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 G.o.d."
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 G.o.d" 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 G.o.d in man. Our fathers found this true, and their children cannot correct their judgment. The subst.i.tute 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 n.o.ble 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 G.o.d, 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 appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions 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 a.s.scend 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 n.o.ble 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 n.o.ble 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 G.o.d-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 ill.u.s.trious 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_: