book." Such are to be found, and, if in error-for a man may be in error even with the Bible in his hand-they are most difficult cases to deal with. Luther himself, when only partially delivered from the superstitions of Popery, gave Zuinglius and the other reformers immense trouble in the council, with his finger on " This is my body,” “This is my blood," insisting absolutely upon the literal meaning! The reflection that other minds of superior advantages than your own, and possessing a more extensive acquaintance with the Scriptures, may lessen the force of your impression.

Certain it is, those books should be avoided that would unfit your mind for reading the Bible with pleasure, or render the precious volume insipid or distasteful to you, as in the case of that person whose experience in such matters is before me. He says that on entering the parlor of a friend he approached a table upon which lay several books. To while away the time he took up a volume, one of Sir Walter Scott's novels, and began turning over its leaves carelessly. Fixing upon a page, his mind became interested and feelings excited, which increased every moment, alternately swayed with merriment or anxiety and fear. The sayings and doings of the characters depicted there so possessed him, that he laughed with those who laughed, and wept with those who wept. Finally, as the plot began to thicken, his emotions deepened, until the beating of his heart shook the book in his hand. In an agony of suspense, to use his own words, his mind, with the avidity of a famished tiger, seized upon each successive thought, his eye travelling page after page over, and as the writer gave the finishing stroke to his story, his feelings and tears, which had been pent up during the reading, broke loose. Resigning him

self to his emotions, and indulging in some gilded creations of his own imagination, suggested by the tale he had read, when leaning with his arm on the table, his eye followed his hand, which without any design rested upon a hitherto unnoticed Bible. "Suddenly," says he, "I started as if an adder had stung me, or as if a dagger had pierced my heart!—an adder had indeed stung me, but that adder was the thought, How indifferently do I usually read this book! Here I have been reading with interest intense, and weeping over scenes and events which I know to be false and unimportant, while often with a cold heart and a tearless eye I read in this book the account of facts that involve, not only my own, but the eternal destiny of the whole world-facts of so much moment, that the angels themselves once hushed their shouts to examine, and gazed upon with voiceless amazement; facts of so dreadful an import, that the dark brow of demons gathered, and still gather a darker shade of malignity as they look upon them from the dark dungeons of their eternal prison-house! I felt guilty-guilty, not so much from the circumstance of reading the tale and being carried away by its exciting scenes, as by the conviction of the cold indifference with which I had read that precious volume."

CHAPTER LV.

TO THE SAME THE BIBLE.

Y all means! "Search the Scriptures." It is the command of Jesus, and the reward is sure. That learned

man found it so, who declared there were really but two new books in the world, the Bible and Euclid. By habituating yourself to its study, and making it the grand test of all books you may think proper to peruse, you will preserve yourself from much evil and imposition. Besides, whatever of praiseworthy sentiment you may happen to find in other books, it will strengthen your faith to trace it to your Bible. It was thus the great and good Mr. Jay learned to discern that the Bible is the fountain, other books only the streams-and streams are seldom entirely free from something of the quality of those soils through which they flow.

2. The Bible has had a wonderful history. If the study of history shall form a part of our employments in heaven, as some think, the history of the Bible will be included, and will be interesting beyond imagination! Perhaps that incident on the coast of Scotland may open for us hereafter a fine theme of heavenly contemplation. It was a night of storm, and terrible, and the morning presented the elements in terrific commotion along the perilous coast, appalling the stoutest heart.

Those who had read Virgil's description, might well repeat it behind the shelter of a rock:

"The Father of the gods his glory shrouds
Involved in tempest and a night of clouds;
And from the middle darkness flashing out
By fits he deals the fiery bolts about;
Earth feels the motion of her angry God,
Her entrails tremble, and her mountains nod,
And flying beasts in forests seek abode;

Deep horror seizes every human breast,
Their pride is humbled, and their fears confess'd;
While he from high his rolling thunder throws,
And fires the mountains with repeated blows;
The rocks are from their old foundations rent,
The winds redouble and the rains augment;
The waves on heaps are dash'd against the shore,
And now the woods, and now the billows roar."

Providence seemed to unloose its grasp of the mighty winds, to perform their evil will with fury—when a great ship, in melancholy outline, loomed up, swinging in the arms of raging winds and waves-disabled, unmanagable, and hurled headlong toward the breakers. Had you been on board that ship you might have seen one-a sailor-carefully girdling his waist with that in which appeared a somewhat bulky parcel, like the returning Californian and his gold-belt. But who cared for him, or what he did, while death stared in the face all on board! The decisive moment arrived, when that ship was in the giant arms of the breakers. The groaning vessel surrendered to her fate, and went to pieces. Sailor after sailor perished-all on board, in fact, except one-and he, nearly naked, half-drowned, entangled midst ropes and drifting spars, was cast on shore, and

lay stretched on the sands. Tearful eyes were there, and willing hands, to administer reviving cordials, and not without success! A small parcel tied round his loins in a folded handkerchief, was noticed and untied. It contained a Bible, the gift of a father, on the blank leaf of which was a prayer for the welfare of his sailor-boy; and that Bible bore marks of having been well read, and often, and with tears.

The Bible, spread before many an ancient preacher, has witnessed the effects of the Gospel preached to listening thousands, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven! It has been in scenes of famine, pestilence, earthquake, fire and sword—on the field of blood, midst "the crash and agony of mortal fray," midst hail of iron and rain of blood; midst a storm of bullets hurled against the heavenly face of man, itself pierced, as well as dying thousands; as in the case of that young soldier, upon whose person was a Bible: the ball penetrated as far as Eccles. xi. 9, and there stopped. He had been a profligate up till then; but seeing this, he repented, and found mercy, and afterward declared with deep emotion that the Bible had been the salvation of his body as well as his soul! It was the rule of the army that each soldier should carry a Bible into the field. Another soldier, in another engagement, received a bayonet thrust, or rather the Bible received it, which perforated fifty-two of its leaves, and thereby saved his life. He wore the Bible, it seems, over his heart, between his coat and waistcoat.

Oh! what a history is attached to the Bible as the companion of man through his earthly pilgrimage! It has been in prisons oft, and perished in the flames with martyrs; has been consulted by the tried and the tempted, the happy and the