“While thou wert teaching my lips to move
    And my heart to rise in prayer,
  I learned the way to a home above;
    And thou shalt meet me there!”

Its invaluable treasures, its manifoldness, its beautiful simplicity, its striking narrative, its startling history, its touches of home-life, its expansive views of human nature, of this life and of that which is to come, its poetry, eloquence, and soul-stirring sympathies and aspirations, make it the book for home-training.  These features of its character will develop in beautiful harmony the whole nature of your child.  Do you wish to inspire them with song?  What songs are like those of Zion?  Do you wish them to come under the influence of eloquent oration?  What orations so eloquent as those of the prophets, of Christ, and of his apostles?  Do you desire to refine and elevate their souls with beauty and sublimity?  Here in these sacred pages is a beauty ever fresh, and a sublimity which towers in dazzling radiance far beyond the reach of human genius.  This is evident from the fact that tributes of admiration have been paid to the bible by the most eminent poets, jurists, statesmen, and philosophers, such as Milton, Hale, Boyle, Newton and Locke.  Erasmus and John Locke betook themselves solely to the bible, after they had wandered through the gloomy maze of human erudition.  Neither Grecian song nor Roman eloquence; neither the waters of Castalia, nor the fine-spun theorisms of scholastic philosophy, could satisfy their yearnings.  But when they wandered amid the consecrated bowers of Zion, and drank from Siloah’s brook, the thirst of their genius was quenched, and they took their seats with Mary at the feet of Jesus, and like little children, learned of him!

Even deists and infidels have yielded their tribute of praise.  What says the infidel Rosseau?  Hear him:  “The majesty of the scriptures strikes me with astonishment.  Look at the volumes of the philosophers, with all their pomp, how contemptible do they appear in comparison with this!  Is it possible that a book at once so simple and sublime, can be the work, of men?” Thus

  “Learning and zeal, from age to age,
  Have worshiped, loved, explored the page.”

How often is this precious book abused!  In many would-be Christian homes, it is used more for an ornament of fashion than for a lamp to the Christian’s path.  We find the bible upon their parlor table, but how seldom in the family room!  They make it a part of their fashionable furniture, to be looked at as a pretty, gilded thing.  Its golden clasps and beautiful binding make it an attractive appendage to the parlor.  Hence they buy the bible, but not the truth it contains.  They place it upon the table as such; and indeed many do not even give it that prominence, but, yielding to the taste of fashion, place it under the parlor table, and there it rests, unmolested, untouched and unread even for years.  In many professedly religious families