Chapter 14

7. _The Bible thus inspires a buoyancy and exhilaration which feed the fresh forces of all noble life._

No poet is needed to tell us that

Virtue kindles at the touch of joy.

We know it in our own experience. We notice it in every great revival of religion. We trace it through the history of Christianity. The story of the early days of Jesus is, as Renan called it, "a delightful pastoral." In the person of humanity's greatest idealist, the highest joy of the soul was set in the framing of one of nature's brightest scenes. Even from the shadows of the garden of Gethsemane, He bequeaths to his little flock the legacy of his free spirit: My joy I leave with you. The Christian Society entered into that bequest, and in its first exhilaration overflowed the hard coast lines of property, and realized a happy brotherhood.

And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as any man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home did take their food with gladness.

The prophets were filled with a buoyancy of spirit that scarce would let them keep down to the plodding steps of social progress; that constantly rapt them away into the future, whence their voices echo back the gladness of their visions. The good time is coming on the earth. The longings of man's soul are to be realized. Crushed by no disappointments, wearied out by no delays, the prophets maintain an indomitable hopefulness; their voices the carollings of the birds that greet the dawn of day:

Sing, O Heavens; and be joyful, O earth; And break forth into singing, O mountains. For the Lord hath comforted his people; And will have mercy upon his afflicted.

One treads here the upper zones, where the air is rare and every draught an inspiration; where the Laws are seen majestically sweeping every force into the measured movement which is making all things work together for good to them that love God.

With a tact truer than any theory, our canon of scripture has been closed in the Book of the Revelation; whose visions look beyond the break-up of Jerusalem and shadow on the far horizon, where earth and heaven melt in one, the fair form of the City of God, coming down from out the skies upon the new world wherein dwelleth righteousness.

In these days, when "joy is withered from the sons of men," it is like drinking from the Castalian springs to draw within our souls from the Bible the sense of that kingdom of God which is joy in the Holy Ghost; into which men are to come

With everlasting joy upon their heads: They shall obtain joy and gladness And sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

You learn the power of the Bible as you find how the joy of the Lord is your strength.

8. _The Bible leads this sense of Law into that awful vision wherein "Conscious Law is King of kings."_

The Laws appear substantial and real inasmuch as they are seen to be but phases of the Infinite and Eternal Being, the Righteous Lord who loveth righteousness. It is a conscious, intelligent, holy Being, whom Israel worships through these ideal forms of goodness. However He transcended their poor personalities, as transcend them they knew He must, God was yet best expressed in the form of the human, conscious personality. Man, the highest creature, must be, they said, most nearly in the form of God. As man takes up the noblest characteristics of the life below him, so his own noblest characteristics must be taken up into the Lord of Life. God cannot be less than personal, however much more than personal He may be. He is to be thought of by us, in lack of nobler imagination, as personal. Israel thus grew into the conception of the Infinite Power, manifest in the order of nature and in the order of conscience as conscious Power; One in whose image man was made, the Father of the mystic "I"; whose nature is the law of creation, whose purpose is its plan, whose will is its exhaustless energy.

This is the secret which has kept the religions inspired by the Bible from lapsing, as other religions have done, into lifelessness.

Egypt was the land of a religion which had won a high conception of the Divine unity; a religion which was scientific in its forms of thought, and earnestly moral in its spirit; but which failed to keep distinct in mind the order of nature from the Being on whom it reposes, and thus sank into the dreamy pantheism of its cultured classes, and the poetic polytheisms of its people. Of this lapse, Renouf writes:

All gods were in fact but names of the One who resided in them all. But this God is no other than Nature. Both individuals and entire nations may long continue to hold this view, without drawing the inevitable conclusion, that if there is no other God than this, the world is really without a God. But the fate of a religion which involves such a conclusion, and with that conclusion the loss of faith in immortality, and even in the distinction of Right and Wrong, except so far as they are connected with ritual prescriptions, is inevitably sealed.[62]

Neither Judaism, nor Mohammedanism, nor Christianity, the religions fed directly or indirectly from the Bible, have run, or can well run into this fatal error. The Divine Being who is mirrored in the Bible is the Conscious Intelligence to whom alone of right belongs that ineffable name--GOD. This is the thought and this is the word which hold the spell of the Bible power over the human soul. Nowhere else is the sense of God so alive, nowhere else does it so thrill the whole being of man. It was this living God whom these holy men of old were seeking; not simply the august ideals of the soul, but the Eternal Being who casts them as his shadows upon man:

Unto Thee lift I up mine eyes, O Thou that dwellest in the heavens.

* * * * *

My soul truly waiteth still upon God, For of Him cometh my salvation.

* * * * *

Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, So longeth my soul after Thee, O God. My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the Living God; When shall I come to appear before the presence of God?

It is God whom these holy men find. The Ineffable Presence rejoices their souls, and as we keep company with them rejoices our souls also:

Lord, Thou hast been our home From one generation to another.

* * * * *

Whoso dwelleth in the secret-place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

* * * * *

O Lord, Thou hast searched me out and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising; Thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou art about my path and about my bed, And spiest out all my ways. For lo, there is not a word in my tongue But Thou, O Lord, knowest it altogether.

The inspirations which we feel from the Bible-words are the breathings of the Eternal Spirit. The Divine whispers, which are too often inarticulate in nature and even in our souls, are articulate in the great Bible-words--the words proceeding from out of the mouth of God, on which man liveth. The power of the Bible is that the deafest souls can therein hear--GOD.

9. _God speaks in A MAN._

The Bible centres in the story of a life which was so filled with the Holy Ghost that this Man became the symbol of the Most High, the sacrament of His Being and Presence, the sacred shrine of Deity. As when the long-drawn travail of instrumentation labors through the opening movements of the ninth symphony, with a strain too fine for any voicing save by man, there bursts at length upon the tumultuous storm of sound the clear, high, song of joy from human lips; so from the mounting efforts of a nation's insufficient utterance there rises at last a voice, which takes up every groaning of the Spirit in humanity into the perfect beauty of a human life divine.

And so the Word hath breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds, In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thought.

The light of the Son of Man is the life of men; the light for our minds and the warmth for our hearts. In the Power in whom we live and move and have our being, we see "Our Father who art in Heaven." In the laws of life we read the methods of His schooling of our souls. In the sorrows of life we receive His disciplinings. In the sins that cling so hard upon us we feel the evils of our imperfection, from which He is seeking to deliver us through His training of our spirits. In the shame of sin we are conscious of the guilt that His free forgiveness wipes away, when we turn saying, Father, I have sinned. In death we face the door-way to some other room of the Father's house, where, it may be, just beyond the threshold our dear ones wait for us! In Christ himself we own our heaven-sent Teacher, Master, Saviour, Friend; our elder Brother, who in our sinful flesh lives our holy aspirations, and, smiling, beckons us to follow Him, whispering in our ears--To them that receive me I give "power to become the sons of God."

The power of the Bible is--CHRIST.

II.

When Sir Walter Scott lay in his last illness, he asked Lockhart one day to read to him. "From what book shall I read?" said Lockhart. "There is but one book," was Scott's answer. Those who have sought the "power to become the sons of God" will understand this hyperbole of the most healthy human mind in modern English literature. Tested by experience there is indeed, in the wide range of the literature of power, no book to be mentioned with the Bible for feeding the life of God in man. Our fathers found this true, and their children cannot correct their judgment. The substitute for the Bible, as an ethical and spiritual instructor, is not out.

I speak to those who are in earnest in the building of a man. You need this book, my brothers. Luther's higher life dated from his discovery of the Bible. Have you discovered the Bible? Within the body of human "letters" have you found out the divine soul of the Bible? Through the chorus of human voices have you heard the voice of the Eternal Power? If not, life holds one more rich "find" for you--a treasure hidden in the field over which you have so lightly strayed.

Buy a Bible, my brothers! The current coin of the land, in the shops of our best booksellers, may have failed to buy for you a real Bible. No noble book is ever to be made your own in this easy fashion. Ruskin tells us that the great picture will not give itself to us unless we give ourselves to it. The Bible must have its price. The best comes dearest. If you will not pay you cannot buy. Pay for the real Bible your costliest offering of mind and heart. Spend upon it, day by day, your careful, reverent study, until beneath your love the Book warms into life; and, having proven well your loyalty, this teacher of the soul opens its soul to you and whispers--Henceforth I call you not servant but friend. Wait in these courts until the Eternal Wisdom, who walks within this temple, turns her face upon you, "mystic, wonderful;" and the common places grow refulgent with a new and heavenly beauty, and you humbly say--This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.

* * * * *

How shall we thus rightly read the Bible, for ethical and spiritual upbuilding? Let me offer some plain and practical suggestions to this end.

(1.) _Read it daily._

Your soul needs its daily bread. Do not starve your soul. Do not try to fatten it on chaff. Get the best soul-food, the long tried manna that forms upon these pages day by day, for him who will be at pains to gather it. He must be busy, indeed, who cannot find time to keep himself alive.

(2.) _Read it in the choicest moments of the day._

The best picture should have the best setting. Our fathers' symbol of the opening of a new day was the opening of the Bible. Their symbol of the closing of another day's duties was the closing of the Bible. Can we improve upon their ritual? John Quincy Adams noted in his journal his custom of reading in the Bible each morning, of which he well observed:

It seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day.

Pitch the day aright with this tuning-fork, and hush the babel-voices of the world to its tones of peace at night.

(3.) _Read the Bible whenever you need some special influence of strength or cheer, amid the temptations and trials of the day._

It holds the unfailing corrective for the manifold disorders of our busy lives. To think its thoughts and breathe its desires, even for a few moments, is to have the horizon of the senses open, the heavy atmosphere of earth clear, the illusions of the world evanish, the fever of business cool and calm, the tempting appetites and passions slink down shamed into their kennels. It is to have the dark look of life lighten, the sting of disappointment lose its venom, the weariness of sickness forget itself, and the sorrow of the stricken heart sob itself asleep within the everlasting arms of One who, like a mother, comforteth his children, and who with his own hand wipes away the tears from our eyes.

A few days after one of the battles before Richmond a Southern soldier was found unburied. His right hand still clasped a Bible, and his stiff fingers pressed upon the words of the Twenty-third Psalm:

I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.

(4.) _In the choice of these daily readings, follow the guidance of the soul's sure instinct._

You need no critical knowledge to teach you what parts of the Bible are the most highly inspired. The spiritual sense will appraise these books aright. As the beasts are led instinctively to the herbs that hold healing for their ailments so you shall find the tonic and the balm that you need. You will naturally pasture for the most part in the Prophets, the Psalms, the Gospels, the great Epistles of Paul, the First Epistle of John, and kindred writings. You may, dip into these books as the bees dip into the flowers, now burying themselves in the luscious honey-suckle and now lingering on the rich rose, if so be that you only suck sweetness into your soul.

(5.) _Wheresoever you read, read in the spirit._

"I was in the spirit on the Lord's day," wrote the seer. If he had been in the understanding merely, he would not have had many visions. The Spirit must interpret the Spirit's words. The Bible requires, as Bushnell wrote:

Divine inbreathings and exaltations in us, that we may asscend into their meanings.[63]

In his last sickness Archbishop Usher was observed one day, sitting in his wheel-chair, with a Bible in his lap, and moving his position as the sun stole round to the westward, so as to let the light fall on the sacred page. That is a symbol of the right use of the Bible.

I picked up lately the choice Bible which I selected for myself as a boy, and on the fly-leaf, in my boyish hand, I read the words:

Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law.

I still find that the best commentator, for the ethical and spiritual use of the Bible, is one Master Praying Always.

As the bard with the Muse, so the critic in the presence of Wisdom, must forget his skill; "must be, with good intent, no more his, but hers:"

Must throw away his pen and paint, Kneel with worshipers.

Then, perchance, a sunny ray, From the heaven of fire, His lost tools may overpay, And better his desire.

Thus buying Bibles for yourselves, my friends, see that your children buy themselves the Bible in the same good coin.

(a.) _Read with them the tales of its noble men._

Do not hesitate to read with them these stories of the ancients, because there may be the commingling of legend with history, of myth with fact. You do not hesitate to read them the story of William Tell, although there are woven into it the elements of a very old and wide-spread sun-myth. These mythic elements have been woven around some real historic hero, and the spirit of his heroism breathes through every fold of the drapery. How charmingly Kingsley tells the tales of the Grecian heroes! Through his crystalline language we seem to inhale the crisp, clear air of the morning of Greece, in which the simple souls of child-men thus shaped their dreams of duty around their older dreams of nature. Conscience fashioned these primitive fancies upon its form, and pulses through them its quickening life; the touch of which makes our children buoyant with aspiration, so that they mount on high, like Perseus of the winged feet.

Thus read the matchless stories of the Hebrews, mindless of legend or of myth. The Spirit of Holiness breathing through these tales will inspire the souls of the children, without restraint from the questions that the reason may raise. Tell them no lies if they ask you questions. Read these ancient stories _as_ stories, of good and noble men; stories written down long ago, and told from father to son through longer ages before they were thus written out. Leave the children to detect the legendary elements. I find them quick enough at that work without parental help. The bright child feels the unreal in the tales that he most loves; but he loves them none the less, perhaps all the more, because of the spell upon his imagination that he would not break; while through them, upon his open soul, streams in the holy power of these sacred stories. Do you concern yourselves with impressing the moral of these God-breathed tales.

Read with your children the stories of the dear Master, and make His life grow real to them, till He shall draw them after Him, in the steps of His most holy life.

(b.) _Form in the children the habit of daily reading in the Bible._

Say to each of them, in your own way, that which Sir Matthew Hale wrote to his child:

Every morning read seriously and reverently a portion of the Holy Scriptures. It is a book full of light and wisdom, and will make you wise to eternal life.

(c.) _Cultivate in them a genuine interest in the Bible._

The aids to an intelligent interest in the Bible-books are now so plentiful, and the human charm of them is so great, that it ought to be an easy thing for a parent to awaken a real fondness for these immortal writings. The best safeguard against bad taste in literature or life is the formation of a good taste. These are books, to learn to love which is the making of a man. Our children may not grow into the genius, but they will grow into somewhat of the goodness of the illustrious and saintly John Henry Newman, if, in after years, they can write the first lines of their autobiographies in the words which open the biographical part of the _Apologia Pro Vita Sua_:

I was brought up from a child to take great delight in reading the Bible.

(d.) _Train the children to commit to memory the choicest passages of the Bible._

John Ruskin doubtless, at the time, rebelled against the strict rule of his good aunt, which kept him busy on the Sundays memorizing the Scriptures; but he is thankful now, as he has owned, for the discipline which stored his mind with their creative words. What a treasury of holy thoughts and influences does he carry within him who has written on his mind such passages as the nineteenth, twenty-third, ninety-first, one hundred and third, and one hundred and thirty-ninth Psalms; the third and eighth chapters of Proverbs; the fortieth chapter of Isaiah; the sermon on the mount, the parable of the prodigal son, and the thirteenth chapter of first Corinthians. Happy he who, like the palm tree in the desert, can strike his roots below the arid surface of the world into fresh and living waters, and thus keep life green amid the droughts of earth. The parable of the temptation of Christ should teach us how to arm our children against the wiles of the Evil One, whom they must surely meet: "And he said, It is written." In the stress and strain of conflict, when the air is dimmed with the dust of the contending forces and the vision grows confused, it is a saving sound to hear the ringing call of Duty, from the hills where One watcheth over the battlefield. When sore pressed by the foe, it may prove our victory to fall back against the strong stone wall of an external authority, that can hold our lines unbroken. It is no wonder that the tempting sailors could do nothing with the cabin-boy who was "chock full of the Bible."

(e.) _Teach your children, as you teach yourselves, to hearken through these voices of the human writers to the voice of God._

Bother then with no theories of inspiration. Never deny nor conceal the true human voices of these men who spake of old, but never fail to affirm the true Divine breath in these men who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. And, since this is the power of the Bible, emphasize the Divine speaking; make every God-breathed word sound to the children's souls as the very voice of God; until, in simple faith and reverent docility, they shall each answer--Speak, Lord: Thy servant heareth!

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, And a light unto my path.

Such is the holy office of the Bible: such be its blessed service to our souls, and to the souls of our dear children! May we walk in its light through life; that in the valley of the shadow of death that light may still fall upon us.

It is not many months since I was called to the house where, in a ripe and honored age, lay a warden of this church, stricken suddenly by death. On the table in his room, as he had left it open after reading in it that morning, I saw a Bible.

I can ask for my funeral no better symbol of the aim and effort of my poor erring life, if so be it shame me not too much, than that which told the story of an humble servant of the Lord. Upon his coffin, with the book-mark between the pages where he last had read, was--his Bible!

* * * * *

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of Thy Holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which Thou has given us in our Saviour, Jesus Christ. _Amen._

The End.

Footnotes

[1] The Second Sunday in Advent.

[2] 1 Cor. vii. 10.

[3] 1 Cor. vii. 12.

[4] 1 Cor. vii. 40.

[5] 1 Cor. vii. 25.

[6] Hebrews i. 1.

[7] 2 Peter i. 21.

[8] 1 Peter i. 10, 11.

[9] 2 Timothy iii. 16.

[10] Sacred Books of the East, vol. i. p. xiii.

[11] 2 Maccabees, ii. 13.

[12] "The Jews and the priests have found it good that Simon shall be their leader and high priest forever until there shall arise a trustworthy prophet."--1 Macc. xiv. 41.

[13] Introduction to the New Testament. Samuel Davidson, I.:279.

[14] Introduction to the New Testament. Samuel Davidson, I.:384.

[15] The contrast between the fifteenth and sixteenth century Confessions of Faith reveals this process, and explains the prevalent Protestant theory.

[16] About 600 A.D.

[17] 2 Maccabees ii. 13.

[18] The Dial: October, 1840.

[19] Ewald: History of Israel, i. 4.

[20] Esther is the most notable apparent exception, but this it only apparent.