3. God hides Himself from those who would saunter with easy off-handedness through the pages of the Bible, as though they were taking a stroll up and down a back garden, and languidly noting the Immensities as if they were daisies or dandelions growing on either side of the path ; as though, forsooth, nothing was so easy of comprehension at a glance as the Self- unveiling of the Eternal Mind ! No, we find in the Bible what we J Beek in it: we find that which we can find as well in other literatures if that is all for which we search; ^but we find depths and heights, glories and abysses, which language can but suggest, and thought can but dimly perceive, if we are indeed, and with earnest prayer, seeking Him whose Word the Bible is. Only to those who sincerely desire and labour to have it so, is the Bible a lamp unto the feet, and light unto the path. The Bible was given us by God to shed light on the purity and vileness of our souls, to brace our wills in the hour of temptation, to elevate our thoughts amid the strife for bread, to lift our drowsy eyes to the sunlit summits of faith and prayer, and to send a thrill of Divine aspiration through lives that are ever becoming stupefied amid the murky damps of life's low levels. If we seek for a spirit of uncompromising and ringing righteousness that shall keep us from making a truce with wrong, we find it in the pages of Jeremiah. If we look for a valuation of life that puts first things first, we follow St. Paul over mountains and seas, and hear him say, " Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy." If we look for a pattern of a life truly Divine, and wish to see what God would do if He were a man, we walk with Christ around the Sea of Galilee. Indeed, it is in the light of His character that we interpret the whole Book.
^ D. Davies, Talks vnth Men, Women and Children, i. 114.
PSALM cxix. 105 n
^ When a man holds out his lantern, and asks you if there is a light in it, you may be able to convince him that there is ; but the very circumstance of his asking such a question makes you fear that he is blind; and at all events five minutes of clear vision would be worth a world of your arguments. When a man asks. Do you think the Bible is inspired ? Is it really the light of God which is shining there ? you may prove it by unanswerable argument, and yet you cannot help regretting that he should need to appeal to others ; nor can you help remembering how it stands written, " The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." To any one who finds himself in this predicament, the best advice we can give is, Eead and pray. Pray, " Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." And as you pray this prayer, read the Book, and ponder its sayings ; and better feelings will spring up in your mind — holy thoughts and loving, grateful thoughts towards Christ, kind thoughts towards your fellows, devout and contrite thoughts towards God. " The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes " ; and it opens the eyes by rejoicing the heart.^
III.
The Uniqueness of the Bible.
1. Do we value, as we ought, the priceless heritage that we have received in the Word of God ? As a rule we value things just in proportion to their rarity. Many people will give fabulous sums of money for a book, a picture, a piece of china, an old article of furniture, and even a postage stamp, if it happens to be rare. But what is common, and can be purchased anywhere for a few pence, is, generally speaking, but Uttle valued. This, it is to be feared, is too often the case with regard to the value that we put on the Bible. When copies of the Holy Scriptures were few in number and very costly, when the Bible was chained to the desk in our churches for fear that it might be stolen, people were much more eager to " read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest " the teaching of God's Word than they are to-day.
^ I have been seriously perplexed to know how the religious feeling which is the essential base of conduct can be kept up with-
' J. Hamilton, Works, ii. 17.
12 THE LIGHT OF GOD'S WORD
out the Bible. By the study of what other book could children be so humanized and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills like themselves but a momentary inter- space between the two eternities, and earns the blessings or curses of all time according to its effort to do good and hate evil, even as they also earn it by their works ? ^
2. Other books are for special times or separate races; the ^ Bible has been for every clime. Other books are for the poor oi for the rich, the great or the obscure ; this Book, ignoring the inch-high distinction of rank and wealth, regards men solely in their relationship to God as heirs of the common mysteries of life and death, of corruption and immortality. Other books are for the mature or the youthful ; this Book alone neither wearies the aged nor repels the child. Other books are for the learned or the ignorant ; this Book, in the sweetest and simplest elements of its \j revelation, is not more dear to the German philosopher than to the negro's child. In it mind becomes spontaneously luminous, heart flashes to heart with electric thrill. The North American Indian reads it in his rude wigwam on the icy coasts of Hudson's Bay ; the Kaffir in his kraal, the savage of the Pacific in his coral isle, the poor old woman in the squalid slum, no less than the emperor in his royal chamber and the scholar in his college-room. And, as St. Augustine said, we shall find here what we shall not find in Plato or in Aristotle, in Seneca or Marcus Aurelius : " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." This Book it was that fired the eloquence of Chrysostom j and St. Augustine, that inspired the immortal song of Dante and of Milton ; Shakespeare and Wordsworth and Tennyson are full of it ; it kindled the genius of Luther, the burning zeal of Whitefield, the bright imagination of Bunyan. With the hermits it made the wilderness blossom as the rose, with the martyrs it was as the whistling wind amidst the torturing flames ; it sent the missionaries to plant the Kose of Sharon alike in the burning wastes of Africa and amid the icy hills of Nova Zembla ; it inspired the pictures of Angelico and Eaphael, the music of Handel and of Mendelssohn.