

Is Reason to the soul; and as on high

Those rolling fires discover but the sky,

Nor light us here; so Reason's glimmering ray
Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way,

But guide us upward to a better day.