LETTER IV.

THE BIBLE.

DEAR CHILDREN:--If you were walking, in a dark night, along a road full of sloughs, and pits, and snares, and dangers of every kind, what would you do for safety? You would naturally, if you could obtain it, take a _light_ in your hands. You would also, if possible, engage a _guide_, strong and faithful, well acquainted with the road, and qualified to conduct and defend you. And, besides all this, you would vigilantly _look around you_ at every step, and eagerly mark and avoid every spot that had a suspicious or doubtful appearance.

Your situation, dear children, in the journey of life, is precisely such as I have described; or rather, I ought to say, "the half has not been told you." You are just entering on a world, dark, corrupt, and full of allurement and danger. On every side enemies lie in wait to deceive and betray. You are and will be exposed to a thousand temptations and perils from which you have no wisdom or strength to deliver yourselves. You need direction and guidance at every step. Now the BIBLE presents the only complete and perfect map of the road which you are travelling. It was given us to be "a light to our feet, and a lamp to our path." It exhibits, with unerring fidelity, every enemy, every snare, every danger which beset your path. It gives all the information, all the warning, all the caution, and all the encouragement which you need. It tells you, more perfectly than any other book, all that you have to fear, and all that you have to hope for. There is not a form of error, or of corruption, against which it does not put you on your guard; nor an excellence or a duty which it does not direct you how to cultivate and attain. "Wherewith," asks the Psalmist, "shall the young cleanse their way?"--"By taking heed thereto," he replies, "according to thy word." No one ever made this holy Book the guide of his life, without walking wisely, safely, and happily; without finding the truest enjoyment in this world, and eternal blessedness in the world to come.

Can you wonder, then, beloved children, that I place a high value on this blessed Book; that I earnestly recommend it to your serious attention, to your constant study, and to your devout and affectionate application and confidence? Can you wonder that I should delight to see it daily in your hands; much of its sacred contents committed to your memory; and your hearts deeply imbued with its spirit and its power? You, no doubt, remember how earnestly your precious Mother, now gone to the God who gave this Book, recommended it to your attention; how assiduously she put it into your hands; how often she constrained you to commit portions of it to memory; and how frequently, on Sabbath evenings, she gathered you round her to recite those portions in her hearing, and to receive her instructions and counsels in regard to them. Can you ever forget these scenes, and the solemn, tender lessons which you then received? Call to mind her earnest looks, her affectionate tones, her unceasing labour to impress the contents of this sacred Book on your minds and hearts. Think of these things; and if you can recollect them without gratitude to God for such a mother, and without tears of regret that you have not profited more by her faithful counsels, you have less moral feeling, and less filial sensibility than I have been accustomed to give you credit for.

Why is it, my dear children, that so many young people regard the Bible with aversion, and consider the study of its pages, and especially committing them to memory, as a task and a burden? When we reflect that it is sent to us from heaven; that it contains the glad tidings of peace, and love, and salvation to a lost world; that it is besides full of the noblest specimens of literary beauty, and of tender pathetic eloquence that the world ever saw; that there is something in it adapted to touch the finest and best cords of human sensibility--why is it that you so often feel aversion to the study of this volume, and would gladly be excused from the task of perusing its chapters? Alas! dear children, this is one of the many proofs that your nature, as I before stated, is depraved; and that you need the renewing and sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, before you can understand and relish a book given by his inspiration. Every feeling of reluctance to the study of this Book which you experience, ought to fill you with alarm, and to constrain you to cry mightily to God that he would open your eyes and your hearts, and give you that taste for the best of all books, without which you cannot be prepared for the joys of his presence. Consider, I beseech you, that, as you have been made acquainted with this Book from your earliest childhood, so you will have to give an account for this knowledge. Many children around you have never had the Bible put into their hands; have never been taught to venerate and love its sacred pages; but you have been informed of its origin and value. You have enjoyed a privilege denied to thousands. Will you not be grateful for this privilege? Will you not manifest that you know how to prize a gift of more value than all the world beside? Can you deliberately consent to meet the dreadful condemnation of those who, from childhood, "knew the Master's will, and did it not."

I hope I need not remind you that the BOOK OF GOD is to be read with feelings and in a manner very different from those with which you read all other books. When you have read books of human composition once or twice, you have gotten from them all they contain--you have done with them. But with the perusal of the Bible you can never have done. The oftener you go over it, if you feel as you ought, the richer and more delightful will it appear. You can never exhaust its meaning or its interest. Like its divine Author, it has a length and breadth and depth and height, concerning which no human reader can ever say that he has completely fathomed its meaning, or measured its riches.

Other books are to be read with attention, and, if they abound with truth and wisdom, with respect; but the Book of God is to be read with the deepest veneration, as containing the mind and will of our heavenly Sovereign. In fact, every line of it is to be considered as the voice of God speaking to us. Woe to those, whether young or aged, who can handle the Bible with levity, make sport of its contents, or recite its solemn language as matter of jest! The Lord will not hold them guiltless who thus, practically, "take his name in vain." The Mohammedans manifest much more reverence for their _Koran_, than many Christians for the Bible. They never allow themselves to touch it without washing their hands. They handle it with the most pointed respect, never holding it lower than their girdles. Every copy of it commonly contains an inscription or label on the cover, in these words--"Let none touch but those who are clean." How very differently do many, young and old, among us, treat the Holy Scriptures! I have often been distressed when I have seen children toss about their Bibles, and even throw them in the dirt, as they would the least valued of their play-things, or rattle over some of the most solemn language of the Bible with as little apparent thought or respect as they would repeat the veriest effusions of nonsense.

The Bible, farther, is to be read _daily_, and with _diligence_, as containing that daily food from which you are to derive spiritual aliment, and strength continually. It is to be read with fixed _attention_, seriously directing your mind to its rich and important meaning; with _humility_, feeling your need of the instruction and grace which it contains; with _prayer_, imploring the guidance of the Holy Spirit, that he may open your hearts to receive the engrafted word which is able to save your souls; with _application_--asking continually--"How does this concern _me_? Does it describe _my case_? Does it not contain a lesson which demands _my_ special regard? Do _I_ know any thing in my own experience of what is here taught?"

In this precious Book you will find every thing adapted to enlarge the mind, to gratify the taste, to elevate the affections, and to purify the heart. If you only sought the richest _entertainment_, you could not open a book more fitted to gratify you. It is an inexhaustible mine of instruction as well as of beauty--the deeper you dig, the richer will you find its treasures. Its exquisite simplicity, its pathos, its sublimity, its heavenly wisdom, its purity, are all adapted to turn us away from the vanities of the world; to enlarge our views beyond these regions of disorder and darkness; to strengthen every high and holy motive; and to lead us upward to Him who is the source and the sum of all good. Happy, thrice happy will those children and young people be, who early learn to go to the BIBLE for all their sentiments, principles, and rules of action; who learn daily to go to that precious Book to direct them in their pursuits, to comfort them in their sorrows, to guide them in their perplexities, and to animate them in their labours whatever they may be! Such have the best pledge of temporal enjoyment, and of eternal blessedness. When, therefore, those who love you, and would in some measure take the place of your dear departed Mother, daily put this precious Book of God into your hands, and urge you to read and commit to memory a portion of its contents, do not allow yourselves to regard it as a task or a burden. Think from whom it comes--from the God who made you. Think of the great purpose for which it was given--to make you wise and eternally happy. Think of the only means of making it truly profitable to you--studying it with devout attention, laying it up in your hearts, and practising it in your lives. Think of the solemn responsibility which the possession of this Book lays upon you--for to whomsoever much is given, of them shall much be required. And may the great Author of this Book give you grace to "seek for the heavenly wisdom which it contains as silver, and search for it as for hid treasures!"